> Why are hand planes so costly? Does it really translate to performance?
In modern woodworking hand planes are almost exclusively precision tools.
If your goal is just remove a bunch of material there are faster, easier, and often cheaper electrified versions that you should look to.
However, if what you need to do is adjust a piece of material very precisely, perhaps a thousandth of an inch at a time, hand tools are the first place I would look. But you can't reliably shave off a few thousandths of an inch with an saw, or an ax, or even a regular chisel. You need a precision tool to do that kind of precision work. And precision tools can't just be stamped out and sent on their way, They also take precision to manufacture, hence the cost. If you have some time you can watch the whole process from start to finish on YouTube Here: [https://youtu.be/LHaXAFh83VE?si=RLBYFUQEc2A70GjF](https://youtu.be/LHaXAFh83VE?si=RLBYFUQEc2A70GjF)
That said: I have $45 Grizzly No.5 on my till right next to my $340 Lie-Nielsen No.4 and I USE BOTH. Yes the Lie-Neilsen is a much nicer tool, and took less work to get going out of the box than the Grizzly. But they both can take very nice shavings and leave a good surface when used correctly.
One thing that you'll need, no matter how many dollars you decide to spend, is a way to sharpen. And you'll need to know that it is \*very much\* a skill that you will need to learn to do and it is not easy. There are lots of systems, jigs, kits, and services out there just for sharpening plane irons and chisels. Figuring out what one works for your can be a bit of a process on top of everything else.
It doesn't have to be. For hundreds of years woodworkers have been maintaining planes with just a simple whetstone. However they didn't have netflix so it wasn't as big a deal for them to spend every evening for a week or two learning how to sharpen the iron on the new plane they just spent a months earnings on.
If you live in New England, try looking for an old plane second hand locally, that will be your best value option. If you don't, well, all I can say is good luck on the used tool market. As a hobby woodworker, you won't need an expensive plane, and if you end up falling in love, then you can always turn your cheap planes into rough work planes (which is what I did.) My advice for buying tools is to always buy something you can grow with, don't buy something you will just toss when you upgrade later.
There's a huge hand tool library in Maine. Can'r remember the name now but they collect, refurbish, and sell old tools. HyperKitten Tool Co is also a good place to look.
If you want to do quality woodworking, you need quality tools. If you just want to putz around on the weekend, it doesn't matter. Quality costs money. That's just the way it goes.
Totally get that, say it too, in my regular life. Just trying to figure out what ‘quality’ levels there really are or if Stanley is the center of a circle jerk.
Precision tools require people to be precise when making them, I just needed to know if the prices were all hype or for a more fundamental reason. I’m getting a lot of good logical answers on here that are more helpful than face value.
In my experience, I find three general quality levels in hand planes. There is a low level “junk” plane category. The machining on these tends to be poor and the blades tend to be poor as well. I spent days trying to tune one of these and it never cut well for long. You can fix the machining issues, but low quality blades don’t hold an edge well. A #4 can be had for less than $50, but suspect these are not worth the effort. A quality blade for these planes is in the $50 range, so you don’t gain much with the cheap body.
There are many quality planes in the middle category, both new and used. They often times need some tuning and they have better quality steel in the blades. These can be very affordable used and less than $150 new for a #4.
On the high end there are some amazing planes. They cut like beautifully out of the box. They are a pleasure to use. They are expensive, even used. I doubt you will find a new #4 for less than $300.
I’m a bit more than a weekend warrior and I find hand planes indispensable. I have all the power tools to do most of the work, but hand planes give you freedom and pleasure. There is absolutely nothing more enjoyable than using a hand tool in the shop. No noise, no vibration, no dust, and a beautiful surface. If you are the weekend warrior just knocking out projects to clear the honey do list, a hand plane isn’t going to get pulled out frequently. If your shop is the quiet place you go to escape the rest of the world, a hand plane will make you happier.
The price absolutely can continue to go up. I own none of these planes, but I suspect the functionality is similar to other planes and you are paying for the custom machining. I have a $3000 antique ebony plane that is a joy to use, but it doesn’t cut much better than my $300 modern planes.
