Bridge City LA Smoother *LINK*

Re: Bridge City LA Smoother

Paul M. in San Diego

>The Bridge City sales tactics (along with their prices!) also turned me off. If you put a Bridge City catalog next to a Lee Valley or Garrett Wade catalog, there is very little similarity. If you put a Bridge City catalog next to a Franklin Mint catalog, you'll see a lot of similarity in ad copy. I consider them to be the Franklin Mint of tools. Good quality, but aimed at collectors and high-dollar gift givers. Not users.

Just my humble opinion...

-- Paul M.

No hype but way beyond my range  *LINK*

Thom Trail, Powder Springs, GA

>


holtey Planes

Yikes

Clay Craig in Miami

>Note that if you hit the 'prices' button on that page you get no plane prices, only iron prices (ranging up to $270 for one 2.25" iron).

To see the planes he has in stock and their prices, hit the 'home' button. They range from $4000 for the miniature thumb plane to $7600 for the last A7 shoulder in stock (admittedly, at the worst exchange rate in years).

Makes a full set of L-Ns seem like a piker's hobby.

Clay

Re: Bridge City LA Smoother

seamus holley

>Thank you John! Happy New Year!

-Seamus

We are all Learning...

Doug Evans

>It was not all that long ago that this stuff was quite a mystery and we (Shepherd) know that not everyone grasps the concepts of compound dovetails immediately.

There were so few people who were building dovetailed planes only ten years ago (Holtey, Carter, etc.) as a cottage industry with so little information publicly available that it's not surprising that someone would laud the information as "special." Many people suggest that Kingshott was the dam-breaker as far as making information available, although it's amazing how much information was left out. On the other hand few people know of Bob Baker's (An American Infill Hall-Of-Famer) concise desription in the back of one of Ken Robert's books.

Why can Dave Anderson, in Maine, build a high-performance infill smoother in twelve hours and a well-known author take almost four times as long? How come Sam builds his first plane as fast as I do? There is a great range in spatial ability and understanding of what's important and what's not, in the process. It is our mission to greatly improve from where we are at now (graphics).

You are right in that we appeared to be benevolent with information. It was strategic, as well. We are small and we could not afford to recoup the cost of patents, even PP's. We chose instead to "blitzkrieg" the market with product development - some winners and some not as strong. On a number of occasions, we were privately criticized for developing too fast and fingers pointed at the inventory requirement. We have successfully managed to accomplish our own plan (whether it was right or wrong). Part of the strategy was to deter competition. With the Norris, came the ability to drop the Smoother kit price. With the broad set, came the ability to wage war on price at entry level. Making the information plainly available on a widescale basis, also deters competitors - there's no mystery. And just so you know folks... this is not easy sledding... I think Ben and I can retire about the year 2075!

Back to the mainstream: It is quite plausible that someone could have made this stuff appear magical, given the situation only three years ago. Perhaps they have not had the time to reposition themselves. Three years ago, who would have thought that pictures would soon abound on the internet of the mystical process?

Twenty years or so ago, a company decides to make shiny bronze versions of Stanley Planes. How can they escape their own mission gracefully? LV rides rampantly taking the best of the past, present, and future with both product and process, highly competitive on both performance and price. Meanwhile, the broad product line that was once the goal is now the gorilla (inventory requirement) which must be fed. Infill planes, which used to be little understood and priced prohibitively, have now become accessible and are a scaleable process.

I guess what I am saying here is that the playing field certainly changes rapidly and it's not surprising that we can get caught.

Options open...

Doug

I think I resemble that slow guy :-)

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>

Re: We are all Learning...

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>First, Doug, your response is typically gracious and supportive. I'm proud to be a member of a forum that includes you.

Second (I HAVE to tease), I think that when Dave Anderson builds planes quickly in Maine, he's in a hurry to get back to New Hampshah before the Mainers realize he's crossed the border.

Re: Mysteries of Double Dovetails

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Many here remember, or at least have heard of, Saint Roy's wooden double dovetail joint (on The Woodwright's Shop), which looks like a double dovetail on the surface, but is in reality a skewed sliding dovetail. When he made it, he pointed out that, even in wood, that joint was a curiosity, but not really practical. His joint could be enhanced by the application of glue.

