I am thinking about buying my first hand plane and was thinking about
getting the Lie-Nielsen Low Angle Adjustable Mouth Block Plane. Is this a
good general purpose plane? Is this a good plane for a beginner to start
out with? Are there other planes I should consider instead?
Thanks in advance,
Jim
www.woodblog.com
>am thinking about buying my first hand plane and was thinking about
>getting the Lie-Nielsen Low Angle Adjustable Mouth Block Plane
It's a very good plane, but I might consider the small bronze low angle block
plane first. Then a good no. 4 smoother.
However, brush up on your sharpening and plane prep skills. Even a Lie Nielsen
needs some work:
Lapping the sole (very little, but still some); lapping and honing the blade.
That little plane is the most used one I have. It's fabulous.
I can second the purchase of the smaller "apron" type LA block plane. I have
a lee valley "full-size" LA block plane which I also like a lot, but as
Daryl said, I use the smaller bronze LV one more. It is so light and easy
to use, and works amazingly well. Just the other evening I had to chamfer
several small and narrow parts. I was able to do this quickly and easily
with the little bronze plane and the hand I held the parts in was the one
that got a bit crampy, not the one with the plane.
The next one to get is the LN 4.5 smoother, you won't be disappointed.
Mike
On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 13:00:22 -0400, Jim wrote:
> I am thinking about buying my first hand plane and was thinking about
> getting the Lie-Nielsen Low Angle Adjustable Mouth Block Plane. Is this a
> good general purpose plane? Is this a good plane for a beginner to start
> out with? Are there other planes I should consider instead?
>
If the hand plane bug really gets you you might want to check out
http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan0.htm which is everything that ever
came out of Stanley's factory
http://www.supertool.com/oldtools.htm Patrick is a great guy. Tends to
have good stuff on the shelves, and very willing to help out newbies. I
got two very serviceable planes from him, the ubiquitous LA block / apron
plane (mine is a 65, see http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan0.htm for
the details) and a #4. I've also got a #5 that I bought on e-bay and a #7
that will probably end up as a door stop also from e-bay but seriously
rusted.
I would stay away from the stuff that the borg's sell and look at Veritas
(Lee Valley), Highland has a good range of new planes at their website,
Also Garret Wade. Think hard and buy carefully a good plane is the
investment of a lifetime, bad ones will drive you nuts.
Tony