Originally Posted by
Patrick Chase
In case it wasn't obvious, my post about 9 smoothers was mostly ironic [*], and Warren is certainly correct about the negative effects of not spending enough learning a small set of core tools.
[*] I'm ashamed to admit that I do in fact have 9 smoothers
There is no shame attributable to my 9 smoothers. A few of them could be put up for sale or given away if the occasion arises.
If you have too many planes you can't remember the whether a certain plane needs more camber or less, what the history is since the last sharpening, and you lose the familiarity that makes for good technique. Intimacy with the tool is also important for developing sharpening skill because you need to be able to discern small subtleties in order to improve sharpening technique.
At my age it warms my heart to feel my memory is doing so well. Actually my accumulation is of various types by date. It makes it easier to recall their individual quirks. Though two of my #3s and #4s are of the same type they have differences in the totes and knobs that make them easy to tell apart. Each one of my planes also has a memory of how they were found in the wild or off ebay. Ebay memories are not as fond as ones about finding them in the basement of an antique mall or under a bench at an estate sale. One of those was my type 6, #4-1/2 for $30 at Phog Bounders in Astoria, OR. Another was a type 11, #5 for $10 in the hills north of Berkeley, CA.
imo; there is little justification for a metal bodied hand plane that exceeds the weight of a Stanley # 4 1/2 & # 5. (4 3/4 lbs)
Stewie, in my travels some of the longer wooden planes seemed to weigh more than this. Would that be an indication of something one would want to avoid in a wooden jointer?
Maybe if my journey into woodworking started out with wooden bodied planes my plane accumulation would be totally different. However once my path went down the Bailey slope my slide hasn't wavered. Though my accumulation of wooden molding planes is growing. There really aren't many true metal molding planes. Combination planes are planes that can cut molding, but to me they are not really the same as a dedicated molding plane.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)