I Made a £38 Plane Perform Like a £338 Plane

one of my life's biggest achievements was working in a tool store for five years and spending three years of those wages in the very same store i was working in hand tools power tools i've got the lot here i've even started making some of my own it's become a bit of an obsession so you can imagine how i felt when i heard this yeah thomas anderson says any chance of you checking out slash testing the new amazon basics woodworking tools they're starting to put out they have a stanley number four playing clone currently you've added it to the basket of you the order was placed right there on the spot i had to see what this thing was like february rolled around no sign of it march no sign of it april nope may no june july come on it's 2020 what's happening in the world that could possibly hold this up eventually i get a message from amazon explaining that the order has been cancelled the journey has ended before it's even started i feel defeated and then when all hope was lost what in god's name is this [Music] so we finally got one an amazon basics plane courtesy of a very kind viewer of this channel and this leaves us with three questions firstly how well does it work secondly how long will it take me to get it working to a high standard and thirdly how much will it cost me to do this all we need is a benchmark let's say a lien nelson bench plane that currently retails at 338 pounds 28 in the uk this plane costs 38 pounds 95 plus 17 pounds 69 shipping equaling 56 pounds 64. work out the difference between the two of them 281 pounds 64. my hourly rate is 30 pounds so 280 164 divided by 30. give me the amount of time i have to work on this the first thing i wanted to check out was the blade no matter what price you spend on a plane it will never be ready out the box and given the state of this thing it was no exception to the rule despite doing my best there was a significant bump in the middle of the blade that was almost impossible to remove [Music] after somewhat flattening the back i re-ground the blade to get rid of the rough finish on the primary bevel this step isn't completely necessary but i thought it may save me some effort when producing the secondary bevel i sharpened to 6000 grit so the process of flattening and sharpening the blade took just under an hour because there was a huge bump in the bottom of the blade that just had to go the only thing that actually kept the process under one hour was the fact that the steel for this was so soft a giveaway for this was the gigantic burr that was left behind while sharpening look at the size of it next i moved on to the chip breaker and look at it compared to elie nielsen the mating surface between this and the blade was diabolical and needed to be flattened but not only that it had a chrome finish on it that i absolutely despised so i got to work stripping it back to bare metal [Music] now what you just saw was the beautiful end result of sharpening and setting up a plane correctly however what i failed to show you was the royal nightmare i had getting it there in the first place there are multiple potential causes for this that i intended to rule out one by one the first port of call was the frog which is this part of the plane this is what holds the blade at the desired angle while supporting it throughout the cut it's also what the blade slides on when being adjusted now i don't know about you but i think i'd have better luck sliding on sharp rocks than this thing so i removed it from the plane and began flattening it [Music] after flattening the frog i went to reassemble the plane however upon doing so i noticed the frog was rocking on the casting below which is a big no-no if you want to take thin consistent shavings with a plane i flipped the frog over and noticed a poor quality finish on the surface that mated the plane casting to remedy this i decided to mount the entire frog in the honing guide and flatten this area too [Music] [Applause] seeing as i was already working on the frog i decided to work on its cosmetics as well as they were somewhat lackluster my favorite part being the pivot point for the lateral adjuster i'm pretty sure they installed this with a gun after flattening the frog into something that somewhat resembled a slippery surface the adjustments were working better but not as well as i'd hoped i had to look deeper i began looking into the mechanisms to see what clues i could find and i noticed there was some suspicious burnishing on the thrust wheel to give you some context here when this wheel travels up and down the thread it pivots this little mechanism called the yoke when the yoke pivots it pushes the blade out or pulls it back depending on the direction you spin the wheel of course the yoke wraps around both sides of the thrust wheel and if it's slightly too tight or the surface is rough there's going to be excessive friction when the wheel turns which is exactly what i was experiencing so i began filing and smoothing it out [Applause] again this made a notable difference to the action of the plane but it still wasn't working as intended going back a few steps remember the frog rocking on the casting below well i managed to uncover another problem related to this it turns out that not only was the frog sitting unevenly on the casting but the mouth had also been cut unevenly too previously this era was cancelled out by the frog locking down at an angle no i don't want the banana again but upon fixing it i uncovered this new problem of a wonky mouth as a result this caused the blade to stop advancing when being set up for a cut the blade was now able to advance from the sole of the plane so we're back to where we were a few steps ago what really grinded my gears however was that it still didn't work this one took a bit of figuring out but upon closely inspecting the yoke i noticed that the pin it pivoted on was not actually round but rather a shape that somewhat resembled a torx bit however on my lee nielsen it was perfectly round and polished there were two problems with this firstly the rough finish on the pin increased friction within the mechanism but secondly what made this worse was that the hole in the yoke was significantly larger than the pin itself thus was causing the yoke to tilt and bind every time the thrust wheel was rotated in a different direction unfortunately i was unable to simply replace the pin due to various issues with reinstalling it back in the frog so i decided the best option was to create a bronze bushing that was a press fit over the existing pin this would produce a smooth surface for the yoke to pivot on and was also relatively easy to create [Music] i haven't got my cutting speed to chop [Music] [Applause] disgusting [Applause] once the bushing was fitted i needed to widen the existing hole on the yoke in order to accommodate it this was a weird shape to clamp and i'm sure me doing this will tickle the jimmies of all engineers watching this but i found the easiest way to ensure i lined up everything accurately was to simply skewer the yoke on the drill bit while it was in the milling machine then use this to locate the vise jaws below this was then drilled to a few hundredths of a millimeter wider than the bushing and then we attempted to get it fitted the first fit was a little too tight and despite me trying to bodge it required me to make a second attempt [Music] i shaved a few hundredths of the diameter and tried it again [Music] it was now time to see the fruits of my uh-huh uh-huh i see that cool a bit more oh no okay i think the lee nelson's got it just just though in it are you getting a little bit of slide when you were when you were pushing them anyway that's true if i get that in that's what was finding before that's smooth with suit now yeah okay that's it yeah yeah i've made it better than the nelson with the combination of the bushing and some oil as you can see this made an unbelievable difference to the smoothness of the mechanism every little thing you do just makes it just a tiny bit better with the mechanisms now working smoothly i turned my attention to flattening the sole it's important to note here when pressure from the lever cap is applied it distorts the sole ever so slightly so it's important to flatten the sole with the frog blade and lever cap in situ to ensure this distortion was accounted for [Music] as you'll see at the end of the video the sides of this plane were so far out of square i didn't even bother trying to square them off i just polished them for cosmetic reasons instead [Music] the next job was the handles and i'm pretty sure amazon opted to finish these in chocolate as opposed to a traditional wood finish not only was the colour rather unsightly but the finish felt very rough and plasticky so i started by stripping it off [Music] fun fact though turns out the front handle was made from maple and the rear handle was made from beech [Applause] after some experimentation i managed to create a beautiful amber finish by creating a concoction of brown and orange stain which then had a few layers of skeleton sores peacock oil applied after the next job was to strip off the thick uneven and chipped paint from the sole of the plane this was due to be replaced with a thinner coat of black paint with a less glossy sheen than the original before applying the paint however i decided to file and polish the top of the sole's walls to match the polished finish on my lead nielsen the base looked absolutely incredible after being repainted and re-polished however time was beginning to wear very thin at this point and i was quite worried i wasn't going to make it the final few jobs were surrounding the plane's cosmetics such as removing chrome finishes cleaning paint overspray polishing and oiling mechanisms and cleaning various components of the plane the finish line was in sight [Music] all right before i show you the result let me tell you why i think a lot of woodworkers are hypocrites you see i hear a lot of woodworkers say that expensive tools are a waste of money because you can get the job done with cheap tools and while that may be true i see the same woodworkers complain that the general public keep buying cheap mass-produced furniture as opposed to spending their money on handmade furniture that a craftsman has spent time and care on making well the same could be said for these tool manufacturers that you're dismissing as a waste of money these manufacturers have built high quality tools that will outlast you all while being passionate about their craft which is more than can be said for the company responsible for the plane under this cloth and look i get it money budgets come into that somewhat but if you take anything from this video anything at all don't let it be that you can make a cheap plane perform the same as elie nielsen or any other premium plane for that matter because underneath all this shininess is poor materials cheap labor and one less sale for a passionate business owner that actually cares think about that right let's put a download on everything let's show you the results shall we [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] seeing as this plane's now received the love and attention it deserves i'm selling it i don't want it link in description foreign