I remember a couple of years ago or so, someone implementing that joint in metal for joining plane sides to a plane sole. Further, they published photos and description on the internet. Of course, such a joint has nothing to do with bashing and deforming metal, which results in a useful plane body joint, and is really not very appropriate technology for infills.

The point is that the publication of this curiosity has, probably inadvertently, contributed to the mystery of building infills.

My apologies if it was someone on this forum who developed that method. I really don't remember where I saw it. Noting it now is not meant to ridicule the attempt, but only to point out how easy it is to get off on a tangent, and lead others in a less than optimum direction.

Addy protocol: I haven't built an infill with double dovetails, but I've bashed a few rivets, and I've reproduced Roy Underhill's joint, as an exercise, so I think I understand the difference.

Re: Amazing what you can do when...

Frank Mutchler

>Pam, I'm joining this discussion rather late but while reading your's & Bob's posts I took a trip down memory lane. My introduction to machines came when I worked for a company that made the rollers for paper making companies. My lathe was a LeBlond that swung about 48" and had a 20' bed, best I can recall. I turned journals (from casting made in our foundry) on that lathe. The journals weighed 1500 lbs finished and I had to keep tolerances at various points within .0005 (5 tenths). There was nothing digital about it, just carbide insert cutters held in a typical old four sided square tool holder. I didn't think much of it at the time but as I look back I start thinking that maybe that was a unique experience.

A large part of living is the process of pouring yourself into something until that object takes on some degree of utility or 'life'. I don't think many people understand what I'm talking about. Seems like a lot of folks here do ;>)

Someone said they would rather teach a machinist to program than a programmer to machine. Like you, I have done both. I spent 1998 - 2001 as a Java programmer/instructor/corporate trainer. That was a unique experience also but not one I long to return to (except for the money ;>)!! Talk about insanity!

I think all the hype in advertising today is probably driven by people who think a LeBlond is Hollywierd's latest sex symbol. It reminds me of my experience in the dot-com-bomb. Hollow people with their hands on something real but totally devoid of any appreciation for it's inate purpose. And so they run around screaming absurdities as though they had found Excalibur. (Kind of like the folks in that movie that found a Coke bottle that dropped out of the sky and figured it was some kind of god.) And don't you know, there are believers/buyers around every corner?? I know because sometimes, unless I'm real careful, I'm one of them ;>(

Re: Mysteries of Double Dovetails

wallyb

>Finally, someone has suggested that the double dovetail that BCTW uses is not the same as the dovetails used in the past by Mathieson, Norris, etc., and more recently bashed together by countless neo-infill makers.

I can't take credit for this graphic, someone posted it a long time ago in another thread. It was his suggestion of how BCTW might make their double dovetails.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Oh, yes, we get advertising hype because the target population is gullable, they want to believe what they're told so badly that the advertising actually works. There really ought to be a nationally dictated high school class in parsing hype. At least the Kalahari tribesmen had enough sense to take that bottle to the edge of their world and toss it; but if they'd been watching TV all their lives, I bet they'd have done something different. Maybe they'd have written an ode to teaching the world to sing and taken it on the road.

Pam, who loved that movie, watched it a couple or three times, rotflmao each time

My apologies to The Good Folks of Maine...

Doug Evans

>I understand there were already actions being taken last night to oust the scourge.

Cheers,

Doug

Sour Grapes

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>Brian, the fable of the fox and the sour grapes describes a fox, whom after failing to leap high enough to snatch some grapes from a vine, declares that they are really sour and not worth eating.

I submit that you have no knowledge of the finances of the posters here that would lead to a rational conclusion that we cannot afford to obtain the plane in question.

Further, most of the postings deal with the nonsensical advertising copy, not the quality of the plane.

From All Walks...

Doug Evans

>A few years back we got the FWW advertising package. It more or less indicated that of the 1/4 million readers, the average household income was about $US 110,000, and that these folks spent, ON ANNUAL AVERAGE, $US 10,500 on their hobby.