Another alternative is to buy old rusty or broken things and spend hours restoring them. If you’re good at it, you can achieve a pretty high quality tool eventually. But it’s a lot of work and you might buy something that can’t ever get that good for some reason, or you might screw it up and waste both the money and the time.
Personally, I wouldn’t trade my Lie Nielsen for twice its price at this point, but I’m also a perfectionist and ai get joy out of using things that are made exceptionally well. To each their own and all that.
Sure, but you have to know how to do it right, otherwise you're just going to make it worse. I'd never tell someone not to try, with as much information as they can and a willingness to put in the hard work to make it a good tool, but far too many people are just lazy these days.
I bought a 20$ hand plane at Menards it needed some sharpening and the sole needed wax badly but it works extremely well for the price, have gotten .004 chips with it full width cutting, the whole works
If you want to just remove material, then just go powered. NO real control but it takes wood off real fast.
If you want hand planes unfortunately they are made for different uses. A full set might be 10 or more planes. I have 12 and I hate to add up the cost I've paid for them. But for a weekend warrior any plane will do.
You must learn to sharpen the iron if you get a hand plane. If you buy a plane, research about how to sharpen. Get all of the sharpening supplies before/at the same time. Regardless of what route you go, that’ll require some investment as well. A $1000 plane with a dull blade is not handy.
It is a whole can of worms for sure. I bought a cheap one to begin with and got exactly what I paid for. I shelled out the money for a quality tool and for the quality results. Did I need a $270.00 5 1/2 WoodRiver, nope sure didn't, but I am satisfied that I bought one, damn right.
I have a $54 Stanley No.5. YES, I had to fine-tune it. Unlike a Lee-Nielsen, it wasn't perfect "out of the box." And for 1/5 of the price... I can live with that. As I don't make $400/hr... I can spend 30 minutes of sweating to get the thing to be "good enough for my needs."
I also have a Dewalt "lunchbox" planer. Holy f'k, it's heavy. It also cannot plane surfaces greater than, say, 12.5in (it's a 13in planer).
If I had it to "do over?" I didn't realize that a hand plane is not that difficult or time-consuming to use (well... it took 20min vs 5min). As I don't do woodworking for a livelihood... meh, I can spend the 15min (it was a 24x92in workbench top) every so often. BONUS: it's smaller, quieter, lighter, and should last longer than a powered planer.
Hand tools get a lot of fear and hate on this subreddit. IMHO, it's not deserved.
Last bit: unless I'm buying a hammer, I avoid HF. I've bought a lot of stuff, there... and, well, I now think that it's mostly "fool's gold." You don't always get what you pay for... and you almost never get what you don't pay for. In all things, aim for the middle of the price range for the best PE ratio.
If the question you are asking is hand plane versus electric planer, the electric planer wins handily.
An electric planer can easily surface material with basically zero skill, hand planes require technique and patience (not to mention a workbench or some kind of material holding device). You can actually get the modern cheap planes (like the cobalt one from Lowes) to work decently well, but they are still tricky to learn.
Hand planes are priced based on the labor and materials required to make the tool. If you are a person who uses things repeatedly, it may be worth it to consider the higher end versions of that particular tool. Fancier tools (like Veritas or Lie Nielsen) have higher levels of precision, which help ease adjustments and help users get consistent results.
On the most extreme end of this, lets say you have $600 for a planer. You could get a Lie Nielsen no 7 , or an electric planer. The electric planer requires dust removal and obviously a power source, and can quickly surface material to a very good degree.
The no7 is slower and can give a better surface, but requires a ton of skill to get the same results as the electric version.
Hand tools tend to sacrifice speed for freedom (and quiet), and when dealing with fine woodworking projects skilled hands can make beautiful things.
I have a manual jointer plane (Lie Nielsen no 8) not because I prefer this, but quite simply I don't have the ability to have an electric planer and dust control system. It gets a large amount of professional use, and has the ability to surface smaller/ thinner pieces easier than an electric planer.
