Official Luthiers Forum!

Um. speaking of planes -- Jordan, a good plane or two -- or three -- make that four or, um, even five or more -- are also pretty durn necessary when it comes to making guitars out of pieces of wood. What are your plans in that regard?

Best,

Michael

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

Thanks for responding guys. After doing a little bit more looking around I'm more confused than when I started

Someone in an archived section said that Narex (from czech.) is a decent quality chisel for the money. I thought that since I haven't really used chisels that much I should work my way up slowly (not too slow though). I will undoubtedly screw them up trying to sharpen them the first couple of times. Highland Woodworking has a set of four (6mm,12mm,20mm,25mm) for $19.99. They should be okay to start with...if not I'll have use for them elsewhere.

I'm still going to get a Two Cherries 2mm chisel, and a Hirsch 20mm cranked trimming chisel for glue clearing.

Planes....well I was only planning on getting an English Stanley 60 1/2 low angle, and an Ibex 30mm x 10mm flat sole. Hopefully that will be sufficient for a little while.

Thanks for all your input! You guys seriously crack me up (ie. John Watkins 8,459 hand tools). I'll let you know how everything works once I get them.

Jordan

I tend to be more like John in the number of chisels but would never be called neat and tidy.

I collect tools (and other things) so at last count I had just under 90 chisels and 3 times that if you include carving tools.

I have to agree with Arnt, my favorites are old scandinavian chisels are the best. They have a high amount of carbon steel and really hold an edge. They show up every now and then on eBay and I search them out at garage/yard sales as well.

Personally I think it is important start with a very narrow one about 1/8" or less (2mm), one around 1/2" or so (12mm) and then one larger 3/4" or so (20mm). Most everything can be done with those and then start adding other sizes and types as needed.

[QUOTE=Jordan Bunte]
Planes....well I was only planning on getting an English Stanley 60 1/2 low angle, and an Ibex 30mm x 10mm flat sole. Hopefully that will be sufficient for a little while.[/QUOTE]

Jordan,

Some other folks might disagree with me here, but I would not recommend a low-angle plane as your primary one. They're designed for cutting end grain, and most of what you will be doing will be cutting with the grain. I have an old Stanley 60-1/2 low angle plane and I never use it -- at least not for lutherie.

One of the first tools I bought when I began building guitars was a good block plane. After a bit of research, I bought the Veritas standard angle plane from Lee Valley. It is a very well made tool. Better than the old Stanley 9-1/2 plane, and at least as good as the equivalent Lie Nielsen, although considerably cheaper. IMHO. I use this plane, with its 25 deg iron, probably more than any other edged tool in my shop. I also bought a spare iron and have set its bevel angle to 55 deg, so I can plane very hard woods, like ebony, and minimize tear-out.

The biggest disadvantage I've found to a block plane is its relatively short sole. I used to use it with a shooting board to shoot tops and backs, but I have now switched over to using an old No.6 Stanley Bailey for this task. Its 18" long sole aids greatly in keeping the boards true as they're being shot. I clamp the plane to the workbench, set a wood spacer against it, and run the plates across the plane. This is just about all it gets used for, but it makes the process so much faster, that's okay with me. I have also more recently begun using a smoothing plane -- an old Millers Falls with a 9" sole -- for smoothing scarf joints. Again, for the same reason. Using a block plane works fine for doing scarf joints, but a little more attention has to be paid to make sure everything is even and dead level. And then there are brace planes. Actually, the Ibex you're thinking about should probably do a good job for that.

Best,

MichaelMichael McBroom38873.5605902778

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

I have both the Lee valley low angle block and smoother - but both blades are ground to 42 degrees, thus 54 with the bed - way easier to get this kind of angle on a bevel up plane than any std bench plane. The smoother has a 10 inch plus sole, great for shooting.

The trick to buying more tools is to make sure thay are all the same colour/wood handle - then your wife cant tell when there is a new one !!! had a customer once who liked his canoes, always green - wife sees one that looks new and asked about it - nope he says, had that one for while (yeah, it was 3 weeks old) !!! He didnt want my usual tweed case - gotta be black to match my others he says, wont stand out in the pack !!!

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

Right on Todd ... you get what you pay for - aint that the truth. I hate cheap tools, but admit I used to buy them - had a set of nut drivers once, and I am not the hulk by any means, but I tore the handle right off one of them torquing a nut.

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

I use the Blue handle Marples, 20 bucks at lowes

_________________
Support the OLF! Bookmark our STEWMAC link Today!
Lance@LuthiersForum.com

I took my blue 1/4" and heated the center while cranking it in the vise to make a glue clearing chisel. The heat got nowhere near the tip. I would never do that to my Sanvic chisels! Much better than Marples low line blues.

How about your worst chisel? Ace Hardware brand should be thrown away before you remove it from the package to save time and frustration!

Cheers,
Kurt

Since we can hardly talk about edge tools without some mention of sharpening... Fine Woodworking had a really good article on a very quick and effective sharpening method in issue #184 (June 2006). It's very similar to how I sharpen my tools, but I am planning to modify my method a bit following a couple of this guys tips.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/