Source for plans?

[The Fan]

Ok,

I've been out of the hobby for a few years now... and I'm not afraid to admit that I may need to "cheat" for awhile and use another guy's plans, at least for ideas.

ebay has more than one "30,000 woodworking plans" CD for sale for next to nothing.

So here are the questions:

1) Are they legal? (Or are they scanned copies of work that deserves to be paid for? Or maybe improper copies of liscenced CDs?)

2) If legal, is there a particular plan set that is better than the others?

And an extra credit question worth ten points:

All I ever worked with was cherry or cherry-surfaced plywood. Maybe I'm forgetting what this stuff used to cost, but it sure is expensive today! (At least where I've found it so far). I wouldn't want to open a "turf war" can of worms, but what other species work similarly without quite the expense (I'm certain my early efforts will not merit the good stuff)?

Thanks in advance!

[B a r r y]

Birch has a similar density and structure to cherry, except I think cherry burns a bit easier with power tools. It's about 1/2 cherry's price here in Southern New England.

Both also finish in similar ways and are prone to blotching if improperly stained.

Barry

[bridger]

probably the plans are not on the cd. what is on the cd is links to the plans on the web. here are most of them for free:

birch.

[Frank Campbell]

They are links, many of the CD's are blatant rip-offs of my site, or other peoples sites, it is so bad that some sites don't even let other sites link directly to them anymore. The same links are here for free:

[Old Nick]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 07:51:19 GMT, Frank Campbell vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

What can you say? It's Ebay!

Devil's paradise!

rammed down our throats.