Comment on the new-to-me site and the Rockler "bench dog" hand plane

@woodburnbobgeorgianow,

A search for "bench dog" in the Hand Tools forum produces 16 pages of results in reverse chronological order. I'm not sure I understand why you would need to read through all of them if only interested in the most recent.

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Edited 2024-02-1718:55:31 to fix bad links

Hi Bob

Good to see you back. 

The immediate question I have is "what are you hoping for?". Are you just curious about the Bench Dog planes, or are you considering buying one? Do you have a budget limit, keeping in mind the old addage that you get what you pay for? One review I read loked at these planes from their cost, and did not mention anything about the performance: https://www.reddit.com/r/handtools/comments/l9r4yh/import_bench_planes_compared_wood_river_woodcraft/

Chris Gouchnour at FWW found they needed some fettling (don't all planes) but also did not comment about their performance:  https://www.finewoodworking.com/2019/10/24/tool-review-rocklers-new-handplanes?oly_enc_id=0906A8455678C2T

I have not used these planes. What I would want to know from a reviewer is how they adjust for performance (such as setting up a chipbreaker to avoid tearout), what fettling is needed for reliable work (e.g. how flat is the sole and how square is the frog), and then see how they work on figured, interlocked timber. I could not find anything on these areas. It makes me more inclined to stick to planes which are known.

I did find performance on shoulder planes, with comparison with a range of makes including LN, Veritas, Clifton, and others. Bench Dogs, in the area of handling and set up, came in last place: https://www.woodmagazine.com/tool-reviews/hand-planes/shoulder-planes

Regards from Perth

Derek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oarPIBbllj4

Correct on all comments there, Derek!  And no, I had no thought of buying one or even traveling to Rockler to look at them.  I don't do much woodworking now in my old age.  I've had enough planes.  I got my collection down from about a hundred to three.  I congratulate myself!  And one of them still needs some work on the issues you wisely cite.  But then it's a nineteenth century Glasgow infill, whose name I won't take in vain here.   Derek, I'll steer clear (wouldn't attempt) of any interlocked timber now at any time before my death.  Ha!  I saw the Gochnour review you mention before I dropped my initial post and got a real kick out of his last paragraph on the shoulder plane!  Perhaps that was my subconscious motive in even raising my head here again on WoodCentral.  Almost seems I provoked  the "Admin."  I'm a little surprised my post wasn't considered litigious and removed.

>Almost seems I provoked  the "Admin."

Nah, I'm too stupid to know if I'm being provoked.

After the offshore makers drove most of the domestic makers into bankruptcy, but continued to use their designs it seems there has been a relatively rapid price inflation.  It might just be the economy, though the lack of competition can't hurt.

How they work on interlocking, figured timber, is probably not going to drive most people.  The main issue is whether they do something.  Today I am quoting Office Space for the second time:  "what would you say...    you do here"  As long as it does something well, it is a win. 

220 is more than I will spend on something I could build a better version of in 45 minutes, for under 5 dollars.

@woodburnbobgeorgianow,

I used the search function on WoodCentral.  It seems a little restrictive and only turned up the phrase "bench dog" when used in posts about bench dogs. 

Search: "bench dog" rockler

TomD wrote:

After the offshore makers drove most of the domestic makers into bankruptcy, but continued to use their designs it seems there has been a relatively rapid price inflation.  It might just be the economy, though the lack of competition can't hurt.

there does seem to be a version of that going on with the nicer import tools. As in, they started just by copying the identity of something that was seen as valuable, were a lot cheaper and are now double the price or more. 

It's kind of a gross thing you see often - knocking out better stuff or the market for better stuff by selling something cheap, and then just raising the cost of that cheap thing as time allows. Often with stupid characteristics. E.g., the WR 4 started as a copy of LN and magically changed (presumably due to legal threat) to have some of the looks more like a stanley bedrock, doubled in price, and then adopted a nutball idea that something like a 5 pound #4 is a smart idea. 

I think LN's Bronze 4 was 4 pounds (I sold mine) and eventually in day to day heavy use, the bloated weight is noticeable because it makes the plane nose heavy. 

The fact that a stanley 4 can still be had with some regularity for $40 is usually missed when the "bargain" of a $210 imported #4 is brought up. and of course, thumped on social media for revenue links or sponsorship dollars.

