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★SOME OF MY FAVORITE INEXPENSIVE TOOLS★

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[StumpyNubs]

*Please help support us by using the link above for a quick look around!*
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★SOME OF MY FAVORITE INEXPENSIVE TOOLS★

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[HoneyBeeWoodworks]

I may have been 7 or 8 years old. I distinctly remember one Christmas morning, watching my dad open a gift from my mom. It was a Stanley No. 7 plane. His face lit up like he was a child again. I can’t remember what I got for Christmas that year, but I remember the joy that gift brought to my dad.

[paulkolodner]

I inherited a crappy old plane from my father, and I use it about once a year to get a door to close, or to flatten some edge. And it was awful. But then I went to You Tube University and learned to do a few things:
1. I lapped the sole flat. It had a giant hollow before I got to it.
2. I bought a seriously good plane iron - from Lee-Nielson, I think.
3. I finally taught myself how to sharpen the iron properly. Did the chisels, too.
4. I learned how to set up the plane.
5. I lubricated the sole with some paraffin.
6. I store it in a plastic bag with desiccant to keep it from rusting.
Guess what? It works great. I plan to use it on another door in a month or 2.

[johnhernlund]

I live in Japan, and the same is true even for tools made in this country. While I've often thought about investing in a high end wood block plane here, I picked up a $50 oak body plane a few years ago that has been astonishingly good for the price, and with proper sharpening and setup it can produce very fine shavings. I hope more people discover the benefits of hand tools.

[JohnHill-kp]

I love hand planes. I’ve been using them all my life. I’m now 70. I have a very large selection. I have some that are only a couple inches long and the longest one that I have is 4 foot long and the newest one I have is probably 50 years old and they still work like a charm. There’s nothing like that sound the smell and seeing that fine curl of wood come up. Nothing can replace that when working with wood.

[fontagra.]

I’ve had a ton of success buying old Stanley planes on Facebook marketplace or yard sales and cleaning them up and sharpening them. Definitely takes a bit of work, but for $60 and a few hours of my time I can get a very nice tool.

[wildgrain]

I remember when Tom Lie Nielsen took a big risk and started his own company. He stands behind his tools.He makes the tools and he innovates. When I have had problems with the tools they were replaced quickly and without complaint to me. Lastly the tools are made in America.I own several tools of his tools and it is worth it to me to buy from them.

[jayempress]

I have a taytools #5 plane..i love it. I paid $99 for it a couple of years ago.
I was getting ready to use it for the first time when I bumped it and it fell on the floor. The tote broke, but was easily glued back together. You can't even see the break. It works beautifully. I just built a till for my plane collection.

I hàve had trouble with the cover that goes directly over the blade. Lots of fiber gets between it and the blade. Howeve, as my sharpening skills improve, so does that cover. The cap gave me trouble in getting it correctly tightened, but it's all a learning process.

I have a $12 plane from harbor freight that went from being a pigs ear to a sows purse. Thanks to another woodworker, I learned how to machine that plane to make it work properly. Thankyou Mr. Engler!
It took a lot of work, hundreds of hours, of effort to learn the ins and outs of planes, but so worth it. I was frustrated and disappointed at first, but now I can pull my plane apart, sharpen the blade, throe it back into the tool, and viola! Beautiful curls l, sweet smelling wood, and a relaxing time planing.

[ts]

I love hand planning, but whats really cool is to hand a tuned plane to someone who has never had a good experience with a good tuned plane, and watching an epiphany in real time.

[michaelforsyth]

I'm a plane lover and almost all are Record from the UK. The key is the blade quality and learning how to sharpen it.

[billynomates]

i must have been lucky then. my dad had an old rusty plane in his garage and i loved it. the sound of it, the feel of it, how it worked, it was just awesome. i haven't used one in 40 years but the sensations are still fresh in my mind.

[achmadosman]

I use my manual planes to reduce noise pollution in my neighbourhood as well as the pleasure of handling a well made tool that was passed down from my grandfather. Soothes my soul.

[benmccormick]

I got a Taytools 5 1/2 plane about two months ago. From unpacking to cleaning to sharpening to tissue-paper shavings took 30 minutes. I will never buy another brand. They are quietly making the highest value tools on the market and I recommend them to to ANYONE who wants to skip the frustration I went through restoring old tools.

