I am fairly new to woodworking, but I find that I am more interested in hand tool work than machinery. I will be using a bandsaw for resawing burls and other figured (difficult) woods. Apart from that most work is with with hand tools. My projects are mostly small; i.e. jewelry boxes, small tables, etc. Mostly hard and exotic woods, and burls. I have the following: Stanley Baily #5, Veritas Bevel-Up Smoother Plane, Veritas LA Block Plane, (with 25, 38, & 50 deg bevel blades), scraper plane, cabinet scraper, sholder plane. I am currently looking at either a LA jack plane or a LA jointer plane. I really don´t know which would be more appropriate for the work I do, Jack or Jointer. Eventually I will probably own both, but budget constraints limit me to one for now. Any thoughts on this?
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Replies
Given that most of your work is smallish it seems that you're pretty well equipped right now. For your boxes do you do a lot of resawing and want a way to smooth the rough edges on thin stock? That is a problem for me without a good sanding tool. Difficult to plane and/or run through the planer.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Yes, I mostly use planes to finish up resawn boards. I don´t own a mechanical jointer or planer. I do use hand sanding when needed.
Since you're working small, the LA jack would be useful for smoothing both end grain and edge grain, and you can certainly flatten with it on short pieces of wood. The jointer plane is great, but maybe not necessary for the kind of work you're doing.
Jeff
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