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In an effort to save some money, I am considering buying some old hand planes on Ebay and restoring them. Most go for $15.00 or so. I know they will need some attention, and I am fine with that. Would this just be a waste of time or worth my while? Also is there any American brand to avoid?

The challenge, if you've not got a lot of experience with handtools, is knowing what a properly tuned plane feels like in use. Then you know what to shoot for when you're tuning a vintage piece. Helps if you have an experienced woodworker show you the ropes.

If not, it can make sense to spend the cash on a nice Lie-Nielsen as they typically work great straight out of the box, maybe just a tiny bit of honing needed if anything. That's how I did it anyway. I ended up trading away my LN #4-1/2 for a vintage bicycle a while back, but I've got a nice little stash of vintage Stanleys waiting to be tuned up, and I have a much much better idea of how they should work thanks to my time with the LN plane. Nice thing is they retain their value fairly well, and you only have to buy it once since you won't wear it out, you'll likely never want for a better one.

There are some nice deals on the common types of vintage Stanley planes since they made a ton of them. The thought of using a nice 100-yr old tool is pretty appealing.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

I never bought a new plane or a new chisel, and that's what I did a few years ago. You can't go wrong with the regular old Stanley models, providing the actual plane for sale is worth tuning up -and all of them are not-. All parts should be present, japaning relatively intact and no overwhelming amount of rust. A belt sander with a blue belt is best to flatten the soles and the back of damaged blades, and you need a grinder to form new bevels. After that it's matter of knowing the tool and what makes it work best. There's no better way to learn how to use a plane, save a lot of money and acquire valuable tools.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Good stuff, thanks. I've found quite a few that look like they should work fine. Not quite sure of the sizes though. If I was to buy 3 planes to include 1 finger plane, what size would I want the other 2 to be?

Get a block plane (#60 1/2 is my favourite), and a jack (my vintage type 11 Stanley #5 1/2 is super). Later, you can get a Hock or equvalent replacement iron to make it work even better. I'm a big fan of old tools, hand planes in particular, so I have a bunch. I've come to the conclusion that whether it is a good idea to buy a new, perfectly-tuned-out-of-the-box tool or an old fixer upper that teaches you everything you need to know about it while you adjust each part, sort of depends on your personality. Its one of those 'zen and the art of hand plane maintenance things', so who do you want to be?

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

"A belt sander with a blue belt is best to flatten the soles"
Question: What exactly is a "blue belt"?
TIA

I just went through this, too. I found a known, good Stanley to be challenging to buy on ebay for a bargain. The recommended ones for a user are Types 10-15; quality went down after that, and got really bad later. There are many sources for dating a Stanley plane --
http://www.woodcentral.com/bparticles/pdatechart.pdf
http://primeshop.com/access/woodwork/st ... tsynch.htm
http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan0a.html
but I found the history complex, and hard to ID a plane from ebay pics. If an ebay Stanley is identifiable to a Type 10-15, everyone else knows it, too, and it commands a high price (unless damaged, so uncollectable). A better source for a good Stanley may be
http://www.brasscityrecords.com/toolwor ... tools.html
he IDs them, checks for problems, and his prices are about the same as ebay.

I found Sargent and Millers Falls to be easier to buy at lower prices than Stanleys, and the quality is said to be the same for their top lines. For Millers Falls, look for the 2-piece lever cap and red frog; avoid the ones with painted or "V" lever caps. My MF #5 type 3 went for $20.
http://oldtoolheaven.com/bench/bench.htm

For Sargent, all the VBMs are good (1910-1918), and I think all the later "regular" Sargents, too (probably best to avoid newer, though). Avoid the Sargent Hercules -- lacks machining for the frog attachment and blade rest at the throat.
http://www.thckk.org/history/sargent.pdf

The above companies also made planes for other stores (Sears, Wards), and these can be bargains.
http://www.brasscityrecords.com/toolwor ... %20id.html
I have a Dunlap (made by Sargent for Sears) with fully machined surfaces. This approach is riskier, tho... hard to know the details.

On tuning up an old one, the advice I read is to do it on a top-line plane -- at least these are close. A poorly made mid-line or value-line (or newer Stanley) would take much longer, and will probably never be as good. On tuning the blade, keep in mind these are easily tempered/annealed (softened) by heat.

