Official Luthiers Forum!

I have been wanting a wood plane. All I had to work with was crap quality chinese style wood plane that's hard to use... so I went on Taobao and found a cast iron #5 plane for only 20 dollars.

Well you do get what you pay for but to be fair it's on par with stanley planes you'd find at Home Despot.

The y lever had to be replaced. It was made out of stamped metal that would give way if it is adjusted. I made one out of a piece of chrome moly steel (good thing I have a milling machine).

The frog and the inner surface of the body (where the frog mates with the body) needs to be milled. I have not done that right now because it doesn't seem to affect its use so far. I may go back and do that.

The plane iron is... NOT HARD AT ALL!!! I tested it with a file and it bites and files fairly easily. Either not hardened at all or not well tempered. I took a rosebud torch and heated it until red hot and dunked it in water, then heat until straw yellow. Seems to have made it hard.

The plane came with two irons. One was bent to hell and I don't think there's salvaging them without pounding the hell out of it while red hot, but the other held its shape fairly well after the heat treating...

Or maybe I should just buy a A2 lie nielson iron and save myself the trouble?

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Guess you must have lost your no 5 and 6 planes from Dictum then http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=33785&p=445204&hilit=plane#p445204

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I gave away the #6 when I moved to the states. I didn't use it much and everything a #6 could do could be done with a #5. The #6 was too heavy.

And the #5 was gone, along with probably over 10,000 dollars worth of stuff, when I came back from the states.

Those were good planes too.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Hi Tai,
If you want a good plane at a fair price you might check out Patrick Leach at Superior tool works. He deals in old planes and seems to have a good reputation:
http://www.supertool.com/index.htm

Why not just buy another #5 if you know it was a good plane?

Over the years I've bought several old tools from Patrick, I recommend him. His descriptions are accurate and he's an honest guy to deal with.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

For most work, a quality old plane that's been tuned up and fitted with a modern blade should serve you quite well. I've tried to get the metal in some original Stanley's to cut, but they are more frustrating then the hassle is worth in my book. Plus they just don't have the mass necessary to get the type of cut you will probably be wanting. Lie-Nielsen should be able to match a blade and chip-breaker to an original Stanley.

I've never had a problem with original Stanley blades but I never thought to replace them. Maybe I don't know what I'm missing. One of these days I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and see what all the bruhaha is about.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

A plane is nothing but a fixture to hold a blade at a certain angle, so any plane that will firmly hold a blade of reasonable steel can be made to do what you want.

A #5 size plane is a good general woodworking size and they are available everywhere (although I might pick a #4 if you just have one). Sargent, Millers Falls, and Stanley are all about equal in quality, and the original blades on any of them will do anything you ask of them. There are also many less common brands that are equal also, but take some knowledge to compare.

I won't buy planes from the US. Shipping alone for them costs more than even a Lie Neilson. Cast iron planes aren't really sold in Asia, they all use those wooden chinese style planes and I don't like using them.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

FWIW . There are a number of sellers under carpentry tools of wood planes on e bay . I have 9 chinese style wooden planes, and I really like them They are a fusion of western an asian design , that can be either pulled or pushed. They are easy to set up. Mine have either rosewood or indonesian redwood bodies .The front is relieved 1 or 2 thou . To set them up. I refer you to scott wynn/sbook he has detailed instructions. There is also an older traditional chinese craftsman on youtube, from tianjin. Who shows how to make all these tools, planes, bow saws etc . But am sure its in Mandarin, and guessing you speak cantonese Tai. The youtube channel is zefeng zhang. I have also purchased tools from woodwell , in china but they are more $$$ Good luck

I kind of draw the line at spending more than power tools for hand tools. I know lie neilson planes are good planes but at 350 a pop (plus shipping), I could buy a used jointer for the price, or use the price to build a thickness sander.

By the way is the body of a plane supposed to be flat? Or is it supposed to follow a certain geometry? If a chinese plane has bad geometry I can correct it with the milling machine.

I know from the get go that if you buy a cheap plane it needs work before it becomes good.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

You already asked about a plane being flat in the thread that Colin North linked which was 9 years ago. I'd suggest re-reading that thread since it answers your question. In fact you answer the question you are asking right now.

Also think about what you wrote. If you know a cheap plane needs work before it becomes good isn't that a good justification for a good plane that needs no work? Why waste your life with cheap crap other than to just buy it and complain about it?

Sorry, I forgot about that. 9 years is a long time.

Right now I am trying to run a luthier's workshop on a college student's budget, that's about 800 USD per month. Rent eat up a very large chuck of that and I'm not getting a lot of sales because of the pandemic (and who knows what else). So right now my time is not worth more than a 500 dollar plane that is good right out of the box.

