Lee Valley Plane Question

I was drooling over the Lee Valley web site and I saw these wood planes.

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price for these Taiwanese planes seems great, but I was hoping to talk to someone who has actually used them. What do you think? Do they work well or are they just pretty to look at?

TIA Glen

Reply to
Glen
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I have a hollow and a round in this style, together with the small spokeshave. They are equipped with carbon steel blades without chipbreaker and work well. I wish some more radii for the hollow and round sets were available. I also have a HSS blade for my old jack plane from this manufacturer and it can be sharpened very well and hold its edge good.

Reply to
Juergen Hannappel

Thanks for the feedback.

Glen

Reply to
Glen

I haven't used Lee Valley's, but there will be some in my next order.

I have a couple in this style from HNT Gordon and I really like them. They're not great as bench planes because you can't bear down on them when pushing from behind. Nor do they remove timber as fast as my German horned scrub plane. What they're best at is very subtle shaping of final details - not so much flat smoothing, but shaping gentle curves where you want something that leaves a better finish than a spokeshave. I can use these on curved chair arms with enough delicacy that I don't make a flat spot.

Compared to Japanese planes the body shapes are easier to grip, particularly where you're working on an almost finished piece that you can't lean on, rather than a board resting on a planing beam.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

I was at a ww'ing show recently and asked a purveyor of Lie-Nielsen planes (not Tom) what he thought about the Veritas line. He said "they're a decent working plane, but they're not even in the same league as Lie-Nielsen." When I asked him what he meant he mumbled something about "fit and finish" and then moved on to a potential customer.

I've got only the low-angle block from Veritas, but I love it. Assuming I'm in it for the best FUNCTION and not as an investment or as a status symbol, why would I pay double or more for a Lie-Nielsen?

JP

Reply to
Jay Pique

At a "Training the Hand" Cosman class I took last July, a student whose real job is as an engineer, brought into class 2 LV planes brand new out of the boxes. A smoother and a block plane.

The block plane had over .003 hump at the mouth. It was returned that day and a LN was purchased. The smoother made it another day before it was returned, he found he preferred the LN in actual use in the only handtool course.

By the end of the week there was over $1500 worth of LN in his class purchases pile.

Only issue found in the class of all the LN products was a bent No 8 replacement blade.

If you have the time, and the ability, knowledge, patience and experience to fettle a plane, then half the money could be a good savings.

Alan

Reply to
arw01

Doc, have you ever seen the hollows and rounds on this page? Take a look:

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you can modify them to your radius needs, or they might already have it.

Reply to
AAvK
[...]

carry one size, so maybe an overseas order has to be placed ome time soon...

If it comes to modifying the radius I'd rather build one from scratch.

Reply to
Juergen Hannappel

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