>As defined - "being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before"
I have seen in my readings of old postings the attachment of 'innovative design' to the works of LN and LV with regards to their planes (and I am sure that the label has been used to describe the works of others as well). Question - How can these designs be labeled as such when they are really redesigns of old stanley's,etc? Is it a mute question? Has everything that can be done already done?
>I think once it is realised how simple a tool like a plane is it can be understood as to how hard it is to really improve it and how so much stuff that is touted as being innovations and groundbreaking is really closer to hype.
...An example. Not to pick on LV I am sure they make good tools but befor thier latest router plane came out we heard about it and all of it innovative design features etc. etc. it would have. Comes out and it is basicaly a funny looking Stanley 71 with tilted handles and an optional fence [that most people will not even use and may not buy] that attaches to the side.I wasn't surprised, no reflection on LV but really how much can you REALLY change [I'm not even going to say improve here!] a design as simple as a router plane?
....Even the great Stanley company I think failed to really do much improving or innovating on thier bench planes, is there really that much of a difference between a type 1 stanley and a type 15? Not really I don't think , maybe some slight "improvements" such as a kydney shape lever cap hole but nothing really innovative or impressive
....In the end I think just about everything that can be done has been done when it comes to simple hand tools like these and thier design reached a zenith probably over a 100 years ago. What is left is flash and window dressing.....Todd
>The handplane is simply a chisel holder. According to W.L. Goodman, in "The History of Woodworking Tools", the Romans were using fairly sophisticated examples around the first century. IMHO, the real innovation from then has been incremental.
The fact that we still see variations in style and mechanical design is a testament to who we are. We feel a need to develop new ways to do the same task...shave wood. From a simple chisel plane to the Stanley 55, we have taken the chisel holder and we have molded and shaped it to suit our needs.
Some current toolmakers have taken classic designs and employed modern methods and materials to produce more refined examples. Others, (like me) simply have a need to work with our hands and be creative, and have chosen handtools as the form of our expression.
This discussion could go on forever. But, quite simply, we're human, and it's what we do. My 2 cents worth... -wayne
>In the 3rd century B.C. there was a scholar by the name of Eratosthenes who through his observations and scientific experimentation discovered that the Earth was round AND he calculated VERY accurately the circumference of the planet. He basicly used only a couple of sticks and his intelect. This knowledge was lost and how many thousands of years did it take to re-discover that the Earth was round and how much longer still to accurately deduce the circumference? There is nothing new under the sun - a pretty accurate saying. I can't wait till an archeaologist unearths a low angle bevel up plane with a Norris adjuster and an adjustalbe mouth from Roman times;) Cheers, John Clifford.
>Don't the modern castings use a different/superior metal formulation than what was used 100 years ago? The A2 irons are considerably more abrasion resistant, which presumably translates to better edge wear. Of the small universe of Stanley planes I have seen they all had considerable bow in the sole compared to the even smaller number of LV and LN planes I have seen, which have none. My Stanley planes have vastly more backlash, but maybe that is from wear. While I haven't used one, some claim the LN chip breaker is an improvement.
To argue about LV inovation one would need to go to the patents and read the claims. Persons with greater experience than I have judged that these items are non-obvious to an expert in the field, novel and useful.
How many of you still shave with carbon steel razor blades, or a straight razor for that matter? Nothing new, indeed! As much as I liked my '54 Ford it would never have lasted 100,000 miles without significant repair as my last 6 cars have. Maybe I really wouldn't like it if I actually had to drive it, instead of its memory.
>As a patent attorney I'm faced with this question every day, and from my point of view, innovation is largely a matter of perspective and is more a quality than a quantity. Novelty and obviousness have been, in the context of patents, defined to such a degree that I will not even attempt to tell you precisely what they mean.
But 'innovative' usually connotes something more than merely patentable. A product might not be any different than its predecessors, but the process by which it was made is slightly different in a way that makes production much simpler. On its face, the process would be patentable, but to be innovative, to me, the improved process has to matter to more than the guy that invented it. For example, electric cars are conceptually very old. With the Prius, there is very little technology that is in itself groundbreaking. But the whole package, including the way it is marketed, is innovative to me. There is a certain value-added quality to the entire package that says 'innovative' to me.
With respect to the tools we use, the concepts are old, but to me the new designs are innovative. Not because they are truly that much better than what came before, but because in addition to performing their function, they keep some of the woodworking craft alive. Lee Valley, Lie Nielson, St. James Bay, aren't doing anything particularly new (patents notwithstanding!), but as a whole, thier products are innovative to me because in addition to meeting a need, they go further and help create that selfsame need, thereby helping to pertpetuate woodworking. Which, as you might guess, I think is cool.
Perhaps the most important innovation here is the increased emphasis on the aesthetic aspects of woodworking that have increased woodworking's popularity to an extent that has benefitted most of us.
>I read your post, and then went out and used my LV shoulder plane this afternoon on the current project. This plane has some real variations on the theme that make it easier to adjust and easier to use than it's predecessors. I believe we are living at a time where we can buy some of the best hand tools ever made. Craftsmen 100 years back would marvel at these tools.
