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Where can one find those old Stanley planes that everyone keeps talking about?

I know ebay might have them but those that does are US only.

I thought I'd order a decent plane in Germany but unfortunately I got a yellow slip from DHL saying they've left the package at a neighbor who is unreachable in the foreseeable future. I've never authorized anyone to leave packages at a neighbor so there must have been an agreement that was with the flat beforehand. So now I'm short 120 euros and no plane. Since I'm leaving Germany in like 10 days there isn't really enough time to work out a solution of some kind.

I still need a decent plane but this setback means that I can't spend another 120 euros again, and I can't find a dealer in Berlin who sells metal plane (they only sell Western style wooden planes). I've heard about people taking old stanleys and putting Lie Neilson or Hock blades in them and having them work well, but by the time I found a stanley on ebay, I'd have spent the same money as a Lie Neilson plane, except end up with an inferior tool that still required a bunch of work in order for it to work.

So if anyone in Berlin has a #5 to sell me, I'm all ears...

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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

i feel you, that´s just bad luck, man... i got most of my stanley planes from UK´s flea-bay. stanley had a factory there, IIRC, and i found it was relatively easy to find a decent plane there (even old sweat-harts and the occasional bed-rock). the other side of the story is that people seem to be asking more money for them every time i look at it. the british bay-thing is also a good place to get old record planes, and often they are cheaper than old tanleys.

i have a spare #5 i can send you (if you pay for shipping and promise to tell good things about me ), but shipping to taiwan would probably be too expensive.

let me know (i would only be able to ship it by next week, though)

cheers,
miguel

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

In Berlin you have one of the two best shops in whole Germany for fine woodworking tools:

http://www.feinewerkzeuge.de/

They should be able to help you.

Best regrads, Alex

yes, dieter schmid has a good stock and quite good prices (for the EU) on veritas planes - i´ll be snatching a low angle jack soon. the juuma planes (which i´ve never tried, but have nice reviews on the web) that he sells seem good bang for the buck - i think they are similar to the quangsheng that are sold in the UK, but with bubinga handles and brass chipbreaker - possibly worth a look. they also have a discount system working (above 100 euros, 1 %, above 200 2%, and so on).

if you prefer lie-nielsen, axminster seems to have good prices - but that would involve shipping.


cheers,
miguel.

Edit - BTW, what is the other german store for fine tools? could it be Dick (now Dictum)?

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Thanks! I did not realize that they are in Berlin.

I will go check it out tomorrow... at this point its far better for me to go and see the tools rather than buy them unseen... a #6 fore plane could be far too heavy to fit in the luggage...

_________________
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

Taiwan, China, and Japan all have a strong history of woodworking.... Why not get some high quality Taiwanese, Chinese, or Japanese planes... I would imagine they are far more available and reasonably priced than American or German tools...

I think one of the main reasons that so many Americans and Englishmen use Stanley/Bailey is that there are millions of cheap, used planes on the Secondary market.. We buy a used #4 in the flea market for $15.00 US... They could never really hold their own against the finest English or European hand made planes.... but they were so cheap and sold in every hardware store.... I doubt that Stanley has a huge market presence in Asia - where there was already a fairly mature industry that supplied woodworkers with high quality planes and woodworking tools....

It's ironic that I have been looking all over for a really high quality Asian (Chinese or Japanese) smoothing plane.... No one sells them outside of mail order... Even then, availability is limited.... I would really like one of those beautiful Rosewood or Ebony models that is made to do really fine work on super hard woods..... but throw a rock and you hit 5 rusty old Bailey planes....

I think that is the direction I would go if I lived in Taiwan..... I wouldn't look too hard for a Stanley....

Maybe its my upbringing, I just never liked those Taiwanese planes because the cutting action is so horrible due to low mass. Plus its such a pain to adjust it because I have to hit it with a hammer. If you lose the cap iron, good luck getting a replacement...

Plus I can't find any #6 or #7 length planes in Taiwan, just jack or smoothing planes. I need those longer planes for edge joining.

I do use those wooden block planes though, because its very convenient to use.

_________________
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

#6 or #7. Do you make Harpsichords?

I just visited that shop mentioned in this thread.

I looked at the #6 and I felt it was way too heavy for anything but joining, so I went and got a #5 instead. It's not a Veritas or anything but it looked solid. The guy said it was made in Taiwan or something. I looked at Kunz, they have two lines, one has plastic handle, no mouth adjustment, etc. and was around 69 euros, and a more premium line with wooden handle and mouth adjustment, and shorter blade that is about 100 euros more. Both felt kinda light and doesn't feel like it's all that solid, so I got the Jumma or whatever they called it for 89 Euros.

