Too Much Stuff

A week or so ago Andy over at Oregon Woodworker posted about culling his herd of bench planes. Ralph at the Accidental Woodworker wondered if Andy was coming down with something and I tried to sell him on buying another plane, the old one out one in thingy. Andy had a point, too much stuff just gets in the way of making things.

I'm lucky here in the desert there isn't much of a rust problem, if I had to do rust patrol my tool collection would be much smaller.

For sometime I've been trying to get rid of the truly unused tools with out a lot of progress although this week I did get rid of the last of the router bits and jigs. Problem is most of the stuff is very useable but not for the way I work. BTW, I will get to the point of this post.

Even tools for the way I work there are too many of 'em in the shop. There are planes out the kazoo, stuffed in every corner of the shop, in the plane till, the storage cabinet behind the joinery bench, and under every bench in the shop. I know some folks have it worse than I but..... and BTW, the chisels are another post.

The crazy part is eighty percent of the time I'm using one of four metal planes and/or one of the wood stock jack planes. The four are all type 13 or older Stanleys, I do have after market irons in them not because the thicker irons improve the plane but because it is hard to find good stock irons. The reason I reach for the old Stanleys is because the are light, it is the same reason I use the wood stock jacks. Light is good, with a light plane I can work most of the day. With a modern heavy plane I tire very quickly.

A photo of the four users, from left to right a #3, #4, #4 1/2, and a #5 sharpened as a jack:

The #3 and #4 are freshly sharpened and planed the White Oak like it was butter, the #4 1/2 and the #5 not so much. Gives me something to do tomorrow.

The plane till with mostly LN's:

We have truly been sold a bill of goods that heavy is better. That said, the new LN and LV planes are works of art and I like using them for quick jobs. I wish someone i.e. LN would make a modern Bailey pattern plane. Sigh, my guess it is not to be.

I guess the point of all this rambling is I admire folks like Andy that can keep their tool collection genes in check and even more someone that can sell off unneeded planes or chisels. To steal a line from David Bromberg when it comes to selling off tools I have one green eye and one red. It's "stop", "go", "stop", "go" with stop usually wining.

ken