Good #5 Jacks are very common and so have pretty low selling prices for the size ($20 and up). #5 1/2 tend to be $$ (less common). #6 are $30 and up, but quite a bit heavier.

A blue belt is one of Zirconia Alumina -- lasts much longer.

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David Malicky

Woodnet is a great woodworking forum and a good source of info. They have a section just for handtools, and you might have better luck with their classifieds than ebay for finding a good user plane.

http://www.forums.woodnet.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

David-
Thanks for all that info!
Very useful stuff; right away I saved it in my 'tools' folder in the computer!
Browsing eBay auctions (or searching on Completed auctions) is a great way to pass some time when I should be working!
When you add in the shipping costs (which are generally a lot more reasonable within the US, I know) the bargains are not that plentiful. Also, I find that eBay has changed quite a bit over the past few years- has everybody cleaned out the attic now? If it's a decent item from a maker like Stanley it seems there is plenty of competition in the bidding.

Which is a better buy - an eBay 60½ @$25 with $20 shipping which needs a new $30 Hock blade and an hour of labor (and which may have a chipped mouth if somebody has put it on a belt sander already) or a new Veritas/LeeValley or LN plane?

If you want to use older tools, going to a reputable dealer is probably a safer bet.

Cheers
John
(Or, am I just trying to discourage everybody reading this, so that there will be fewer bidding against me in that eBay auction?? )

Maybe someone knows who, and I can't remember, but there is a guy that sells refurbished Stanley planes for a pretty good price. I can't recall his name, but it's out there, and he's very reasonable. He has parts, and replaces what's necessary, laps and sharpens, and cleans the rust off. When they come they are ready to use. Saves some time

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I bought an old coffin style wooden smoothing plane cheap fron an antique store . I tuned it up which included closing the mouth, flattenig the sole flattening and sharpening the blade and chip breaker. There seems to be alot of wooden planes out there and i guess alot were made by the craftsman themselves. Just look for a quality blade . I have a#4 lie nealson and i like the wooden one better. Maybe its the feel of the wood. Either way bringing the plane back to life was fun and you learn about how it all works

Brent

Most of my planes are vintage and restored-my STM prevents me from calling up the special word-oops, there-"fettled". Some have Ron Hock or L-N irons. I also have some L-N planes. Again, investing in an L-N would teach you how a very good and well setup plane should act. Their 102 bronze fixed mouth, low-angle block plane stays in my leather apron. The other new source for very good, truly modern design and improved planes is Veritas, the Lee Valley line. My Veritas planes are specialty types;router, small router, large scraper, skew rabbet and something else. My L-N's are the 10 1/4 bench rabbet, a No.1(I use as a block plane when arthritis is worse)the No. 9 box miter(the finest shooter ever)small scraper,curved bottom squirrel-tail, the 5 1/4 Junior Jack, and maybe a couple others. At least as of last year it has not been unusual to see L-N's sell for more than new on ebay-people just go nuts.People save the boxes.

Brass City is Walt Q. and no one has a better nose for good vintage planes and they are shipped ready to effectively use-I, being a honing nut, do touch up his irons. You can definitely find good, safer buys on "Woodnet." Walt has been a Woodnet regular.

Being able to really effectively final hone a plane iron and setting cut and mouth are the keys to a happy handplane use in the shop-a good one can consistently take .001 cuts.

Todd Stock is an authority in the topic as are some of the earlier posters. Handplanes are so satisfying.mt

I have purchased some old refurbished Stanley planes from the seller that Waddy mentioned above, it has been about 6 years though and i can't remember his name. The prices were about $50-$65 for a #4-5 plane. I Have 3 and they perform identical to a $300 LN plane that I recently sold. He puts new rosewood handles on them, usually a new hss blade that is quite hard, and grounds the base to within .0001 accuracy. I enjoy using them more than my former LN plane simply because they perform so similar at such a lower price. The Lie plane performed great as well and I think it is worth the price if you have the money......but the old Stanleys refurbished by the right hands do a great job. Maybe someone will know the name of the guy that restores them and will post it. (I know he sold on Ebay for a while)

Johnny Kleso, in Georgia, USA USED to refurbish and sell vintage planes. He quit doing that about 2 years ago. He did not "over-work" them and I have several of his examples. In my case, I bought the planes and sent them to him.

Johnny has a severe employment related back disability and the demand for his work got to be too much-he just did not want the pressure of expectation on top of his other pressures.

