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I am still achoice from home and my tools until next week. Therefore, aside from lots of reading, I have been thinking about the New Year ahead and how it relates to my personal wood working aspirations...
So ... My wood working New Years Resolutions, Aspirations, Hopes & Goals for 2012.
- Take my quality of working to the next level.
- Attend at least one (1 week) wood working course.
- Improve my finishing skills (including patience).
- Work with more hard woods.
- Have the confidence to try more complicated & challenging joinery.
- Work on longer term larger projects.
- Sell some of the things I make.
Id be really interested in other peoples goals for the year ahead especially those beginners like myself.
Happy New Year Everyone!..
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During a visit to a friend of mine, Michele, owner of a Record 778 plane, we enjoyed to compare it with my Stanley 78 in order to verify technical differences and performances.Both planes are suitable for cutting rebates up to about 3 cm wide.
Looking to two planes, leaps to the eye the difference between parallel guides. That of Stanley (left ) is supported by only one circular bar , unlike the Record that provides two circular bars support. In both planes there is a stop on the right side for rebate depth adjusting.
Another difference regards the depth adjustment system: The Record 778 has a comfortable wheel for finest regulation,
while in Stanley 78 the task is
provided by a coarser lever, easy to move downward accidentally during the pushing action , compromising the blade adjustment. The blade sits on the bed with a double contact, on the top and on a machined
area just above the mouth. We measured the extension of this area, important for the good stability of the cutting edge. For Stanley 78 this portion was about twice than the the Record one . If we look at the two parallel guides more closely, we see that the Record guide has three holes useful for adding an auxiliary wood fence, important to increase the plane stability while planing . Unfortunately, both guides were out of square (more for Stanley 78) but for Record 778 the gap can be easily correct,
adapting the auxiliary hard wood fence.
Both planes also have a spur just before of the mouth, for cutting cross grain rebates (but we have not tried to). We then sharpened blades with 25 ° bevel and 30 ° microbevel and tried the planes on a well flat and square pine board (Michele in the pic). We not found very different performances (we even tried to exchange blades to highlight any differences in steel quality ) . The Record 778 seemed to us better prepared in technical solutions , especially for the two supporting bars, the possibility to add a larger hard wood fence and the more accurate and easy to operate cutting depth adjusting system. However its cost in online auctions significantly exceeds that of a Stanley 78.
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The shooting board task is to allow planing a piece square to the surface that rests on the table. There are various models, with different building solutions. The board I am proposing is useful for planing and square end grain sides or to finish a 45° angle, such as is necessary for frame assembling. As the shooting board fundamental characteristic is plan and angle accuracy, using pre-worked material can be convenient.
I used lamellar beech, but plywood is a good alternative. For the base I used a 3 cm thick board, while the plan upon which the
workpiece is held is 2 cm thick. The length is about 60 cm, width about 25 cm. The support board is narrower to make room for the plane side.
After screwing the upper board to the base, I installed two holders (3 x 4 cm section) that will serve for workpiece supporting. Their precise positioning is critical for proper shooting board working. The pieces are screwed flush with the upper board edges and have an elongated hole at the rear to allow a fine angle adjustment. Place the two holders to exactly 90 and 45 degrees respect to the sliding edge. Chamfer the holder rear edges (not that one where the piece rests) in order to prevent their damage when the plane will produce the first shots.
Another holder is placed under the board so that it can be hooked to the workbench and/or locked in the vice. In my case I have used two holders, so I can firmly held the board between the vice and the bench well. A useful operation will be to cut a groove at the plan intersection in order to collect chips and dust and avoiding problems with plane sliding. The first shots will remove some shavings from the sliding side, but only until the lateral sole portion under the blade will not come in contact with the edge.
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God makes work for idle hands...
My favourite tool manufacturer is Lie Nielson basically because those few tools I have purchased so far have been amazing both in quality, initial set up and overall performance.
A stark contrast to the new Stanley Planes (a no#6 & no#4), I bought only a few months ago back in August. I wish I had realised that Stanley was no longer a quality name in tools - Oh well, lesson learnt.
So ... Looking forward to tools I may buy in the future, the shopping bill rises very quickly after only a small number of tools. I decided to compare the cost of Lie Nielsen tools in the USA to here in the UK.
Exchange rates were calculated using XE Prices were obtained from the Lie Nielsen website and the Axminster Tools (Lie Nielsen UK distributor) website.
| Product | USA Lie Nielsen | UK Axminster |
| Dowel Plate | $50.00 | £43.50 |
| 5pc Chisel Set (O1 steel) | $340.00 | £239.00 |
| 2 x Mortise Chisels (1/4, 1/2) | $130.00 | £113.00 |
| Lie Nielsen no#5 Plane | $325.00 | £282.95 |
| High Angle Frog for no#5 | $75.00 | £65.00 |
| Spare Plane Blade for no#5 | $40.00 | £34.80 |
| Lie Nielsen no#7 Plane | $425.00 | £369.95 |
| Totals | $1385.00 (£887.93) | £1148.20 ($1790.73) |
| 1 GBP = 1.55960 USD | | 1 USD = 0.641189 GBP @ 02.12.2011
|
Holy Cow! ... In the UK we pay
£260.27 or
$405.97 more than our American friends. Thats a huge difference for a small handful of tools!
Basically in the US, the no#7 (almost) becomes a 2for1 deal!
Anyone coming to the UK from the US anytime soon?....