I grew up with Stanley planes, or the plane my dad had.  Never much liked them.  Having lived through the Great Rediscovery during the last 25 years of the 20th century, there were so many books and and articles written on how to laboriously restore, or more likely, originate, accuracy in those planes, that I don't get how this, "just buy a 40 dollar Stanley thing comes from.  Several thoughts occur:

1) As with a lot of this stuff, insane standards of accuracy prevailed that suggested that one needs planes that function to a standard that is not useful, so we have relaxed a little.  If one buys a #4 to do what it was intended to do, rather than take a 4 tens shaving, then all will be well?

2) Maybe all the planes being bought were already upgraded by our forefathers during the Great Rediscovery. Uhh...

3) People have lower standards... Doubtful...

4) People learned or klunked their way to better sharpening.  Likely, to some extent...

5) During Rediscovery, a lot of the manual surface grinding was being applied to planes that were new, really not fun.  They cost 100 dollars way back when cars were 3K. 

6) People have far broader access to better planes, and better information as to which one to buy.  Seems most likely.

What say you?

TomD wrote:

I grew up with Stanley planes, or the plane my dad had.  Never much liked them.  Having lived through the Great Rediscovery during the last 25 years of the 20th century, there were so many books and and articles written on how to laboriously restore, or more likely, originate, accuracy in those planes, that I don't get how this, "just buy a 40 dollar Stanley thing comes from.  Several thoughts occur:

1) As with a lot of this stuff, insane standards of accuracy prevailed that suggested that one needs planes that function to a standard that is not useful, so we have relaxed a little.  If one buys a #4 to do what it was intended to do, rather than take a 4 tens shaving, then all will be well?

2) Maybe all the planes being bought were already upgraded by our forefathers during the Great Rediscovery. Uhh...

3) People have lower standards... Doubtful...

4) People learned or klunked their way to better sharpening.  Likely, to some extent...

5) During Rediscovery, a lot of the manual surface grinding was being applied to planes that were new, really not fun.  They cost 100 dollars way back when cars were 3K. 

6) People have far broader access to better planes, and better information as to which one to buy.  Seems most likely.

What say you?

there was a "rediscovery" before I ever got into hand tools. Wiley has reminded me when I go on at length about the lack of accurate and concise hand tool information (vs. a lot of fluff and woo and copying - my words, not his) that this rediscovery may have come along at the same time as a back to the land movement, which would predate you rediscovery period. 

if we are generalizing and not being too picking about perfection, I see this in the US and probably canada:
1) before the back to the land kind of movement, whenever that would've started, but crossing over to the woodworking side, the rise of krenov, let's say, there probably wasn't much hand tool work at the bench as a hobby. 1960 something?

2) in the 70s, it looks like tool stuff was in the doldrums and new offerings were things like tyzack saws and other bulky stuff that was just remaining after cost cutting. I have some tools from that time period, and they're crude but made to a point. At the same time, the yen was worth nearly nothing and there was an increasing amount of discretionary income and japanese tools showed up. So did japanese guitars. In a world where 250-300 yen to the dollar existed, the actual list price in japan of something like an aria pro or a good copy of a les paul was about $300 while the real thing was closer to a grand. However, I've also heard that the aria pros that were listed at about $300 in japan instead were sold here and marked up opportunistically, so the marketing wasn't necessarily a big savings on the ground but rather a big business opportunity. Japanese tools like ouchi and a bunch of other stuff is around - you can see that it was because that first round shows up sometimes on MJD. In the 80s, the favorable currency exchange stopped and we pretty much lost the traditional production of high end archtop guitars, and ended up with machine made stuff for solid bodies. acoustics continued. Long story with all of that, but the spread in the early 80s made it ideal for some opportunistic importers to soak americans and probably canadians and euros in some cases, and in others, sell the machine made stuff (like the HSS solid chisels in japanese style) cheaply. 

3) renaissance part 3 comes with the rise of boutique makers of cast iron tools. 1 and 2 just involved introduction of something from somewhere else or some hands on diy stuff like krenov. Or some seriously suspect claims about the quality of later record planes, for example, and the assumption that they were much better than stanley. I've never found that to be true after fishing those tools out of england where they don't sell for much - not even the wartime stuff does, and flaws in design or measures are in that aplenty. 