As of a year ago, a fellow named "Tom," from my home-state, Iowa, was precision machining soles and detailing vintage planes-he was an occasional poster on Woodnet.

Join Woodnet and post needs in the Buy, Swap and Sell. Those who respond will give you high odds of a happy outcome. The place pretty well self-monitors.

On L-N's--they are very expensive but you do get every penny's worth, and as I noted, they return investment well. Several of mine were gifts. On bench planes the design is "Bedrock" style which means that the frog to sole contact is maximum and precisely machined. It is a matter of some debate as to whether this is so critical. Those in favor believe that the iron is more stable and vibration damped to minimize chatter.It is easier to adjust the mouth with a Bedrock. Those contesting the value say that the type 11 Stanleys and some others from the "Golden Age"(Victorian-Edwardian Era) have sufficient contact. Stanley Bedrocks are much scarcer than the typical "Bailey" design. The detractors also note that if the Bedrock had been so superior, the pros who used handplanes by necessity would have driven the market for them. I have a selected few real Bedrocks and, properly fettled, they are like an L-N but with a thinner iron. If you drop an L-N onto a concrete floor you don't have to weep and say goodbye.Not so with a traditional cast iron plane, no matter its maker.

Hopefully this will be a useful tool. Here is an image of a very clean one. It listed for $149.00 on one site I was looking at.

I got mine for 20.00 + 7.00 S&H. Mine needs some tlc, but hopefully after that, it looks just like this...

We call that style a "transitional." They are charming, but I have to be brutally honest-they have all of the issues of wooden-bodied planes(which can be really fine tools if properly maintained) and few of the advantages of metallics.

When your new to you plane arrives, as you clean and adjust, do not get heavy handed tightening the screws that attach the cast iron adjustment mechanism. The cast iron frames are fairly delicate and crack easily. Also, remember that if you need to flatten the sole, go very slowly because the mouth opens up very quickly in the process-on wooden planes when I "joint" the sole, I try to limit the tool to a thick(and large) card scraper and you may have to be satisfied with "three-point" sole contact-pencil mark the sole so you really know where you are removing wood.

One of my favorite things in woodworking is final surfacing/thicknessing with my Veritas Large Scraper Plane. Though not as elegant as a real Stanley, or Lie-Nielsen, it is a better worker with the ability to "bow" the thin version of its blade when needed. Even on softwoods, I can pretty well count upon it producing a finish-ready piece of wood.

I have both the Stanley 60 1/2 and the Millers Falls 59B. I prefer my Millers Falls. It just seems to work better, be less fussy than the Stanley for me.

When I was looking for old planes to acquire, I noticed that the sellers were putting newer, lower quality blades with the old planes. I didn't care because I had planned on getting a Hock replacement blade anyway. But if you are expecting the blade to be of the same era and quality as at older plane, you might be disappointed. If that is what you are looking for, ask the question point before you buy. I had one seller show a sweetheart blade in the photos, but said that the blade that came with was not the original blade, and he wasn't lying, it wasn't the original blade. Heck it wasn't even a Stanley blade. It was a Buck Brs. piece of caacaa. My fault for assuming that what he showed in the picture was what he was shipping. Ask and be sure.

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Aoibeann

Thanks. I'll do that in the future. I spent a good chunk of today researching planes and I found a few others that I have already bought. I surely hope they have the original blades, as that is about 50% of the reason that I am buying them (the other 50% being a love of old tools). The planes I have bought have not been restored or made to look like they have been restored.

I bought a #17 block plane. He didn't list the model, I had to ID it myself. He had good pictures though and I can definitely say it's a #17. The fact that he could not find the model number further leads me to believe that it is indeed a #17. You have to take it apart to find the model number, which is rather unusual. Not to say that someone else couldn't have switched the blade out, but it seems unlikely.

The other is a #3 Jack plane from 1902. It's in decent shape considering it's 108 years old. It should look amazing after it gets some TLC. The handle is cracked, but I think I can fix that. I wouldn't mind replacing the blade on this one if someone did replace it. In any event I think I got a decent deal for $25.00.

I have a couple offers out for some Miller's Falls planes too. They look nice and it seems as though you can get a better deal on them, although I didn't do too bad with the Stanley's. I also bought a couple old spoke shaves. I really like the look of the wooden transitional, but I think that I am going to put that one in my living room. When I get back to the states, I'm going to have to hit up some yard sales. I'll bet that people have some real gems in their basements that they no idea the value of.