Up until now I have been struggling with work holding on my little bench and its poor excuse for a face vice, especially if I need to hold a wide board for dovetailing for example.
My usual solution is to stand the end of the board on something below the vice and pinch one side of the board in the end of the vice and use an offcut to minimise the vice racking and hope it holds... Far from ideal!
Therefore, with my last dry (it hasnt stopped raining over here in the UK) scaffold board, I decided to make a poor mans version of the Moxon Vice (Utube).
Life started out by rough cutting the board to length. Raised beds function really well as saw horses. While sawing the board the cross cut saw started to bind indicating that there seemed to be a lot of internal stresses inside the wood. I had to finish the cut from the opposite side, at least its only a rough cut.
The next step was to rip the board into two pieces using my 5 ppi rip saw.
Again the saw started to bind and the wood actually split apart about ten inches before I completed the cut. Thankfully, the split was pretty accurate and not far from my marked line. After a quick assessment with the winding sticks it was time to get the boards flat and smooth.
For each board, I used my no#6 Foreplane to remove the rough saw mill marks and get a face basically flat and wind free before finishing it with my new Lie Nielsen no#7 Jointer plane. After the face I made one of the edges straight and square to the reference face.
Lastly, using a marking gauge, I marked all around the edge of the board before flattening the other face side to thickness and making it parallel with the first side. One thing I have learnt is alchoices plane this second side across the grain towards the unfinished edge. If any spelching occurs, it will get cleaned up when completing the final edge. Finally, I made the last remaining edge square and parallel to the first edge. With both boards basically four square, all that remained was to cut and square the ends on the bench hook.
After flattening, I ended up with one board being 1 1/4" thick and the other 1 3/8" thick. I glued a piece of 2"x2" timber as a cleat to the thinner of the two boards, this would be the back vice chop. I thought that the added cleat would make up for the slight lack of thickness.
The last remaining step to get a functional vice was to bore the holes in each end to accept the F-clamps.
With the vice essentially finished, all that was required was to soften the corners with a block plane and give the whole thing a light coat of Linseed oil to provide a bit of protection. I used a pair of holdfasts to attach the vice to my bench.
The distance between the clamps (width of board the vice is capable of holding) is just under 24" and I didnt think to make sure it was over 24" when cutting the ends square as the thing looked more than adequate for my needs. With hindsight, 24" is a good minimum capacity, as a lot of furniture uses 24" wide boards.
One last note, the vice might be handy for work achoice from the bench as it fits really nicely on my Saw Bench. If the sun ever shows up, maybe some dovetailing in the garden?...
A while ago I mentioned I was thinking about purchasing a Lie Nielsen no#5 Jack plane and also wanted a no#7. However, four months later I am still using my exceptionally crappy modern Stanley no#4 smoother and no#6 as a jointer / fore plane. With that in mind I have come to the conclusion that the preferred planes in my tool set would be a no#3 for smoothing, no#5 jack plane which could double as a large smoother if required and finally a no#7 for jointing and final flattening of stock.
I would probably only keep my crappy Stanleys for rough DIY type work or green wood etc.
In the perfect world I would love for all three planes to be made by Lie Nielsen, but at the following Axminster UK prices: no#3 £282, no#5 £282 and no#7 £369 - I simply cannot justify spending £933 - especially as a beginner! Can I?...
Having done a lot more research on plane manufacturers, I have discovered a UK company called Workshop Heaven who are selling planes made by Quangsheng at a fraction of the price of the Lie Nielsen ones. These planes are basically Lie Nielsen clones, based on the Stanley Bedrock design, complete with thick blades and improved chip breakers a la Lie Nielsen. The only constructional differences appear to be:
- The Quangsheng blades are T10 Carbon steel instead of A2 as used by Lie Nielsen. Some reviews have stated the Quangsheng blades are incredibly sharp and possibly sharper than A2 steel and hold a good edge.
- The Lie Nielsen planes use bronze lever caps with the Quangsheng ones being brushed steel.
- Lie Nielsen offer high angle frogs - whereas the only Quangsheng option would be putting a back bevel on the blade. I guess its possible that the Lie Nielsen frogs might fit the Quangsheng planes?
Spot the difference...
According to the reviews I have found on the Internet and online wood working forum discussions, the Quangsheng planes are very good (albeit made in China) both in terms of construction, finish and performance, with some people stating there is very little difference between their Quangsheng planes and their Lie Nielsen planes. The biggest difference as far as I can tell is slightly tighter machine tolerances on the Lie Nielsen planes, translating in to slightly finer blade control.
The three planes listed above from Quangsheng would only cost £389 total, no#3 £90, no#5 £110 and the no#7 £190 - Wow! That leaves a lot of change to buy some nice chisels....
I wrote to Workshop Heaven enquiring about the Quangsheng planes and they said:
Officially the soles of all sizes are flat to 3 thou, although in practice they are typically better than half that.
We offer a lifetime guarantee on all of the tools we sell (your life not the tools). Im interested in regular happy customers, not a 100% record of never losing money on a deal.
All in all they sound like a good buy...BUT ... would I regret buying them down the line?So ... what to do?
Any readers own a Quangsheng plane or have any experience with them? Anyone know anything about them or can offer any advice - it would be greatly appreciated!
On a slightly different note - all progress on the Stools has been delayed due to me making the school boy error of running out of glue - doh! I did intend to order some more glue online, but thought I might include a plane order...
Looking forward to your thoughts on the above...