[chrisfournier]

As a Canadian woodworker I can tell you how expensive LN tools are! Zero regrets! They are effective and a pleasure to use. The only tools I've ever regretted buying were the cheap ones and I stopped doing that decades ago. Build your tool kit slowly as you can afford it and buy the best that you need.

I like to buy North American to support my neighbours!

[alblanzjr]

I am a yacht wright, for 52 years. I bought my first plane, a Stanley #4, at the local hardware store in 1972. A country hardware store in South Memphis Tn, imagine the stories that place could tell!!
Fortunately my Grandfather, by profession a railroad machinist, but who lived through almost the entire 20th century, gave me my first REAL lesson in tools and how to make them work for YOU! By the time he finished teaching me the proper way to tune a new plane, it would shave EXCELSIOR off the edge of almost any board!! THAT was the only NEW plane I ever bought!
I have more than thirty planes of every description, wood, hybrid, and all iron, that old Stanley #4 still sits in a place of prominence in my shop. I would just about be willing to bet I can go out to my shop and whip up a batch of Excelsior RIGHT NOW!!

[adrummer]

I want a bag of those shavings!!

Looks like outstanding fire starter for camping, general fire use!!

[northeastcorals]

This video sums up my experience with planes. As a young lad who was mainly into construction DIY on the houses I was buying rather than fine woodwork I'd only ever tried out cheap crapy planes, which completely put me of them plus I couldn't really afford to spend a fortune on a set of good planes. It was a long time before I realised I had been missing out.

[mattelias]

I just acquired a LN 5-1/2, and straight out of the box, it's an existential experience. I'm still teaching myself to use it properly, but wow - no complaints. If TayTools is really making equivalent quality, I'll have to look into them.
I think one thing people overlook in this 'chinesium tools suck' debate is the standards and tolerances to which the tool is built. Good example is Powermatic vs. Jet. Same company, but differing tolerances and standards. Jet stuff is normally cheaper. You get what you pay for, at least with shop things. I also have to say that we Americans have arrived at a point of highly skewed expectations - we tend to want Rolls Royce quality for Honda prices. That doesn't happen. Your point about the Lie-Nielsen's tiny amount of backlash versus the TayTools plane is THE reason for the price difference. Different tolerances, and different QA/QC processes.

[davidt]

Excellent video topic. You’re so right about a crappy version of the plane turning off a potential user, and sometimes for good. I’ve experienced that phenomenon but was so impressed by the pros of my time that I was determined to get it right. I advanced (and finally made enough money) enough that I bought Lie Nielsen products but went back and learned what to do with my run of the mill planes, to the point of getting them tuned up till they cut decent shavings. I also had a Stanley #7 that I’ve tuned up enough to where it can actually compete with a Lie Nielsen and it’s not too far off. But the effort to get it there was so much so that I won’t do it again. American manufacturers had better diversify if they want to stay in the game. I will however still be supporting Lie Nielsen and other American companies that put the effort in to produce quality products that are durable.

[garysheppard]

As an Australian, the differences in price between a USA manufactured item and one from Asia is even more stark.
The US makes great tools but their super strong dollar plus the cost of shipping make buying from the US a very expensive option.
As a side note, I'm often amused by people from the US commenting about the exorbitant cost of a particular tool. "I'd never pay that much! That's ridiculous!"
Not realising how incredibly cheap everything there is.
Try paying 2, 3 or even 5 times as much for the same thing.
Which brings me back to tools from Asia.
Unless you really want to buy from the US, or unless you have just won lotto and don't care, tools from Asia are the obvious choice.
Especially since if you buy from places like Banggood and get their top end tools, they are pretty much as good or better than anything else.
For a fraction of the price.
Manufacturers like Woodpeckers complain (rightly) about some of their designs being copied.
And thus stealing sales from them.
That's probably true in relation to the US.
But I would argue that they would lose very few sales to people from overseas because they just wouldn't buy Woodpeckers tools due to their ridiculously high price (once you take exchange rates and shipping into account).
So thank goodness Asia provides the rest of us with a viable and affordable option.