# Excellent low cost Hand planes



## boboswin

I have had the same experience with these planes.
They work even better with a Lee Valley or Hock blade in them. Thes bllades are thcker and allow a beefier edge to reduce chatter.
Would I trade them for Lee Valleys? - of course!
In the meantime I have some darn good iron to work with with a modest investment.

Good luck with yours

Bob


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## AaronK

hmm. where do they retail in the US?


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## Tikka

Hi Bob

They are a great tool, but I have to disagree with you about the Hock blades. The hock are 3/32" thick, whilst the blade in this unit is a full 1/8"thick, about 0.7mm thicker than the Hock equivalent. Also I prefer the chip breaker on this unit to the Hock version.

I am really looking forward to seeing the remainder of the planes in this series later this month, Block, #1, #3, #5 & #6 - I think they will give the expensive tools (Veritas, Lie-Nielsen, Clifton etc..) a run for their money


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## Tikka

Aaron

Try WoodCraft click on the WoodRiver link above


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## boboswin

Thanks for the news Tony.
Mine were purchased about 3 years ago and the blades were about 2mm.
Looks like they may b listening to us for a change. <g>
I just bought a shoulder/rebate plane and am having to replace the blade before it will be serviceable.
For the $24.00 outlay I can afford to do that. <g>

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=53228&cat=1,230,41182,43698

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=42607&cat=1,41182,43698
Bob


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## AaronK

ah gotcha. so "remarkably like" means "probably identical" lol. thanks!


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## Chipncut

Thank you Tony,

This is excellent info for anyone on a smaller budget.


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## baller

where can you get em?


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## Tikka

Read the post again, the links for the USA are shown


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## matt1970

nice review…planes are an area i have not ventured…


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## baller

sorry to look stupid tony…but you said it was Like that one, so i figured ur source would be cheaper? is $120 really the cheapest Cheapest plane you can get new? i remember some $20-30 HF ones..


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## Tikka

Chris

The reason I said "remarkably like the WoodRiver Hand planes supplied by WoodCraft" was that I cannot confirm that they are by the same manufacturer.

You can buy much cheaper hand planes such as Anant, but my Anant hand planes are gathering dust, so much so that it is difficult to find them any more.

The old adage "you get what you pay for" does not apply in this case, I think that these planes are great value for money. I have used the Lie Neilson and Veritas #4 smothers and to be honest this plane is as good (a little fine tuning and tweeking, but the same for the more expensive planes).

So you can buy a $25 and you will probably spend another $50 on a new chip breaker & blade and hours upon hours fine tuning it and you may never get right. Or, you could spend $120 on a plane like this, get a better blade (full 1/8" thick Vs 3/32") than is offered in the more expensive tools, save a fortune vs. the more expensive tools, it will work directly out of the box (sharpen the blade) and hard pushed to see the difference in quality, if any at all Vs the more expensive planes.

If you are near a Woodcraft store, I would recommend that you call in and ask for an in-store demo/trial, maybe Vs a L-N or Veritas, I am sure that you will be surprised at the quality of the lower cost version.


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## boboswin

This is one made by Anant in India. I beleive these are less expensive than the woodcraft offerings.









http://www.anant-tools.com/index.html


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