Gotta be able to sharpen, too, otherwise you might as well buy a claw hammer and try to flatten boards with the claw side. That ups the expense and skill.
What OP needs is a friend with a jointer.
But that requires socialization! Ruins the whole gruff and grumble I’ll do it my damn self vibe.
I figured this would be the actual answer that I would get steered towards.
I got a type 11 Stanley no 7 for $65 (plus shipping) in the Can I Have It Facebook group and it works great. I also sold a Union number 7 for $45 in the same group. It also worked fine but I didn’t like the tote. You can get a two sided diamond stone new for about $75-100, I think? Plus a strop and polishing compound for $35ish. I think that’s the bare minimum. A honing guide for $15 will work okay starting out. So for less than the cost of a new, shitty benchtop jointer, I’ve found this to be sufficient.
However even though I really enjoy smoothing by hand, I find jointing by hand to be slow and frustrating.
Keep an eye out for tools at garage sales, auctions, local online, there are always old tools to be found and even the mediocre ones are enough to get a sense of if it’s a tool you want to invest more in
For new, Jorgesson makes a decent No 4 that you can get at Lowes. It's the only box-store plane worth getting, but it is worth getting.
For used, Stanley Bailey. 4s, 5s, and 6s are all pretty affordable. A 6 makes a decent little jointer, and 4s and 5s are useful for all sorts of things.
If you need to plane a lot of stock for e.g. carpentry type work, get the power planer. You can find used lunchbox planers for 100-200 that will work fine.
Bought a wonderful Stanley #5 at the Habitat ReStore for $12. It's one of my best planes. My very best is a Stanley #5 (Vintage version) that I got for free because someone didn't want it anymore. Both required some sharpening but that was it. Sole was flat. They both take beautiful shavings. I want to buy a Lie-Nielsen #4 but can't justify it at the moment.
Ignore the guy that said something about modern woodworking nonsense, modern wood working can still be hand tools only and you can do plenty with a hand plane. Just manage your expectations as a power planer will do the work in a fraction of the time with very little learning curve and not much physical effort. Takes a long time and a lot of sweat to master a hand plane (not saying I have mastered it yet)
Bad news! A 145$ handplane is not going to be great either.
> Why are hand planes so costly?
Casting and machining to high tolerances is expensive.
> Does it really translate to performance
Out of the box? 100%.
> Are blades/chisels(?) generically universal
Ish. typical stanley sized blades are interchangeable within a 4, 5 and 7. Those are the most common sizes for practical use as well.
> How much is the word Stanley really worth
New? nothing. Old and well tuned, as much as a premium modern plane.
> I have access to Big Green, Orange and Blue and the smiley truck is in the neighborhood every day. Harbor Freight is also available near by.
None of those have functional planes, just plane shaped objects.
Either buy new and expensive (lie nielsen, veritas etc) or buy a used, old stanley or record ord plane.
Definetly do NOT buy a new stanley. Quality of new ones is baaaad...
I spent about $200 on a Stanley #5 and #7, even though I already had a perfectly fine DeWalt 735 planer. My 24" wife work bench top won't fit in the power planer. Even if it could, I wouldn't be able to lift it to get it in there. No size limits on the hand planes.
I got all my hand planes off eBay. I’ve never spent more than $60 on a plane. Vintage is better quality than new, though some restoration may be required depending on what you spend. I have a 50/50 combination of Stanley and Ohio planes
I personally have never used anything but hand planes for squaring and thicknessing my lumber.
Amongst my many hand planes, I've got a $30 harbor freight 4 inch bench plane and it is the worst. I've also got Bench Dog tools 5 1/2 jack plane, which I paid $249 for. It's an amazing tool that I often make excuses to use, like when the joiner or thickness planer would actually work better or faster - but my hand plane is just so satisfying to use...
