Originally Posted by
david charlesworth
Warren's vacuous and idle criticism is completely baseless and without detail.
I think he has worked in a very different workshop to mine, and by the way I have been at it for about 50 years.
Almost all modern workshops have router tables which make many of the wooden planes redundant.
He will see that several of the above do not share his prejudice and have enjoyed my DVDs a great deal, and found them useful.
Best wishes,
David Charlesworth
I dunno, I thought Warren's advice was typically blunt but basically spot on.
The idea of starting out with "10 favorite planes" is pretty silly…no wonder the OP seems paralyzed by information overload.
For the OP, expanding on Warren's list a little, if you just want to dimension and smooth wood, you only need three planes:
- jack
- try or jointer
- smoother
That might be all you ever need. But if you decide you want to make joints by hand, rather than power, you'll need to make rabbets and grooves, so you'll need:
- rabbet plane or fillister
- plow or dedicated grooving planes
You could spend all your life with just these, but if you eventually want to make moldings by hand, you'll need some molding planes. I'd follow Matt Bickford's excellent advice and start with just two pair (4's and 8's or 6's and 10's).
I'm up to nine planes and most people will never do more than these nine can do. Of course there are many more great planes! But start small and you won't get overwhelmed. Stay away from Youtubers who sound like used car salesman, require you to buy a trunk full of tools, or preach reliance on jigs and fixtures.
By the way Mr. Charlesworth, not everyone has a router table (I don't, though I have a lot of machinery), and having one certainly doesn't make molding planes redundant. Some people just hate routers; others prefer the far superior surface quality and versatility of hollows, rounds, and other useful molding planes.
"For me, chairs and chairmaking are a means to an end. My real goal is to spend my days in a quiet, dustless shop doing hand work on an object that is beautiful, useful and fun to make." --Peter Galbert