As my first project I'm building a simple box. It requires a block plane and its a good excuse to buy my first plane. After reading this and other forums and on-line reviews, it seems clear that its worth the money to buy a Lie Nielsen plane instead of getting something less expensive and paying to replace it later. I have two questions about which L-N plane to buy and was hoping for some guidance.
1. There is an L-N block plane that costs $95 (the 102 or 103), and there is an adjustable mouth one that costs $165 (the 9-1/2 or 60-1/2). Should I spend the $70 to get the adjustable mouth or will the less expensive one suffice? Of course we'd all like to get the best, most versatile tool possible every time. But $70 is real money to me. The trade off of getting the more expensive plane would be that my next tool purchase or the purchase of materials for my next project will have to wait for a while. The list of tools I'd like to get is long, and if the $70 could be better spent elsewhere (like going towards nice chisels), I'd prefer to do that. On the other hand, if I'm just going to be wishing I'd ponied up the $70 everytime I use the less expensive plane than its probably worth spending the extra money.
2. My second question is more simple. Low angle v. standard angle. If you were buying your first block plane, and likely only block plane for at least a few years, which would you get?
Thanks in advance for your responses.