Now for a router.... is a 1 1/2HP enough? And is there any point to getting a plunge router outside of using it for other types of work?

I wouldn't bet on that! eBay has just about ruined the scene for bargain-hunting as far as I can see- people look up the 'value' of all their junk using eBay. And most people seem to think that any old tools are extremely valuable- like the violin in the attic thing, I guess.... But yard sales are still fun.

Different thread, really, but for guitars you should think about a laminate trimmer rather than a router if doing soundholes, rosettes, and binding are the tasks you had in mind. A 'real' router is good for doing molds, shaping headstocks and the like. You can get routers with both a plunge base and a standard base- I've got a Bosch I like, and PorterCable is another popular brand that comes with different bases. I think that the 'big' routers (2-3HP??) are too unwieldy for me.
Cheers
John

For the rosettes and inlay I was going to grab that inlay tool from Blues Creek. Especially if he puts one up on sale for the Swap a Palooza. Now it's $90 and it gets to .001 accuracy, which will help out anyone's inlay skills. It's air powered, which is nice since I already have an air compressor. It lies somewhere between a Dremel and a router power-wise, so I would think I would think that it could do sound-holes as well.

I think I'm going to just grab a used router off of Ebay for the headstocks and such.

Now then.... Back to planes.

Convex spoke shave. Prices seem high at over $30 on many of them. Is this due to their collectivity/rareness, or their value as a tool.
I enjoy the collectible aspect, but I am primarily concerned with function.

Rabbet scrapers also command quite a bit of money. I'll have to check out some of the other places that were mentioned if I can't find a decent Ebay deal.

Since your original post started off with "In an effort to save money...", I'll just put out there that you really don't need that many different planes to get the job done. Make sure you have specific jobs in mind for the planes you're buying, and it's better if you can make one plane do lots of different jobs. A plain jane #5 is not very sexy but is very useful for a lot of guitarmaking tasks.

I acquired lots of old planes and spokeshaves and whatnot when I started out, here are the only ones I've ended up getting any significant use of:

1. LN 4-1/2 smoother - (traded it a while back, plan on replacing it with a vintage Stanley or new LN #5) - Jointed tops/backs, did some thicknessing before I got a drum sander, smoothed out hand-sawn scarf joint on neck, squared up neck stock

2. LN adjustable mouth block plane - This thing is a joy to use. Useful for profiling sides after they're bent, trimming braces to height, and numerous other small trimming jobs.

3. Ibex finger plane, 10mm round - I really like this for profiling braces and for shaping the shaft of a neck... seems counter-intuitive to use a convex plane to shape a convex surface, but it works out really nicely.

I still have a little stockpile of nice but untuned early type vintage Stanley planes. My time's pretty limited so when I decide if I want to restore old handplanes (a hobby unto itself) or build guitars, guess which I tend to choose? (It's a trick question, I usually choose reading and commenting on message boards most often). I had a nice veritas spokeshave that I sold before I used because I liked using the ibex so much for neck shafts, which is what I had bought the spokeshave for.

Just my $0.02, everyone works differently and everyone enjoys various processes more than others.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Still lots of good value on Ebay in Stanley planes. I've added a couple to my set in the past year. I'm not up on typology, but I do check with Patrick Leach's "Stanley Blood and Gore" pages for things to look for and look out for on particular models. I avoid anything made after 1960. Watch the auctions for a couple of weeks and you will get an idea about price. You can still get #3, 4 and 5 planes from a good period with most of the japanning, and intact totes and knobs, and most of the blade left for prices in the mid $20's to mid $30's plus shipping. Avoid ones that look beat up and abused (some dirt is OK).

You can buy a good "worker" (i.e., not a collectible) from Patrick at a fair price, but you could find the same for a lot less on Ebay.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

My planes have all come from the 'Bay. $25 and an afternoon of tuning is not a bad deal.

Another great resource is http://www.sawmillcreek.org

The Neanderthal Haven sub-forum is devoted to hand tools.

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

Beware! Though they may look pretty good in the ebay photos i have found that sometimes the lack of good photography skills or maybe great photography skills can hide a lot. I have picked up a few that looked good but when i got them they were shot to hell. But i have gotten some nice stuff too...Mike