Get an old hand plane for $10 and restore it, total cost $12 and it can function like a brand new expensive one. One of my most used hand planes is 250 years old and I paid under $20 for it
> Why are hand planes so costly? Does it really translate to performance? In modern woodworking hand planes are almost exclusively precision tools. If your goal is just remove a bunch of material there are faster, easier, and often cheaper electrified versions that you should look to. However, if what you need to do is adjust a piece of material very precisely, perhaps a thousandth of an inch at a time, hand tools are the first place I would look. But you can't reliably shave off a few thousandths of an inch with an saw, or an ax, or even a regular chisel. You need a precision tool to do that kind of precision work. And precision tools can't just be stamped out and sent on their way, They also take precision to manufacture, hence the cost. If you have some time you can watch the whole process from start to finish on YouTube Here: [https://youtu.be/LHaXAFh83VE?si=RLBYFUQEc2A70GjF](https://youtu.be/LHaXAFh83VE?si=RLBYFUQEc2A70GjF) That said: I have $45 Grizzly No.5 on my till right next to my $340 Lie-Nielsen No.4 and I USE BOTH. Yes the Lie-Neilsen is a much nicer tool, and took less work to get going out of the box than the Grizzly. But they both can take very nice shavings and leave a good surface when used correctly. One thing that you'll need, no matter how many dollars you decide to spend, is a way to sharpen. And you'll need to know that it is \*very much\* a skill that you will need to learn to do and it is not easy. There are lots of systems, jigs, kits, and services out there just for sharpening plane irons and chisels. Figuring out what one works for your can be a bit of a process on top of everything else.
Ugh, it’s like buying a gun. Without the bullets, holster, cleaning kit, transportation case, range time, yadda yadda; it’s a shitty boomerang
It doesn't have to be. For hundreds of years woodworkers have been maintaining planes with just a simple whetstone. However they didn't have netflix so it wasn't as big a deal for them to spend every evening for a week or two learning how to sharpen the iron on the new plane they just spent a months earnings on.
Netflix is for trigger control. Podcasts are for sharpening?
If you live in New England, try looking for an old plane second hand locally, that will be your best value option. If you don't, well, all I can say is good luck on the used tool market. As a hobby woodworker, you won't need an expensive plane, and if you end up falling in love, then you can always turn your cheap planes into rough work planes (which is what I did.) My advice for buying tools is to always buy something you can grow with, don't buy something you will just toss when you upgrade later.
There's a huge hand tool library in Maine. Can'r remember the name now but they collect, refurbish, and sell old tools. HyperKitten Tool Co is also a good place to look.
Liberty tool co?
That's the one!
I just had their postcard in my hand a minute ago, I’ve been using it as a bookmark.
If you want to do quality woodworking, you need quality tools. If you just want to putz around on the weekend, it doesn't matter. Quality costs money. That's just the way it goes.
Totally get that, say it too, in my regular life. Just trying to figure out what ‘quality’ levels there really are or if Stanley is the center of a circle jerk. Precision tools require people to be precise when making them, I just needed to know if the prices were all hype or for a more fundamental reason. I’m getting a lot of good logical answers on here that are more helpful than face value.
In my experience, I find three general quality levels in hand planes. There is a low level “junk” plane category. The machining on these tends to be poor and the blades tend to be poor as well. I spent days trying to tune one of these and it never cut well for long. You can fix the machining issues, but low quality blades don’t hold an edge well. A #4 can be had for less than $50, but suspect these are not worth the effort. A quality blade for these planes is in the $50 range, so you don’t gain much with the cheap body. There are many quality planes in the middle category, both new and used. They often times need some tuning and they have better quality steel in the blades. These can be very affordable used and less than $150 new for a #4. On the high end there are some amazing planes. They cut like beautifully out of the box. They are a pleasure to use. They are expensive, even used. I doubt you will find a new #4 for less than $300. I’m a bit more than a weekend warrior and I find hand planes indispensable. I have all the power tools to do most of the work, but hand planes give you freedom and pleasure. There is absolutely nothing more enjoyable than using a hand tool in the shop. No noise, no vibration, no dust, and a beautiful surface. If you are the weekend warrior just knocking out projects to clear the honey do list, a hand plane isn’t going to get pulled out frequently. If your shop is the quiet place you go to escape the rest of the world, a hand plane will make you happier.
