My Hand Tools

Lie Nielsen 4 1/2 smoother. This retails in UK for about £225, and is of the Stanley Bedrock design. Superbly finish ground malleable cast iron, with bronze frog and lever cap. Blade is A2 semi-stainless tool steel, cryogenically treated for small grain size. It replaced all my other bench smoothers which have now been sold, apart from the No 6 below. Highly recommended for all smoothing jobs with normal-to-difficult grain.

Lie Nielsen block planes, Low Angle (60 1/2) and Normal (9 1/2) based on the original Stanley and Record designs. Again exceptionally machined cast iron, bronze and A2 tool steel blades. Between the two will finish small boxes etc both long and end grain. It is still worth checking the sole for flatness, after dismantling, cleaning and reassembling the moving mouth slide parts. Mine was a tad proud on the 9 1/2.

Record 2506S side rebate plane. With this you can widen grooves and take bits out of door frames with the doors still there. You can also cut your hand badly with the blade you are not using!. You MUST use the depth stop fence or else the corners of the groove get deeper. I made one out of beech as mine was missing.
Sold in 2011 (Router table makes a better job!)

Record no. 75 rebate. No it's not a joke. You may be able to get these for five quid from eBay, but correctly fettled, sharpened and set they will plane a rebate. Of course setting them without a fine adjust is a pain, so I leave mine set heavy for chamfering corners before finishing with a proper plane.

Number 6 Fore Plane c. 1970 but pimped out of all recognition. This would make any serious plane collector reach for the sick bag. Based on a Record body with Stanley wood handles, Hock A2 blade and breaker, and scrap Lie-Nielsen bronze lever cap (faulty on my 4-1/2 so replaced by Lie Nielsen but repaired enough to use here). The other parts were mostly from ebay and the plane's sole was flattened using the Scary Sharp method of sandpaper on float glass. Used for all thicknessing and jointing work. See my article about reducing backlash with thicker blades.

Stanley No. 5. This is also a little embarrassing, but I like it. Athough customised it is all from original parts except the blade, but as yet I have not been able to date it. It has a nickel plated body, with a japanese "smooth cut" laminated blade. I believe that these were never made with plated bodies, so I assume the original owner did it. Purchased for £22 from a local flea market. The sole was 6 thou concave, and had to be flattened on a float glass mirror with 220 grit abrasive. Used for all roughing, and also planing edges of 6mm perspex etc.