Channel: Matt Estlea

Views: 438,816

Rating: 4.8308883 out of 5

Keywords: hand plane, amazon basics plane, amazon basics hand plane, amazon basics woodworking tools, amazon woodworking tools, woodworking tools, cheap woodworking tools, what woodworking tools to buy, fixing a handplane, tuning up a handplane, fixing an old handplane, fixing a cheap handplane, cheap vs expensive tools, cheap vs expensive woodworking tools, amazon basics plane review, amazon basics plane test, amazon basics woodworking tools review, amazon tools, hand tools, estlea

Id: dgIdcIzHG38

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Chaosandart88]

Speaking as a beginner, it's easy to forget that your time is valuable and the last thing you want to be doing when learning is losing time butchering your project with a poorly made plane or cleaning it up to a standard that it isn't butchering your project. I wouldn't even know where to start when it comes to refurbishing a tool like that.

The other side of the coin is the cost of the likes of Lie-Neilsen hand planes and tools in general. Can I justify spending that kind of money? Am I wasting my time on this hobby if I don't spend that kind of money?

They are also very difficult to get hold of. Sold out in most cases.

[u/oldtoolfool]

What i took away from his experience is that you are buying a shitty plane, he virtually remanufactured every important piece of the plane, spent 9 hours doing so, and still had a shitty iron in the plane when done that would not hold an edge with a shitty chipbreaker (so you spend money for a Hock). So figure $20 an hour for your time, $35 for the plane, $80 for the Hock iron and breaker, and if you don't have the files, sandpaper, paint, etc, lets just add in $25 for incidentals/consumables. That's $320, putting you firmly in LN/Veritas territory.

You can do much better with a vintage Stanley, Millers Falls, Sargent etc. example, non of which will require the extensive rebuild done to the Amazon plane.

[u/workingthatwood]

I am a light hobbyist, more of an enthusiest, that has dabbled with the shitty to mid range tool selection. The effort, skill, and knowledge he put in to that plane is WAY out of my league. I know myself, and if I have to do a bunch of work just to be able to enjoy my hobby for an hour here and there, it'll destroy my motivation.
That being said, I looked up the plane he's selling on eBay, and even if it cuts like a polished up turd, it looks slick as hell.