>You ask the question, "Has everything that can be done already been done?". Of course not. I've made a short list of things that can be done that have not yet been done.
1) A plane iron or chisel that never dulls after it's initial sharpening.
2) A hand plane that will adjust it's depth of cut automatically when placed on the wood.
3) Production of a material that machines and looks exactly like wood, made out of garbage.
4) A hand saw that will cut a straight line no matter how hard you try to make it turn.
One of the things we don't see, as is shown in this thread, is how much hand tools and production of hand tools has been advanced in just the last hundred years. I would love to compare the LV factory today to a Stanley plane factory a hundred years ago. And this is just one example of how much things have changed in only one hundred eyars. We tend to think of our lifetime as a long time, but it is a very short time.
So far, the USPTO has disagreed with you over 100 times.... :)
In the case of the router plane, it is the sprung collar that stops the blade from falling out when you back off the clamping pressure....among other things.
Yes - the plane performs exactly the same function as it's predecessors... but it is configured differently, and in a manner that improves the product, or it's usability. It's not just about improvements in materials, and finishes...anyone can do that.
>Ok...Everyone raise there hand that has had a big problim with the blades falling out of thier old Stanley 71's when they loosened the hold down screw?...I'm not saying it doesn't work or that it isn't even a good design but Is a sprung collar that holds a blade really a good example of a new innovative plane design or is just more like a slight "improvement" to a design that probably most people didn't know they even needed.
.....I think it is more like Stanley giving you that kydney shaped lever cap hole then an innovative plane design like the Bailey bench plane.
.....I never said that not many tool patents have been filed or can be filed or even that they couldn't be improvements somewhat over older designs but that is no proof of any of them being really innovative.I probably could patent a magnetic device that holds the spare router plane bits on the planes body for quick access,[ the Router Magazine....hmmm] and while different and maybe even might fill a need and be an improvement on keeping bits from being lost I certainly wouldn't claim it to being an innovative plane design.....Todd
>I don't know... I think everyone's so caught up in the idea of new and totally, radically different... much like the art word, and a bunch of otehr philosophical leanings of our times. Everyone wants to be the new, and better, the first, the amazing... And I'm not sure we need anything that's so far above and beyond anything we would have ever conceived of.
We don't need superheroes. Japanese planes, when properly tuned, can do amazing work, and they're just a wedge shaped blade shoved into a block. On the other hand, we also have things like low-angle planes that have no real new features, but there's a compilation of things that come in handy. The bevel up design was meant to help improve blade support in planing end grain, but it also happens to make for really smooth cuts in face grain, with a properly ground iron, and a really tight mouth. Early wooden planes didn't have cap irons/chip breakers/double irons at all... just very tight mouths. So, old information... bevel up, mouth that can be tightened up. The LV has a few things, like lateral adjust pins, and pins to stop the mouth plate from closing too far. They're not huge revolutionary ways of looking at things, but they're nice, incremental changes that would probably (I have the L-N, so I wouldn't know) make for a very nice plane.
Evolution is a gradual process. There are a lot of small, incremental changes, all of which were good ideas individually. And sometimes, the genius is in the details. I rode in an old roommate's BMW, and really it was proof of this idea. Mirros are mirrors... but the side mirrors were polarized to reduce glare. Good idea. Turn-lock fasteners on the floormats. Not huge, but a good idea. Headlights that automatically re-level themselves. Soemthing different, and not entirely necessary, but cool. And frameless windows... old news on many cars. But when used with electric motors, they do something else... they open 1/2" when the door is opened, and when it closes, the window slides back up into a door seal, rather than just being held against a rubber gasket. So they're a little more weather-proof, and not as prone to have wobbly windows over the long haul. Something different. It's still just a window, but it's a nice feature. All of these are very small things. But all together, they do make for a very nice automobile, where it's clear that there was some thought involved.
In the end, I still want to execute 90% of the marketing executives in the world who have done this to us. By guillotine, on pay per view. TV commercials cater to the masses of people who are ashamed to be intelligent in a retarded world. And tools for the intelligent are being billed as the fantastic greatest new thing, a huge leap forward... when they work pretty much the smae way, only a little bit nicer. Just once I want to read an ad that says:
"It's not a brave new world, nor is an absolute must-have. And it's not exactly the flying car. But its got a few new things that we think make it a little nicer."
>Well Todd, to me your router bit magazine idea is pretty innovative. You would be surprised how many people simply cannot think for themselves well enough to even come up with an idea as simple as that.
>"Not to pick on LV I am sure they make good tools but befor thier latest router plane came out we heard about it and all of it innovative design features etc. etc. it would have. Comes out and it is basicaly a funny looking Stanley 71 with tilted handles and an optional fence [that most people will not even use and may not buy] that attaches to the side.I wasn't surprised, no reflection on LV but really how much can you REALLY change [I'm not even going to say improve here!] a design as simple as a router plane?"