I have machining capability, and lots of time, so doing work to make a poor plane good is worth it. Plus 500 dollars buys me a used jointer that is useful for many more things than just a hand plane. I haven't had a chance to check the plane body right now but if it needs work, I can flatten it quickly on the mill.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

It's really about expectations and feel. I got a stanley from Home Depot as my first plane nearly 20 years ago and got it to work but it didn't work well enough for me to want to use it. In fact, I found myself doing anything to avoid using it, and couldn't understand why people liked hand tools. Eventually I caved into a Nielsen, and learned how to sharpen better (more consistently really). That was the moment when I went from trying not to use hand tools to favoring them over power tools. Now-a-days I spent a lot of money on power tools so they are as efficient as possible, allowing me to use them as little as possible. And, I love picking up any hand tool in my cabinet. I'm moderately embarrassed to say how many Nielsen planes I currently own. If it says anything, I actually have a #2 sitting in my home office as a functional decoration...

Yea, except I got machine shop tools, and with that in mind, geometry becomes trivial, sometimes. But the geometry on a hand plane is simple compared to helical end mills, curves, etc.

I sharpen my plane blade on a bench grinder, then hone with a strop and green compound. Gets everything sharp in a flash, like sharp enough to shave with. If the blade bevel is really wrong I can just use a mill or surface grinder and grind it to the exact geometry. Same with chisels. But it's not like it's hard to grind the right geometry on a bench grinder. With the right wheel it gets it sharp and honed, no need to spend all that time with sandpaper and waterstones.

But if the iron is soft, then no matter how sharp it gets it won't hold an edge. If a file can cut it easily then it's about 40rc, that's soft as cheese as far as knives go. Ideally it should be about 55 or higher. A file can't cut anything above 50rc. So I figured nothing to lose... just use a rosebud and burn it red hot then quench and temper. It fixed the hardness issue but the heat treatment does introduce some warpage. I also don't know if it will shatter like glass either...

I heard horror stories about CNC shop having pull studs break using pull studs from China. Seems they weren't heat treated right and if the pull stud breaks bad things happen... like a tool spinning at 10,000 RPM coming loose and breaking everything in its path. Usually no danger to operator but definitely dangerous to the machine. So a lot of people here refuse to use pull studs from China.

I mean I'm ok with buying LN irons if I have to. The irons aren't that expensive relative to the plane and doesn't cost a bunch of money to ship.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

If you can get the irons have you considered making your own wooden planes? A 3 piece plane isn't difficult at all and with a mill should be alot easier.

Wooden planes require a bit more upkeep to keep flat but they give a nice shiny result since the wood on the plane burnishes the surface you're cutting, and if you keep it good and sharp you'll get crisp pretty cuts every single time.

I don't need to make wooden planes. In Taiwan that is all they sell. I don't like them because for some reason, iron plane cuts better if all else is equal. Maybe it's because iron planes are heavier so it cuts better without chatter? I don't know.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Hi Tai,
Since you have the machining capability you might try adding a thick metal sole to one of the wooden planes and make a pseudo - infill plane. Or you can try building an infill plane from scratch. Some of them used metal soles and sides dovetailed together and heavy rosewood "stuffings" and when well made are high quality planes.
Most of the Chinese planes I have seen were made from relatively light weight wood. The wooden "western" planes tend to be made from harder and heavier woods (beech) and I think this improves their performance. If you can find a chunk of purpleheart or other dense tropical hardwood you might try making a heavy wooden plane and see how that works for you.

I like cast iron planes because they're just much easier to adjust. Only way to adjust a wooden plane is to hammer here and there, real finicky. You can't even adjust the gap between the slot and the blade. But I think my cheap chinese iron plane will need some machining. The blade sits at an angle for some reason. The cap actually needed milling for it to function because the hole in the cap was too small, making it nonremovable.

I wouldn't recommend it for anyone without machining equipment to mess with Chinese planes... unless they're the better made ones (they usually have wood handle rather than plastic). They are also pretty expensive from Taobao as well.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

You probably know this but if you don't like tapping, transitional planes have all the features you want with a wooden body.

_________________
Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

With wooden planes it just takes some practice to adjust them, a day or two spent on it, and some patience, will go a long way.
I use both, but I did my practice with wooden planes, Chinese style and western.
The thinnest wood shaving on record was just 3 microns I believe, but 2-3 thou is massive in comparison, for any plane.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

There is something of a limit to what kind and level of tools can be made in a typical woodshop.

But, if I had a mill and maybe a welder in my shop there would be no end to tools I could make.

With a mill and raw materials like brass and mild steel you should be able duplicate or even exceed any plane on the market.

Even if you bought a high performance plane iron to avoid hardening and tempering you would still be ahead and have a tool you built yourself.

Wood planes have worked for centuries - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vINeD7nQ2U

And still work today.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

They're the cheapest option available. You probably haven't used a well made wood plane. There is a learning curve like every other tool.

Might be worth the extra effort to make one since they're so cheap. Only cost to you would be the iron. You can make them out of pretty much any hardwood.

Tai, are you able to get a mirror surface with your grinding wheel and hone? If not, then you might want to go with another method. No plane will work very well unless you can get a really sharp blade and that means a mirror surface on both sides.