On Thursday 13 October 2005 15:35, Todd Hughes wrote:
> Ken asked....
> > To all who responded to my query about where to get pre tuned planes. 
> > ..... I need to sell a plane, MF #9 actually, to my employer. I spent 4 
or 
> > 5 hours tuning it. ...... I'm trying to get an idea of the going rate for 
> > a tuned smooth plane. I'm thinking of pricing it at $100 and they will 
> > most likely not question it but I want to have my evidence in a row just 
> > in 
> > ase.  
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> 
>  There is a fellow, Walt Q [brass@s... ] on another tool group I am on 
> and he sells planes ready to go out of the box, soles flat and blades sharp 
> , good wood and everything clean and etc.By all acounts his planes are very 
> nice. Now I don't know what you really mean by a "Tuned" plane....I thought 
> you tuned radios eh? But his planes work excellent  with nothing needed 
done 
> to them judging by the many comments I have read from happy custermers.

A couple comments, thank them with a large grain of salt if you like. I agree 
with what Todd says for the most part, and your $100 is pretty high for a 
plane, but if you can get that, the more power to you.

I have purchased a few planes from Walt. I have a Stanley/Victor No 20 
Compass Plane, a 60 1/2, and a 4C Type 11. All planes were in working order, 
and operated properly. I wouldn't say that the blades were sharpened to their 
optimum sharpness, but they were certainly usable. Walt is a very fair, 
honest, and excellent person to deal with. He's not going to give tools away, 
but he has excellent prices on old tools and he goes out of his way to find 
and stock a lot of the old tools, so is great to deal with. He also packs 
stuff nicely, and gets it off promptly. As I say, he's an excellent guy to 
buy tools from.

Johnny Kelso (rarebear) is also a good person to buy refurbished planes from. 
Johnny goes over the planes with a fine tooth comb, puts new japanning on 
them, refurbishes all the parts, gets them looking like new, etc...The 
Stanley No 8 I bought from him is just superb, a person couldn't ask for 
more. It did need to be sharpened as well, although it was usable. The planes 
you get from Johnny are completely refurbished, where Walt tunes up the plane 
as he gets it and makes sure it's in usable condition.

You can see the prices that Walt gets for planes at this link:

http://pages.cthome.net/bcrgraphics/toolworks/brimfileld%20fall.html

Those are his newly acquired stock. He turns a lot of stock over as you might 
imaging. Johnny charges more, but his are completely refurbished. Here's a No 
8 I bought from Johnny:

http://www.softorchestra.com/tools/planes/8type11/index.html

Here is the 60 1/2 I bought from Walt:

http://www.softorchestra.com/tools/planes/60_1-2/index.html

HTH, I reccomend both of them to buy planes from. Just remember, that like 
anything else you'll need to keep the blades sharp.

-- 

Alan DuBoff
Software Orchestration
GPG: 1024D/B7A9EBEE 5E00 57CD 5336 5E0B 288B 4126 0D49 0D99 B7A9 EBEE

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