Ah, this is a minor but ongoing source of frustration for me. Occasionly when a new LV product is being considered I get a chance to toss out my wish list. Rarely does half of it ever see the light of day. Now some of it may just be that my ideas are not good ones, or are physically unrealistic, but I think it is more often due to two other, partially related, factors, both having to do with money. One is that I want things that would dramatically drive up the cost of the tool, the other is that I want things that would benefit only a small group of the tools users, but add to everyone's costs. Let's take the new honing guide as an example, I really wanted a registration jig that would allow for skew settings (like for the #140), and I wanted shoulder registration blocks that would constrain narrow chisels like Japanese dovetail chisels. Neither have been acted on, despite a clear need that a few of us have for them, in part likely because it would have added to the cost and complexity for the majority who don't.
So let's go to the router plane. I started encouraging the production of this tool a couple of years ago. I wanted a tool that would emphasize both the "router" and the "plane" aspects of the name. I wanted interchangeable patterned scraping teeth that would allow it to function more like a router. I wanted a fence that would allow it to be tracked with reference to an edge to allow channels to be cut and surfaced for banding (and with those patterned teeth, beading and grooving). I wanted a long post fence that could have allowed banding and beading set back much farther from the edge than a typical beading tool would allow (more like the Microfence does for power routers). I wanted a bridge slightly ahead of and over the cutting edge of the tooth to which could be mounted slitting knives/nickers to establish clean side edges, or to which could be mounted a toe piece that would minimize tearout by creating a mouth before the tooth. Now I think that a router plane with an interchangeble pattern tooth and expanded slitting, mouth and fence abilities would have been a pretty innovative and and highly versatile tool (I sure would have made use of such features), but I recognize it would have added a great deal to the price. How many would have been willing to pay 300 or more dollars for such a tool.
So often, we see less innovation because most aren't going to be able to justify its cost. Othertimes, we see less of it simply because innovation by definition results in the unfamiliar, and tool users are often a rather conservative bunch. Think of the circular cut outs and gripping posts on the LV shoulder planes. Quite of few have been highly skeptical of their appearance, yet most who have used them have immediately appreciated the improvement in ergonomics. Makes you wonder though, how many fewer units have been sold simply because they look different from the traditional.
FWIW, I can't think of a tool that has so fallen short of my hopes of what might have been as the recent LV router plane, and yet I can't think of a tool since the LV BU Jack plane that I have been so excited to add to my shop. Just as it presently is, I simply love this new router plane.
>that the Bailey design is approaching 150 years old and was the core design for nearly everyone's bench planes for a long time, I think rethinking the design from first principles counts as innovative, even if a lot of the ideas (e.g., setscrews) in the final product have been done by others before.
>...that machines and looks exactly like wood, made out of garbage."
Particleboard doesn't count? Oh yeah, it doesn't machine much like wood and sure doesn't look like it. One out of three doesn't get the prize, I guess.
At the same time that L-N and LV are making money selling "innovative" or re-worked reproduction planes to exacting tolerances, etc, ECE is still making money selling wedged planes, Steve knight is selling laminated wooden planes, there's a movement towards infills, and japanese planes are still selling, too. At the end of the day, all the tinkering doesn't ALWAYS mean a better result. A lot of it still comes down to good blades, good sharpening, and a good mouth. The rest of it is secondary.
>How about you just start with an acorn or a walnut, and throw a bunch of composted garbage on the ground around it? Heck, you don't even have to find and plant the acorn. Some squirrel will be glad to do it for you, and probably pick a better spot where it will grow better.
>A long while back in one of those esoteric philosophy classes I read an interesting book about the evolution of ideas (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn). In that book he claims that ideas (like life) progress over defined time frames. Some kind of mosey along and and are redefined and defined anew as various people encounter them. However, their are those ideas whose effect on our lifes is so grounbreaking that they redefine us (as opposed to us redefining them). These ideas he calls revolutionary. As to the subject of plane and or tool design - perhaps the innovation or revolution occurs not so much in the tool itself but in how they posses the capacity to redfine our lives. Just as a child who first walks is opened to an entirely new world, so to is the man (generic) who first uses a properly tuned tool.
>Innovation has become one of the buzzwords of the age. But all it used to mean was some modest change evolved from some existing form. The idea of a plane, or a cutting edge was genius. The idea of tossing that lever on the cap and replacing it with a screw as on the LV plane was just a morph of several existing forms, in fact I think it had already been done on Bailey types by R or S. But it is still a good step. I don't think innovation requires a totaly new piece of paper, just a mark-up.
>With the tons of tools you must have Lyn, you are in desperate need of a Mill and a Lathe. Why wait for the mass market to catch up. Just cut the designs you want for yourself.
I think you are right about the missionary aspect of all this. Smart busninesses like LV know that even if their reputation is based on innovation, there is only so much change they can push at a given time. That is true of all innovative businesses. Particularly true when the business is a throwback also. Of course handtools have unique advantages but they are also cut off from reality a little. Like the Harley market where people want improved engines, but not necesarilly THAT improved. They still have to evoke the past.