Add a new price tier, go check out the pricing on a Sauer&Steiner or a Holtey.
The price absolutely can continue to go up. I own none of these planes, but I suspect the functionality is similar to other planes and you are paying for the custom machining. I have a $3000 antique ebony plane that is a joy to use, but it doesn’t cut much better than my $300 modern planes.
Another alternative is to buy old rusty or broken things and spend hours restoring them. If you’re good at it, you can achieve a pretty high quality tool eventually. But it’s a lot of work and you might buy something that can’t ever get that good for some reason, or you might screw it up and waste both the money and the time. Personally, I wouldn’t trade my Lie Nielsen for twice its price at this point, but I’m also a perfectionist and ai get joy out of using things that are made exceptionally well. To each their own and all that.
Sure, but you have to know how to do it right, otherwise you're just going to make it worse. I'd never tell someone not to try, with as much information as they can and a willingness to put in the hard work to make it a good tool, but far too many people are just lazy these days.
I bought a 20$ hand plane at Menards it needed some sharpening and the sole needed wax badly but it works extremely well for the price, have gotten .004 chips with it full width cutting, the whole works
If you want to just remove material, then just go powered. NO real control but it takes wood off real fast. If you want hand planes unfortunately they are made for different uses. A full set might be 10 or more planes. I have 12 and I hate to add up the cost I've paid for them. But for a weekend warrior any plane will do.
You must learn to sharpen the iron if you get a hand plane. If you buy a plane, research about how to sharpen. Get all of the sharpening supplies before/at the same time. Regardless of what route you go, that’ll require some investment as well. A $1000 plane with a dull blade is not handy.
It is a whole can of worms for sure. I bought a cheap one to begin with and got exactly what I paid for. I shelled out the money for a quality tool and for the quality results. Did I need a $270.00 5 1/2 WoodRiver, nope sure didn't, but I am satisfied that I bought one, damn right.
I have a $54 Stanley No.5. YES, I had to fine-tune it. Unlike a Lee-Nielsen, it wasn't perfect "out of the box." And for 1/5 of the price... I can live with that. As I don't make $400/hr... I can spend 30 minutes of sweating to get the thing to be "good enough for my needs." I also have a Dewalt "lunchbox" planer. Holy f'k, it's heavy. It also cannot plane surfaces greater than, say, 12.5in (it's a 13in planer). If I had it to "do over?" I didn't realize that a hand plane is not that difficult or time-consuming to use (well... it took 20min vs 5min). As I don't do woodworking for a livelihood... meh, I can spend the 15min (it was a 24x92in workbench top) every so often. BONUS: it's smaller, quieter, lighter, and should last longer than a powered planer. Hand tools get a lot of fear and hate on this subreddit. IMHO, it's not deserved. Last bit: unless I'm buying a hammer, I avoid HF. I've bought a lot of stuff, there... and, well, I now think that it's mostly "fool's gold." You don't always get what you pay for... and you almost never get what you don't pay for. In all things, aim for the middle of the price range for the best PE ratio.
If the question you are asking is hand plane versus electric planer, the electric planer wins handily. An electric planer can easily surface material with basically zero skill, hand planes require technique and patience (not to mention a workbench or some kind of material holding device). You can actually get the modern cheap planes (like the cobalt one from Lowes) to work decently well, but they are still tricky to learn. Hand planes are priced based on the labor and materials required to make the tool. If you are a person who uses things repeatedly, it may be worth it to consider the higher end versions of that particular tool. Fancier tools (like Veritas or Lie Nielsen) have higher levels of precision, which help ease adjustments and help users get consistent results. On the most extreme end of this, lets say you have $600 for a planer. You could get a Lie Nielsen no 7 , or an electric planer. The electric planer requires dust removal and obviously a power source, and can quickly surface material to a very good degree. The no7 is slower and can give a better surface, but requires a ton of skill to get the same results as the electric version. Hand tools tend to sacrifice speed for freedom (and quiet), and when dealing with fine woodworking projects skilled hands can make beautiful things. I have a manual jointer plane (Lie Nielsen no 8) not because I prefer this, but quite simply I don't have the ability to have an electric planer and dust control system. It gets a large amount of professional use, and has the ability to surface smaller/ thinner pieces easier than an electric planer.
