Hand Work Hand Tool Blog

Interview with plane maker Steve Knight

Matthew Kenney, senior editor

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Smoothing plane. Before he sent them out, Steve tuned his planes to take the fluffiest shavings.

Steve Knight

Ebony smoothing plane.

Steve Knight

Japanese style smoothing plane.

Steve Knight

Smoothing plane. Before he sent them out, Steve tuned his planes to take the fluffiest shavings.

Photo: Steve Knight

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FWW: Why did you begin to sell your planes? Am I right to think that woodworking forums had something to do with it?

SK: Well, there were no forums back then. There was the oldtools email list and rec.woodworking. I posted pictures of my planes on oldtools. Some folks asked me to make them one and that was the start. Without the internet I don't think it would have happened. It gave me a place to show the planes I was making, but more importantly because I was already using oldtools and rec.woodworking other woodworkers already knew who I was. I wasn't just some stranger.

FWW: Once you started to sell planes, how did you decide which planes to add to your line?

SK: Well, I wanted to make everything. But I couldn't. The real limitation was plane irons. I started with Hock irons, but they didn't quite suit my needs. So I asked around about how to make my own irons. Turns out, it isn't that hard. I began to buy O1 tool steel in the right thickness and width for my planes. I used 1/4 in. thick steel. [Note from MK: in wooden planes, which don't have cap irons, thick irons cut down on chatter.] I found a place to do the heat treating for me. They could do it with consistent results and charged me about $1 per iron. So I would cut the steel to the right size, grind bevels onto the irons, and then send them out to be heat treated. Even then, I was still limited. I could only make planes with simple irons. Rabbet, shoulder, and dado planes all have shaped tangs and I didn't have the tools to make them, so I couldn't make those planes even though I wanted to. I eventually found a guy to cut irons for those types of planes. But it was still a pain to deal with and I never really sold that many shoulder or rabbet planes.

FWW: At the highpoint of business, how many planes were you making a month? What was your life like?

SK: For the first three or four years I averaged about 30 planes a month. I worked at home and was by myself all day. I would run from the shop to the computer all day long to keep from getting lonely. But I don't think I ever worked more than 40 hours a week. However, my days were broken up a lot and I worked odd hours, sometimes seven days a week. I think I had more free time than when I was working a normal job since I could work when I wanted to. It was fun, boring, and drudgery, but there was a lot of variety so that was nice.

FWW: What is the most time consuming part of plane making?

SK: Tuning them for use, no doubt at all. It could take up to an hour, and I would tune four or five planes a day. I was worn out after that. Cutting the slots for the wedges and fitting the wedges was particularly tough. Because I used a handsaw (with a jig) to cut the slots, they all differed from one another. The wedges had to be fit one at a time. And that means the planes and their wedges had to be kept together. I numbered them, but still there were times when I couldn't find the right wedge for a plane!

FWW: Why did you stop making and selling complete planes? Why sell plane kits now?

SK: My sales slowed down. That was my fault, as I did not really do anything to get them up. I just made planes and sold them on the internet. If you want to make money making tools, you've got to market them. Without marketing, it's like you are cold calling people. They don't know you and they don't know your tools. I think people are more comfortable buying from you when they've seen your tools and have a sense of who you are first. Towards the end I did buy a CNC machine, but to do other work in my shop. By the time a machinist explained how to use it to make my planes, I was getting burned out. I was doing the same thing day after day. But the CNC machine led to the plane kits I sell now. After I realized I could use it to make planes, all of my planes were made with it. At first it didn't save me much time. The CNC did not cut them as accurately as I could. The planes were more consistent, but they took longer to tune up. I also was making more elaborate planes, so that added to the time I was spending tuning them up. When I first started to make the kits, which I could do because the CNC can turn them out, the planes were still too elaborate and a pain to build. So, I simplified the design, making them easier to build for the person who bought the plane. And that allowed them to spend more time shaping and tuning the plane, and both the shape and the tuning have a greater impact on how the plane works.

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Comments (6)

nado writes: Does anybody knows if Steve still selling his planes?
Or if his website is down?
I emailed him for information on how to purchase them and never got a answer?
Anybody?
thanks in advance
Nado
Posted: 9:23 pm on February 2nd

Daryl writes: I have five of Steve's planes (and in fact interviewed him years ago for my club's newsletter). The high back infill I have from him (stamped by the way 001) is the best smoothing plane I've ever used. And the jack plane with tote is my heavy lifting plane of choice. His tools were/are simply marvelous.
Posted: 11:00 am on November 5th

knight_toolworks writes: thanks guys I had fun making the planes. I still like making them but tuning them up was becoming an issue.
if anyone had problems with my site it is up and running again. I updated it and it toasted. but I got it back up again.
Posted: 12:24 am on November 3rd

starryNight writes: great article with sloppy editing and spelling errors.
D-
Posted: 12:15 pm on November 2nd

dpaulstone writes: I bought three of Steve's planes about eight/nine years ago, when he was selling on eBay. They are works of art and nature, beautiful to look at and hold, and they work great too! A real "organic" experience. As with all wooden planes, there was that learning curve adjusting the blade. Can't imagine how dreary it was for Steve doing the original tune-up. Thanks for a superb product, Steve.
Posted: 8:23 am on November 2nd

stjones writes: I have one of Steve's planes - an ebony smoother with the blade pitched at 50 deg. It's a superb plane, great on gnarly wood right out of the box. I'm glad I bought it when I had the chance.
Posted: 10:37 pm on October 28th

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