The Quest for Precision

Monday morning came and found me pondering about the important things in life. Well, sort of…

As most of you would know by now, Lee Valley’s Veritas brand has come with a couple of new block planes, the first of their new ”Premium” Series. Aesthetic considerations apart—I am not very fond of the way they look, actually—they sure are a fine example of the highest precision engineering out there. As they claim in their website, ”the sole and sides are flat and square to within +0.000” and -0.0015” over the entire surface”. That in itself is quite amazing if you ask me but, at the same time, a question arises in my mind:

Do we really need such extreme precision?

Don’t get me wrong, when talking about precision, the more the better, I’m all for it. Alas, everything comes at a price in this life and there’s no such thing as a free lunch, thus this precision has a steep tag attached to it: $279 or, what’s the same, a merely 92% increase in price over the Standard Block Plane of the same manufacturer (which isn’t exactly cheap already).

What tickles me is that we seem to have lost sight of the big picture, enticed as we are by shinny new toys. To put things in perspective, people like Hepplewhite, the Chippendales and their contemporaries produced some of the world’s finest examples of fine furniture, some of them still unrivaled today in their craftsmanship… and they did it with simple wooden planes. In most of Europe the wooden plane is still the norm. Nowadays is hardly posible to find a metal plane in any hardware store in most Asian countries, all you get is a rectangular square-cornered block of oak or some exotic or another with the iron held by a metal wedge. No chip-breaker needed as they are all bevel-down affairs. Do you really think that those plain blocks of lumber are engineered to one-tenth of the precision of any Western Style plane? For once, they are made of wood and, remember: Wood moves. Constantly. Somewhat unpredictably. Wood also wears and nicks. Yes, even the hardest do. And still, I can show you examples of precision joinery made 300 years ago by Japanese Master Craftsmen that would leave you speechless. The modern metal plane as we know it wasn’t introduced until the mid 1800s.

Somehow, something tells me the average Joe Woodworker won’t be able to reach this level of exactitude during his/her lifetime. Even armed with the latest and the greatest tools available today. And even if he or she could, once finished, that piece of furniture would continue to move, expand and contract at the rhythm of the seasons for as long as it is still functional.

So, aren’t we probably splitting hairs here?

Now, the cynic in me is whispering in my ear what a wonderfully timed release it was. Exactly three days before Black Friday they release a couple of new, shinny, ”expensive-but-not-in-the-Festool-range” toys… I mean, tools. You can almost hear the credit cards hiding away behind the poor turkey’s carcass. And to top it off, in case you can’t convince SWMBO that you ”really, really need it to make those X’mas gifts for your mother”, they dangle the new carrot/dovetail saw too. And if everything else fails, you still have a whole month ahead of you to leave the LV catalog accidentally open on top of the kitchen island. Hey, after all, those stocking need to be stuffed, don’t they?

Yes guys and gals, I hate to be the one that breaks it to you, but we are a bunch of big boys & girls that love to play with big expensive toys and there’s nothing that would change that. And the manufacturers are well aware of that too.

Now I’m afraid I have to leave you, I need to check if the mailman has already brought me my copy of Chris’ old/new ”Moxon”.

-- Jojo, shopless in Kyoto · http://twitter.com/kagushokunin