I agree. Except I have never used or held a MF or a Bedrock. However it is clear
that the 2 Sargents I have are a half step below the Baileys. I have a Sargent
422 (No. 7). I also do not use 5's that often. I lucked out in that the first
plane I bought turned out to be a bailey 5 1/2. I had no idea about the
differences in the Stanley planes at that point. That is usually my go to jack
plane. I have two blades, one for rough work and one when I want to use it as a
smoother. It is a sweetheart. It is my favorite of the bunch.



Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy S10.



-------- Original message --------
From: Charles Driggs 
Date: 1/20/20 23:11 (GMT-05:00)
To: Chuck Taylor 
Cc: Old Tools Porch , Matt Cooper 
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Sargent VBM no. 5

Chuck,

Matt and others may disagree, but in the decade since I’ve enlarged the plane
corral, I’ve added the equivalent MF and Sargent jack planes to the Stanley 605
Bed Rock and other sizes I’ve had since the 90’s.  I find in use that I favor MF
first, the Stanley second and the Sargent third, mainly because the knobs don’t
all go in the same direction when adjusting the cutting depth, and the MF is
just about as heavy and performs just as well as the Bed Rock.  Regardless, I
keep all three sharpened & ready to go.

All three are very good planes.  The Stanley collectors drive the prices higher
on those, so Stanley's much larger sales volume doesn’t flip the price pattern
due to relative scarcity.

Charlie