I felt I could buy a Veritas direct from Lee Valley because the price is the same as what Dick and others sell for, except its in USD and not Euros.

_________________
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

I think the Juuma is what we call the Quangsheng here in the UK. Very decent Planes IMO.

Just a little review:

The hand plane I got was a used plane that was some kind of a prototype. It's basically the same as the Jumma plane you see on that site in every way, except the handle is beech instead of Bubinga (which I don't really care because this is a tool, not a display specimen), the cap is steel instead of brass, and it's about 30 euros cheaper.

The funny thing is, the guy said it was made in Taiwan but I for the life of me can not find them for sale in Taiwan at all. I've been told that there are a lot of Taiwanese product, for whatever reason can not be sold in Taiwan due to some kind of an agreement.

anyways I took a few minutes to disassemble the plane, wiped the oils off (there were lots of them), and honed the blade on my DMT 8000 grit stone until I can shave myself with it. It did not take long because the blade was already flat to begin with. Then reassembled the plane and planed a neck blank with it as a test (I did not have any softwood with me at the moment, well there are lots of pine furniture but the hausmeister wouldn't like it if I started planing that...) and it was pretty painless. I can make .003" shavings with it, and it took only a small amount of fiddling to get it working. On a Taiwanese plane I practically had to hammer all day just to get it right...

_________________
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

I had to adjust the thing continuously, because I can get .003 from smooth as a baby's butt wood but had to increase the cutting depth for rough sawn wood because .001 at a time would take too long. I guess that's why people have multiple planes.

The sole is already very flat, I don't see how it can get any flatter. If I try to lap it I might risk making it out of square.

The plane is fairly heavy that after some time of use my hands got tired. Now I am glad I didn't go for a #6 plane.

_________________
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

Those Planes are (supposedly) pretty flat. Don't touch the sole until you have eliminated everything else. Even then make sure you know how to do it. My guess is that it needs minor adjustments elsewhere.

When you say .001 shaving, is this when planing softwood like spruce or pine, or hardwood like mahogany, or both?

I find that spruce is significantly easier to plane compared to mahogany...

_________________
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

Thanks for the tips guys

Just a little update on my current situation regarding planes (and that include the kind that flies!)

It turns out the neighbor finally answered the phone, and they had my Dick plane all along. So now instead of taking a number 5 plane back to Taiwan (which was pretty heavy in its own right, especially considering the amount of other junk I had to take with me), I gotta also pack the number 6 as well.

The prototype Jumma plane from the Berlin supplier was pretty much exactly the same as the Dick plane, was actually wondering if both are made by the same guy too (except that the one sold in Berlin is actually cheaper... if you can put up with a spot of rust).

I ended up dragging a guitar case full of guitar woods/tools (but no guitar), a suitcase full of clothes, guitar tools, wood, and a guitar in a gigbag from Berlin to Amsterdam-Schiphol (which includes two transit stops... should have booked that direct train to Schiphol, would have made life easier!), enduring a delayed train due to a smoker disrupting the train, and one time I showed my ticket to the train conductor in the Netherlands, and he said "Oh Dutch Bahn" (which I don't think the Germans would find that funny). I managed to check both bags in, having to throw out and move clothings into my carry on bags due to being overweight, and hoping that I don't get stopped by customs because of unusual contents in my suitcase... well I made it back ok, and now I am temporarily staying at my church until I can find a place of business.

I took the number 6, flattened the front portion of the back (I didn't want to erase that nice Dictum logo), honed the cutting edge, moved the frog forward until the gap between the mouth and the blade is only a tiny bit bigger than the shaving, I for some reason whether it was luck or something else, was able to get a consistent .001" shaving from a mahogany neck blank.

Needless to say it was worth the expense and trouble bringing these two planes back home... I like them a lot more than those wooden Japanese style junk commonly sold in Taiwan... and it's a lot easier to adjust too. Now I just need a metal low angle block plane to complete the collection...

_________________
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! My impression is that they are indeed all made by the same maker in china, quangsheng. It makes the Dick, the Juuma and the Quangshengs sold in britain. I don´t know if it also makes the Rider sold by axminster, but from the looks of it it appears so. They are also going to (or have just) launch a low angle jack plane (http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/reviews/too ... plane.html ) .

cheers,
miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

It is good to hear that you made it back safely to your country -enjoy the planes -

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Seems pretty good for a Chinese product... I suspect it's not produced by sweat labors. I was going to look at the Kunz plane but found its fit and finish to be really rough.

_________________
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

they have received nice reviews internet-wide. I think i´ll get myself a juuma jointer any time soon. Like John said, enjoy the planes!

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes