Edited snip re Norris Planes

Seeing as he worked this side of the Atlantic, I feel obliged to do my party
piece and point out that his planes were being made here to work ‘exotic’
timbers at a time when the US was in need of masses of Stanley planes to work
all that nice clean softwood you were busy cutting down.  So to end this ramble
- ...Now I’ve used a Norris, I wouoldn’t bother to buy one - Bailey pattern
planes with a good heavy blade will do the same job

End snip

 We used a tremendous amount of oak, too, and also hickory and walnut.  Still
do.  My Stanleys and Sargents handle all of that well.

Your last point seems to be the operative one.  Same with me and Bridge City,
lovely though the tools are.  Others will do as well for most purposes, better
for some.  As I said to Cal Meier in a private exchange a couple of hours ago,
when I was buying, I was -- against all good sense -- a dead broke graduate
student with no shop and a lot of dreams.  Now that I have a shop and have had
for decades, I no longer feel the pull of the luxury tool to fulfil part of my
fantasy.  I've used them; now I use other tools to get the result.

Cheers!

Joe