I don’t have time to read the thread, but I had to post this. Sorry if it’s out of place.
I work in a store where we buy and sell “things.” We have a customer who ‘deals’ in antique tools. Evidently, a ‘plane’ from the mid-1800’s was purchased in an auction in Ohio earlier this year for $500. Many of the primary buyers weren’t there, as it wasn’t advertised.
It just re-sold over at the main antique tool auction in PA? in the last week or so for something like $40-50K. I have no more details than that at this time.
I didn’t know anything about this stuff until, like, three weeks ago. Imagine my shock to find out that some of the rusty old tools my grandpa had might have paid off my mortgage.
ETA - I know, prolly not - what sells is the rare and the old. But still, ya never know.
While that link was from 2005, I remember that the plane I mentioned was described as “ebony.” Now it all makes sense. And they would have been sold into OHio quite a bit, as the tool company was in Sandusky.
Sigh. Woodworking is one big cup of disappointment, so far. I got my happy package from Lee Valley and followed the instructions on the smoothing plane. (Which at least there ARE directions, but I think some expert woodworkers wrote it, not expert teachers. Kinda hard to follow, and I did a couple things wrong and had to backtrack.) Well, I finally got it set up and understand all the controls, but I still ruin the hell out of wood with it. I guess hand planes are my machines for turning nice smooth boards into nightmares. I’ll continue to play with blade depth, which I think might be the problem. It surely isn’t the plane; even I can tell these are real quality tools. It just seems like it either takes nothing and just skims over the wood, or it sticks.
I was about to give up in total frustration and go get Guitar Hero 3, but then I said, hey, might as well set the block plane up - aaah, finally, I got something to work. God, it was so damned refreshing! Although that bit in the advertising about “fits the hand well” begs a damned gender discrimination suit. It fits the hand well if you’re Paul Bunyan. I have long fingers (but narrow hands), and it’s a pretty big stretch. Small complaint, though, for a tool that I can make do what it’s made to do. Going to take a lot of practice learning how to plane end grain with it, but at least I can do it.
Two questions about the bench plane - am I supposed to have to loosen the screw that goes through the lever cap every time I need to take it off? With my jack plane there’s an actual lever instead of a knob, and I never had to touch the screw, but to get the lever cap on the Veritas one to slide down into it’s hole I always have to unscrew it. Is that just because I’m not very strong, or is it supposed to be that way, or am I doing something wrong?
Also, I feel like I should know this already, but are you supposed to start planing a board on the board, or are you supposed to cut into it at the edge?