I guess we're still in 3, but there has been some increase in technical information available and more digging of historical stuff beyond re-enacting style stuff with fantastic declarations that don't hold water (like late 1700s tools being the finest ever made until they are made in replica recently - the experience using them on FAS lumber is poor). 

OK, after all of that - i think we have better information now about how to make a stanley work properly. I won't go into what makes a stanley plane usable aside from a comment about the frog having no gaps between the frog and machined sole. For something like a stanley 4, I would shop carefully in terms of parts and get a plane that didn't need anything and had no basket case damaged parts, but spend probably about 20 minutes total on preparing a plane like that flattening the sole and preparing the iron and cap iron and then it would perform as well as anything. 

we are at the point where we actually have the information needed to do that, vs. what was very popular when I started, which was to cosmetically refinish everything and strip a plane pretty much bare and go from that point. i can't vouch for planes past type 20 stanley US made planes, but up to that point, there is nothing to inhibit performance. people buying new planes made in england in 1985, I don't know - not so great of luck with those. Same with current make - you can do a lot more work to those planes, but they are less amenable to hand correction of things and some stuff is just wonky (cap iron shape is weird, parts of the plane that should be finished are as cast. 

here's why this is important and then why it isn't - my comment on the $40 stanley and perhaps 20 minutes to a half hour of time to make the plane good to use forever, and solidly bedded with a thin iron that really will fail quickly in hardwoods if the plane is not set up right, and then won't if it is set up properly. 

important - for someone who is serious about working by hand. A stanley 4 is nice. it's nicer than a lie nielsen or other high weight plane and it doesn't have the cheapness or odd feel and characteristics of oddballs like the bench dogs. The things that make the $40 plane work well don't take great skill, they just take knowing what they are in a sea of other information that may involve things like filing frog feet, removing the lateral adjuster and lapping frog faces, etc, replacing wood , replacing irons, replacing chipbreakers, and so on. None of these things amount to anything and the latter may help cover up easy to solve issues. 

not important - I doubt the average person who picks up a plane and uses it intermittently even over decades is every very good with it. They probably won't experience getting tired with a plane or thinking about how to plane more wood with less effort by not spending energy on things like leaning over or squatting or hunching. Their story is written at the outset. Mine is for many things, though I have had trouble as I get older just saying "I don't want to know anything about this, I'll just do it and then discard the experience". 

for the person in the important group - volume of work and persistence will probably lead to a good solution in the long run. it may not be with a stanley plane, but with some other type. there's little difference between all of them. I just set up a japanese plane for a friend on Sunday - he wants to get into trying them out and I have a surplus of them. it's hard for me to get into this whole idea that one is so much different than the other or the "nuances of a japanese plane are very complex and shouldn't be dismissed". They are not. They may be different in terms of taper, care for the tool, but a basic understanding of how planes work in general makes it hard to get sucked into the woo - especially if it involves describing an iron that has poor working characteristics "just being for a higher skill level". For the person in the not important group, there is no real test to pass or long-term need. the plane will be a transient thing, and if buying a bridge city tool or something from lie nielsen makes such a person happy, they can just do it and forget about it. There's nothing wrong with lie nielsen's stuff, of course, until you use it on a saturday morning in the cycle of working entirely by hand and realize it makes you more tired than stanley's stuff does (excluding the fact that the jack and try plane won't be metal, even at that). Infills are in the same category - wonderful planes. Make no sense to use if they're heavy and stanley's stuff is available. 

Lastly, I think any time someone asks a question, the chance that the advice matters will be well less than 10%. it'll be tried or not and the whole effort will be abandoned far more often than it will be used as a foundation block for the next thing.

Added later 04 min 59 s:

Added later 1 h 32 min 30 s:

I think it is now enough time passed that I won't get stuck trying to avoid several posts crammed together. (I guess not)

My comment on success rate in buying the right stanleys for use, which I'll spare everyone of. It isn't the conventional wisdom of milled frog and no stamped lateral adjuster, etc. That's inaccurate. 

