My grandpa's hand plane vs my modern one - no contest

I tried flattening a workbench with my dad's old Stanley No. 5 from the 1950s and it took half the passes of my new Lie-Nielsen. Something about the way that old iron was cast just eats through wood smoother, no chatter at all. Anyone else find vintage tools actually work better for this stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

leeknight12d ago

Something about older metal just had more carbon or whatever mix they used back then that made it denser and better at holding an edge. I've noticed the same thing with old tools compared to new ones, like how a cast iron skillet from 1940 will outlast anything from Target by decades. Makes you wonder what else we've lost in the name of cheaper production, right?

evaperez12d ago

Totally feel you on this. It's like the older tools just had a soul or something, they were built to last and actually work, not just look pretty on a shelf. I've got a couple of my granddad's chisels and they hold an edge way longer than anything I've bought new recently. It's a bummer that quality got swapped out for making things cheaper and faster. Makes you appreciate the stuff that's still around from back then, for real.