Official Luthiers Forum!

A subject I am sure has been discussed before , time to upgrade some hand tools.
Looking for recomendtions on hand plane. Not wanting to spend a small fortune however I am a believer in quality. Wanting to invest in two planes , strictly for building guitars, I do this as A hobby so use will be limited and I am allergic to Chinese made hand tools

_________________
MK5acoustics.com

It partly depends on your working style, and your pocketbook. I have found great deals on planes at antique shops , yard sales and craigslist. The problem, be prepared to spend a lot of time fiddling , to get them in working order. If you have the money or want to invest in good quality planes. There are great companies making metal and wood body planes. Secondly how do you like to work? . Universal luthiers vice, euro workbench?? japanese low planing board, euro style shooting board. etc etc.MDF clamped to sawhorses ?? Body mechanics does play a role in how you tackle certain operations in woodworking . Good luck , and choose wisely

Agree with Ernie's comments. The only thing I'd add is that you should be prepared to fiddle with almost any plane, new or old, except perhaps the Lie Nielson plance (I don't own any but they look extremely well engineered.) That's not the budget you're alluding to, though.

I can tell you what I did, which has worked pretty well - bought a couple of Stanley planes - a block plane and a longer plane with a 10" bed (#?)

They needed to have the bed sanded flat and the frog adjusted properly. I also bought some good Hock blades, since the stock blades that come with the Stanley planes are pretty much garbage for anything requiring very sharp blades (they're just too soft, wont hold an edge).

There's no substitute for spending some time setting these up properly (lots of info available here and elsewhere) and learning how to properly sharpen a blade (as with chisels) is an absolute must. "Sharp enough" isn't. It took me a fair bit of practice to figure out how to use my sharpening stones to get a truly sharp blade. At that point, joining tops and backs became very much easier.

I should narrow my question. Looking more for what two sizes to get what gets used the most for jointing , also block plane , low angle ? How do the Stanley sweetheart planes stack up? These are at my local Rockler I like to frequent.

_________________
MK5acoustics.com

The new sweethearts that I have seen require at least the same amount of work to get tuned as a 40 year old junk store Stanley in good condition.

If you want affordable and ready to go out of the box, stick with Veritas or Lie Nielson. between these two, choose the one that fits your hands and woodworking habits the best. I like Veritas low angle jack and block planes, but prefer Lie Nielson when it comes to smoothers.

-jd

I frequently use the no. 33 that harbor freight sells. It actually works really well guys I promise But more importantly the size is just right for just about everything I need to do. I can hog stuff, and even hold it in my hand like a block plane without too much trouble when that feels right. Great design I'm hoping that, when I grow out of the thing, I can either get an exact replacement from Lee Valley or Lie Nielson or just get a much better blade for it. I love it that much. And then I use a no. 5 Stanley bench plane I refurbished. It works even better. I use that for the same thing pretty much, although I always use the handles. The only plane I think I need to complete the collection is a proper palm plane. The squirrel tail that LMII sells is enticing. When you want to go even smaller than that your choices are infinite. Anything from a chisel to a Japanese block plane to an ibex will get the job done.

Oh yeah, and DO NOT skimp on sharpening tools. I'd suggest buying those even before you start looking at a new plane. Get a tool that will hold the blade at the necessary angle, and get a good stone or two. Water stones or diamond stones. Take your pick. Both work great.

Well, I use these 3 planes for git buiding.
Get old Stanley planes.
E-bay, or flea markets.
I was lucky and got the #5 from a little old lady, the low angle from my dad,
and I had to pay a few bucks for the little one that works well for shaving braces.
If I had money to burn,
I would buy a nice "looking" plane.
B.S. about the steel blades on a Stanley being bad, IMO>

I bought an ECE wooden plane with a lignum vitae sole on the recommendation of a real luthier, in 1975.

I use it for jointing tops and backs.

_________________
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

+1000! Both of my planes are nowhere near the quality of the others mentioned here. I have a chinese Stanley bench plane I bought at Lowe's and an old Millers Falls I bought at a flea market. I flattened the bottom and trued the sides using sandpaper and the table and fence on my table saw, and tuned them up per instructions i found online by searching "How to tune a hand plane".
The one I use the most is the Stanley. It's 9 and 3/4" long, which is just the right size for most of what I'm doing.
But...... unless you get it sharp, it really doesn't matter how much cash you spent on it. It will be the most aggravating, time consuming, and disappointing experience of your life.
I'd love to spent some cash on either a couple of LN or LV planes. They are beautiful, and IMHO, fine works of art. However, with sharp blades, my two cheapos do the job just fine.
Get the blade sharp. If you don't, all the expensive planes in the world won't do you any good.

_________________
Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

If you have more money than time I'll add to Todd's chorus.
If I were limited to two planes I would keep my precious LN #60 1/2 Block and my LV LA Jack. The #62(ish) planes can be used with multiple blades/mouth openings and morph into jointing, fore, smoothing, toothing and are shooting champs. Those same blades also fit other Low Angle Bevel Up offerings from each company if you decide you need to add more specialized planes later. Blade changing and adjusting is much easier/quicker for me on the LV than the LN version when I demo'ed them head to head at a large Woodworking show which surprized me and is the reason I chose LV. The LV egonomics fits my hand just fine but you have to test drive to see for yourself. You really can't go wrong w/either one.

If you have more time than money look for a serviceable #60 1/2 and a #62 or a Sargent #514 (#62 clone). Get some wet/dry abrasive, a flat suface, WD40 and a can of spinach.

+++ totally agree - I'm preferential to the Hock Blades, but if you get very good at sharpening plane blades and chisels you can certainly make due with some old flea market planes that you've made very, very sharp, and tuned properly. They just won't hold an edge as long.

And just so you have absolutely NO excuse to not buy proper sharpening equipment, harbor freight also sells a block with diamond plate on each of the four sides of various grits. That'll set you back about $15 It works well enough for my purposes but I do plan on upgrading before too long.

Dollar for dollar, IMHO Record planes from England have been the best out of the box . The irons are decent quality, almost as good as some of my hand made irons. Soles are very flat, real easy to tune.
Brian

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/