I decided to take a discount plunge into wooden jointers, so I ordered an ECE. I ordered the adjuster-less version with the Lignum base from Dieter Schmid.
Some impressions:
- The plane itself is nicely built and finished, with very flat sole and bed surfaces. The beech and lignum blanks used appear to be of high quality, with reasonably straight and clear grain.
- The tote is a little "blocky" but still reasonably comfortable. It will probably be reshaped in the near future.
- The blade black was not flat, with a significant depression less than 1/4" behind the edge. It took a bit of work with steel plates and diamond paste to get the parts immediately behind the edge into satisfactory shape.
- The cap iron surface, including leading edge were very rough and burred, with a fair amount of ground-in "camber" and a non-flat underside of the leading edge. I re-ground both the bevel and the underside before honing a small ~50 deg face. The ECE cap iron has a lot of preload/engagement, so if needed you could probably do a fair amount of work on it and retain satisfactory mating. I only removed a couple mils from the underside, which doesn't impact engagement at all.
- The blade takes a good edge and holds it reasonably well. It seems to be about on par with high-quality A2 in both regards.
- As far as I can tell (from looking under a magnifier and comparing to photos) the sole is Bulnesia, a.k.a. Argentine Lignum Vitae.
I don't think I'll be getting rid of my metal jointers any time soon, but I can see what some of the excitement is about. The feel of wood on wood is very different than a metal plane. I personally don't notice the weight difference that much, but that's probably just subjective preference.
EDIT: Corrected inaccurate comment about pricing, clarified sole wood type.