That's considerable dough... I think they could buy a house in Newfoundland every year.

In any event, if you had a must-have plane at $US 1000, I think you could unload ten a year to at least 1/4 million folks. Hey Ben... I think we can retire in 2040!

Regards,

Doug

If not for me...

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>the average would be higher. I think I probably spend less than $150 on WW-related stuff annually.

That Presents an Opportunity :)!

Doug Evans

>Given that it is the beginning of 2004, you should be flush with $150 cold cash. Thus, you could buy two of our next launch and have money left over for the rest of the year!

Your Grace...

Doug

That works?

Clay Craig in Miami

>Looking at that illustration, I still don't quite see how it goes together (doesn't look like the sliding-double).

In any event, I thought it was the bashing which pinned it all tightly, made the DD stable and immovable, thus useful for plane sides.

Clay

Doug, Doug, Doug...

Rob Lee

>...one "finds a new home for", or "places", or even "sells", but one doesn't "unload".. ;)

Rob

Re: Mysteries of Double Dovetails

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Thanks for the drawings. Those are the ones I remember. My intent was not to suggest that this is how BCTW does their joinery, but only that if you only look at the finished product you can't remove all the mystery of its manufacture. There are some serious disadvantages to this illustrated method. First, the joint is not self locking. It must either be brazed after construction, putting heat stress into the metal parts or some peining must be done. Othewise, the rivets that are supposed to hold the infills in place are the only thing holding the body together. Also, extremely precise milling of the joint is required to assure a tight fit.

Actually Bill they don't often...

Dave Anderson Chester, NH

>allow me to cross the border. I don't have the correct accent, and besides whatever I do I would always be consered as "from away"

That was mine...Mysteries of Double Dovetails

Sandor in Boyds, MD

>Reposted from Badger Pond Feb 2003:

FOYBIPMs : Here is something I pulled out of my I dont have anything better to do at lunchtime drawer.

After all the chatter about infill double dovetail making, I thought I'd post an alternative to peening.

When I first saw a double dovetailed plane, in my case it was the bridge city toolworks low angle block, I scratched my head and set about trying to figure out how they did it.

I had never heard of peening dovetails

so I came up with the "straight-forward" solution illustrated below that does not require any peening at all. But it is quite impracticle and does require extremely tight machining tolerances.

If the dovetails are cut with a 60 DT cutter at a 45 to the sole, they can slide together the way standard tails and pins do, but along the 45 line. The sole would be held in the mill vise tipped 45 away from the machinist. The sides get the tails cut with the same DT cutter at a compound angle. (60 degree cutter crossfed at 45 degree front to rear to cut the inner endges of the tails)

See the views showing the sequence isometric and front views. Once the sides have bottomed against the sole, a locking plate (or an infill) can be pressed between them to lock the sides in place, preventing the sides from moving inward along the 45 path..

Before I found the Pond, this is how I thought infills were machined. Now dont get me wrong, Im not recommending this method (too high a tolerance needed.) Peening is the way to go, but I just wanted to show that there is more than one way to skin a cat.

SLK

Re: From All Walks...

Eric Hedberg

>Doug,

My wifes been hinting we should move (or maybe she means me?) to shake things up a bit as we've been in our current home 20 years. So how is real estate up around Newfoundland? We have huge equity in our current home and maybe I can talk her into an "international" move before the dollar tanks. With all the extra money I could help you and Rob jump start some R&D or "reallocate resources" to a new shop. Eric

Re: That was mine...Mysteries of Double Dovetails

wallyb

>Thanks for posting that Sandor, I have a bad habit of downloading and saving graphics but not saving the person's name who was responsible.

Also thanks for reposting the entire graphic. Like an idiot, when I recropped my original I didn't make a copy and lost part of it.

That about describes me too, Bill

mike recchione

>

Re: That was mine...Mysteries of Double Dovetails

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Sandor, Thank you for redispelling that small mystery.

This time, I also filed the drawings along with your original notes.

BTW, a question (I hope not embarassing): You did build your rabbit plane by the tried and true peining methods, didn't you?