Hi all,

I figured I would share a good experience I had with a fellow creeker.
I live in Israel, a country rich in history and poor in decent handplanes. the first one I ever got was a British 4-1/2 from the 80's. I put in about 10 hours of work and was delighted to be taught the definition of blade chatter. I (painfully) stuck to Lie Nielsen planes after that. Of the basic planes I was missing a decent Jack. I was actually planing on saving up for a Lie Nielsen no. 5 but repeated posts on this site as well as an article by Christopher Schwarz convinced me that a L-N is overkill for jack requirements.

After looking over several sites I saw that Jacks are way overpriced - the ones I saw were rusted and cracked and still well over $100 (not including shipping, handling and tax)!

after a while I stumbled across a post by James Spangler on a restoration he did. I reached out and he agreed to search for a Stanley type 11 no.5 for me and restore it.
well, I just got it and I couldn't be happier.

throughout the process Jim has kept me updated and accommodated my nitpicky requests graciously. the way he packed it it could have been made out of glass and still arrived in pristine condition. Ill share some pics of the process he gracefully provided along the way.

I highly recommend seeking him out if anyone needs help finding a quality benchplane.

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P.S. not sure if I'm violating anything by posting this. I was not asked to do so (in fact, at the time of writing James has no idea I am writing this at all) I received absolutely no benefit from this post other than the pleasure of promoting a decent man and his craft.