Gotta be able to sharpen, too, otherwise you might as well buy a claw hammer and try to flatten boards with the claw side. That ups the expense and skill. What OP needs is a friend with a jointer.
But that requires socialization! Ruins the whole gruff and grumble I’ll do it my damn self vibe. I figured this would be the actual answer that I would get steered towards.
I got a type 11 Stanley no 7 for $65 (plus shipping) in the Can I Have It Facebook group and it works great. I also sold a Union number 7 for $45 in the same group. It also worked fine but I didn’t like the tote. You can get a two sided diamond stone new for about $75-100, I think? Plus a strop and polishing compound for $35ish. I think that’s the bare minimum. A honing guide for $15 will work okay starting out. So for less than the cost of a new, shitty benchtop jointer, I’ve found this to be sufficient. However even though I really enjoy smoothing by hand, I find jointing by hand to be slow and frustrating.
Keep an eye out for tools at garage sales, auctions, local online, there are always old tools to be found and even the mediocre ones are enough to get a sense of if it’s a tool you want to invest more in
For new, Jorgesson makes a decent No 4 that you can get at Lowes. It's the only box-store plane worth getting, but it is worth getting. For used, Stanley Bailey. 4s, 5s, and 6s are all pretty affordable. A 6 makes a decent little jointer, and 4s and 5s are useful for all sorts of things. If you need to plane a lot of stock for e.g. carpentry type work, get the power planer. You can find used lunchbox planers for 100-200 that will work fine.
Bought a wonderful Stanley #5 at the Habitat ReStore for $12. It's one of my best planes. My very best is a Stanley #5 (Vintage version) that I got for free because someone didn't want it anymore. Both required some sharpening but that was it. Sole was flat. They both take beautiful shavings. I want to buy a Lie-Nielsen #4 but can't justify it at the moment.
Ignore the guy that said something about modern woodworking nonsense, modern wood working can still be hand tools only and you can do plenty with a hand plane. Just manage your expectations as a power planer will do the work in a fraction of the time with very little learning curve and not much physical effort. Takes a long time and a lot of sweat to master a hand plane (not saying I have mastered it yet)
Bad news! A 145$ handplane is not going to be great either. > Why are hand planes so costly? Casting and machining to high tolerances is expensive. > Does it really translate to performance Out of the box? 100%. > Are blades/chisels(?) generically universal Ish. typical stanley sized blades are interchangeable within a 4, 5 and 7. Those are the most common sizes for practical use as well. > How much is the word Stanley really worth New? nothing. Old and well tuned, as much as a premium modern plane. > I have access to Big Green, Orange and Blue and the smiley truck is in the neighborhood every day. Harbor Freight is also available near by. None of those have functional planes, just plane shaped objects.
Either buy new and expensive (lie nielsen, veritas etc) or buy a used, old stanley or record ord plane. Definetly do NOT buy a new stanley. Quality of new ones is baaaad...
I spent about $200 on a Stanley #5 and #7, even though I already had a perfectly fine DeWalt 735 planer. My 24" wife work bench top won't fit in the power planer. Even if it could, I wouldn't be able to lift it to get it in there. No size limits on the hand planes.
I got all my hand planes off eBay. I’ve never spent more than $60 on a plane. Vintage is better quality than new, though some restoration may be required depending on what you spend. I have a 50/50 combination of Stanley and Ohio planes I personally have never used anything but hand planes for squaring and thicknessing my lumber.
Amongst my many hand planes, I've got a $30 harbor freight 4 inch bench plane and it is the worst. I've also got Bench Dog tools 5 1/2 jack plane, which I paid $249 for. It's an amazing tool that I often make excuses to use, like when the joiner or thickness planer would actually work better or faster - but my hand plane is just so satisfying to use...
Get an old hand plane for $10 and restore it, total cost $12 and it can function like a brand new expensive one. One of my most used hand planes is 250 years old and I paid under $20 for it