I would say the success in getting a plane that functions as below with a sole that's slightly convex (preferable to machinist flat for an actual user of planes vs. collector and measurer) - about 90%. As in within half an hour I could have 90% of smoothers operating like this (add time for the longer planes, could be an hour for a six or more sometimes, and same with a jointer). 

i have not had a 90% success rate with japanese planes being properly hardened and tempered. It's perhaps 60% - I wonder if the others are figured out by an end user. I doubt it. half of the ones not quite right are undertempered, which is easy to fix. 

this is a new stanley jointer. it had flaws in making that I solved, but it was one of few planes (let's say after type 20 is a bad risk sometimes) from stanley in the bailey pattern that I just threw away after this picture. The wood is destined for laminated guitar necks, and at one point, I thought this wood was not practical to plane:
https://i.imgur.com/XustL3F.jpg

a stanley 4 of later type (20) that is supposedly not a good plane. it's excellent. This picture viewed through one of its shavings has nothing to do with doing work, though, but rather testing characteristics of an iron I made. 
https://i.imgur.com/nuk3Q0a.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ohkWSqJ.jpg - a second picture of a marples plane that I did have to spend considerable time on because the casting was too hard to lap, it needed to be filed. That's not practical for recommending to the average person and this is a record-make plane that demonstrates once again that the myth of wartime and later record plane superiority is attributable to looks (like a milled frog) and not related to actual practical use. I prefer the type 20 planes from stanley over these, and have five of the latter. I went through a row when ebay opened global shipping where I bought 8 or so record planes because they cost little in england - they're only bloated in reputation here. I finally sold my last one earlier this year, but had to include a second lever cap with it because the plane - a wartime record 8 - was designed by someone without a cranium. The lever cap length caused the front lip to drape over the front of the cap iron and prevent depth adjustment. I would bet this existed on every one of the planes made from that run, and I snagged a scrap lever cap from who knows where out of the bin and sold it to the person buying the plane. It worked fine then. The way the lever cap was cast, there was no material to adjust, it was a hook shape underneath. 

Maybe the things that actually count on the stanley style of plane aren't obvious. the mexico jointer shown above lacked finish work where the iron bedded at the back of the bevel. It was just enough unsupported span for the iron to beat itself up in inaudible and not felt chatter, and fail quickly. I ended up finishing stanley's job for them and then the plane worked just fine. 

the junk probably spoils the reputation or the odds of success for the average person. i could correct the mex plane well enough but it was still 2 pounds overweight and with plastic handles, the dump was its destiny. 

the 10% failure rate would be due almost entirely to improper previous user modification, switched parts, or undisclosed damage. But how will a beginner also know that a blue plane from 1960 or whatever is OK, but a plane from england shortly after that may not be. I think they won't, and type 20s were described as avoid at all costs when I started. they are one of my favorite types. The very early stanley planes and some others (union) that people like for how they look have an unsupported span of plane iron above the casting and have almost no chance of being a legitimate user for someone looking to use planes a lot.

I recently acquired an old Stanley 4-1/2.  It was perfect (free), as it was my late father-in-law's and it was the only plane he had.  He was not a woodworker - just a handy guy.   It had surface rust and was very dusty.  I cleaned it up and replaced the tote (the original was cracked).  The sole needed flattening and the iron needed a fair amount of work.  I spent maybe two hours on it.  It now cuts great and I get to preserve it for the family.

I just gifted an old Sargent #5C and a plastic tote Stanley #4 to my son-in-law.  They are both tuned up well, so he doesn't have to know how to do that out of the chute.  The Sargent plan was from my dad which my mom gave me when he died many years ago.  It was a user when he taught me woodworking skills as a kid and has been my go-to #5 until recently.  I recently acquired a Bailey #5 which I have made into my user.

FYI - I am not a plane collector.  I acquire plans that I need for use.  My personal arsenal is Stanley #8C, Stanley #5C, Bailey #5, Stanley #4-1/2, Stanley #60-1/2 low angle block, A Veritas skew block plane with a fence (don't think they make this model any longer), and a cheap-o Stanley block plane, probably purchased at the hardware store, that I use as my apron plane.  Its cheap, but sharp and does a boat load of work.   My dad had a couple of other block planes that I now have but have not tuned up.  Haven't seen the need for them in my work.

I have a couple of transitional planes from my dad and father-in-law.  I converted a #4 into a scrub plane.  The others are in the "family tool museum" on my pegboard.  Not for use, but they look cool - especially to the uninitiated.