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Lee Valley has this new plane in their new catalog.





A bit smaller than the Stanley 100/101, probably very nice for profiling braces. Decent intro price too. Tempting!

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

LOL! My just Lee Valley arrived today. I showed the plane to Sweetie. My birthday is coming up soon....   

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Aoibeann

Very cool plane... "little victor"...looks like it would be really handy.

IMO LV has a much more useful plane for braces (my students love it), its a small rosewood block plane, 1/2 inch blade .. what is great, IMO, is that you can easily mod the body as its wood, plus being a rosewood self lubes itself while planing. At 16 bucks, get a couple .. I saw the above plane at the store last week, but was wanting another of the RW ones - they were on backorder . They will get into places the little victor only dreams of ...

Not that this isnt a cool little plane (and I love planes), but I would get the other one first (besides I have an old stanley that looks kinda like this one ... its never been used since I bought the RW ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Tony
Which one of the 1/2inch rosewood planes from lee valley do you like??
Thanks

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

 

Are these the ones Tony?

Well, Tony, that rosewood block plane looks awful nice too. The chisel one, I don't know if I'd want to get that one close to a spruce top!

Now that I have the new-plane bug, and I have a 100 and 100 1/2, AND the price on the LV rw block plane is so low AND there aren't that many shopping days 'til my birthday.....

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Without having used one, I gotta say that I have reservations about that design. With no cap iron and just those two bumps on the side restraining the blade in front, this looks to me to be chatter-prone. The blades are fairly thick, which helps. But I still don't like the look of it. Again, haven't used one.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Howard, I have the same reservations, but lots of smaller planes, like Japanese planes in one example, don't have any cap iron and are merely wedged in the body. Now, I know Japanese planes are designed for use on softwoods, and not hardwood, so maybe it could still be an issue.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I have both, thinking that the bull nose one woudl be great in close corners, but it digs in too much ..

The block plane is KILLER though - I have taken the sides off square on the wheel sander, and also have sanded back the nose part way thru the little knob thing, and its rounded - took some off the back as well, its about 2/3 in length. I want another one that I plan to sand even tighter to the blade throat, keeping just enough to hold the thing together.

As far as chatter on the little victor, i doubt you would get much just shaving braces - its hard to see it Howard, but there is a threaded wheel that tightens the blade and forces it up in the frog - set for light cuts it woud be pretty sweet, I just think in comparison, the rosewood one wins out in size and price.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Garrett Wade has this trio of planes for a steal that I plan on getting:

I bet they would work for profiling braces and a bunch of other tasks too.
Here's the link.

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Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

I bought that trio of cheap brass and rosewood planes a few years ago from a high-end woodworking catalog, and sent them back when I saw how sloppily they were made. When I phoned up to get the return authorized, the attitude was like, "Why did you think you could get a quality tool that cheap?"

Japanese planes support iron along the full depth of the sides of the body, and have proportionally much heavier blades. I'm sure you won't notice chatter shaving braces, if that's the purpose. I'd be less sure about a full width cut in hardwood.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Thanks for the warning Howard.

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Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

Never bought from GW, but if Lee Valley sells something that is cheap, they tell you right in the catalog. I can vouch for these, or at least the ones I bought - show me a better $16 Cdn plane and I will buy two ... and give this one away. For less than the price of those three you can get the 2 LVs .. much better value. Just looking at the picture the fit and finish looks suspect.

One of my students works at one of the stores - they had this set of carving chisels a few months back, nothing fancy, not like Henry Taylors, but he bought a set and brought them over to see what I thought. half of them were pretty much useless to me anyway, I already had a couple of the same size - but the spoon gouge, skew chisels and V groove were pretty nice, considering the set of 8 or 9 cost 60 bucks. I grabbed the spoon and went at carving his electric top, voilin style, deeply dished at the edges - in about 5 minutes, the cutaway horn area was done, and smooth enough to finish sand, and in curly maple - no tear out. They never said they were pro carving tools, but they were much more than adequate, right out of the box, and you couldnt beat the price.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Well, since this little plane is on sale for $29.50 until May 15, then will be up to $37.50 I will probably order one while they're on sale. If I don't like it I can probably sell it for $30 + shipping after May 15 and break even. Kind of a 'no brainer' for me. Thanks LV!

CrowDuck

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Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

I bought one of those miniature rosewood planes from Lee Valley just last week.  LIke Tony, I found the chisel plane digs in too much as there is nothing infront of the blade to stop it.  So I made up a simple bullnose attachement from some spare ebony.  I just finished it yesterday, so I haven't really tested it yet.  But so far it works well in the simple tests.

The Bullnose cap is secured with a simple screw on the back.  Here it is aprat.

Mighty clever, Douglas!    It's always inspiring to see how people solve problems.