Hi Folks,

	Jaime shares with us that his #55(finicky way-cool iron
combo plane, Jeff) works better than his woodies.

On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Jaime Metcher wrote:

> At 18:04 13/02/02 -0600, Ralph Brendler wrote:
> >
> First off, listen to Ralph - he's forgotten more than I'll ever know.
>
> Having said that, I'll state that my #55 planes better in any grain than
>any woodie I have.  Cuts truer, tears out less, chokes less, cutters are
>in *much* better shape and easier to sharpen.

I can't say about the #55, but that was true of me and my 45 a number
of years ago.  I kept hacking away, and I am somewhat better at
using my limited set of wooden molders now.  All the problems
Jaime describes, I had.  Ralph still planes circles around me, but
I can now get a molding plane(or panel raiser, or wooden smoother)
to perform ok, still have trouble cross grain, but they were not
really supposed to be used that way, so it is not the planes
fault I am dumb.  Just took practice, and the willingness to
make some pieces that had molding that did not look very
professional.  Now, that, like sawing straight and chopping
straight, keeps getting easier.  I used to do things like hold
my finger over the side escapement and wonder why the plane
choked, but I have stopped doing most things of that
ilk.(Dawn breaks over my marblehead).  It helps to buy decent
planes also, I have never bought one where I had to do more than
minor reshaping of the iron.

>
> I'll end with a question - how tuned are Tony Murland's sets?
>

I bought a nice half set of skewed planes from him a while ago, and
they were great.  I doubt he touched them, but most were in
really nice shape.  A few reminded me of Scott Posts C&W smoother
in how crisp the details were.  I have used a couple without
even taking the iron out of the plane, and they were sharp like
the guy who owned them knew what he was doing.  I'd guess, having
only bought a couple things from him, that what he sells is as
tuned as the last guy who owned it left it...  It is really
nice to make a molding, and then be able to go in the opposite
direction over a short patch where there was some tearout with
a hollow or round, so I am a big fan(Thanks Ralph!).

Best regards, Mike Lindgren