Reply To: List of basic tools
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Yes, one must be careful in the hand tool realm. There are some very nice handmade works of art out there. Take Chris Schwarz’s 2500 buck plow plane. I started looking into custom plows and other planes and damn near fell over. I see nothing wrong with them but they are not for me at this time.
I am crossing over from the power tool realm. I never had room for the big stuff. I have a bosch contractor table saw, a festool panel saw, drill press, surface planer and band saw (woodgears.ca). I’ll be somewhat a hybrid user leaning towards hand tools.
I picked up a Bailey number 5 and 8 from ebay and a # 4 from craigslist. I did get a #4 from Lie Nielsen as well and it feels great and provided a benchmark as to how they should all work. The block plane form Lie Nielsen great, fits well in the hand.
I got my Bailey #4 tuned up with a machinist’ help (it was thrashed) and it works just as well as the Lie Nielsen (maybe I’ll sell the Lie Neilsen). So I have a mix of new and old leaning towards the old.
I recommend Chris Schwarz’s advice though if you can’t see the tool in person a dealer is a great way to go. One they don’t generally sell crap, you can return things and the prices aren’t bad. Ebay is ok if they have lots of pictures and info,its cheap, sometimes its just a crap shoot.
I am looking at a 71 or a Preston router plane from a dealer site, somewhere in the range of 50-95 US depending on what you are looking for with free shipping.
The link Greg posted is great, off that page is a great review on the router planes, http://paulsellers.com/2012/11/buying-good-tools-cheap-the-router-plane/.