Lee-Valley

Ancient Race · Post by **Ancient Race** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 7:13 pm

I've never seen anyone recommend Lee Valley tools.

I'd urge everyone to have them send you all three catalogues. Not only have I found their stuff to be of good quality and often unique, they provide even more compelling reading than the marine suppliers while you're on the . . . well, never mind. Just check out the site and send for all three catalogues.

Greg

Post by **Tim** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 8:06 am

Yes, they have beautiful tools! Always a fun read.

Post by **dasein668** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:38 am

And expensive. But lovely.

They have a good hardware catalog too. Dasein's chrome door and drawer hardware in the head came from them.

brucebrown100@yahoo.com · Sun Sep 24, 2006 7:20 pm

Yes Lee Valley is a wonderful company. They are based out of Ontario Canada. If you are having trouble finding a door knob, latch, etc etc to suit I highly suggest looking at their hardware catalogue.

Another good site in Canada is this site http://www.princessauto.com/ While they started in the automotive tool area they have branched out to all areas.

Regards

Bruce

Steve Laume · Post by **Steve Laume** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:53 am

I have a friend who's lovely wife used to get him a Lee Valley gift certificate for Christmas each year. He has a beautiful set of Lee Valley planes. Might be a suggestion for Santa, Steve.

CharlieJ · Post by **CharlieJ** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 8:49 am

Nathan- actually, considering the tools they sell, they aren't all that expensive. True you can go to Lowe's etc and buy tools for less, but the quality is just not the same. As someone who earns his living with woodworking tools, I'd consider them quite fairly priced for the quaility.

And as an aside, I would consider a Stanley plane bought locally to be a kit. Would need a ton of work before it was a really good tool, sadly. And wood chisels are miserable nowadays. Even some of the better names have dropped the quality to very mediocre levels. I search for old chisels every time I hit a garage sale or flea market. EVERY one in a while I hit an old Olsen or Keen Kutter.

Post by **dasein668** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 9:14 am

CharlieJ wrote:Nathan- actually, considering the tools they sell, they aren't all that expensive.

Well they may be a good value which I won't dispute, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt to shell out 180 bucks for a plane, for example. Especially for a hobbyist woodworker! ;-)

I own a couple LeeValley tools and love them. The do provide great quality.

keelbolts · Post by **keelbolts** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 11:11 am

Try eBay for tools. Most planes you get need to be tuned prior to use. You can get a WWII era Stanley No5 plane for as little as $15. Make sure the base isn't cracked. You can restore it for little more than your time and a can of black spray paint. If you really want to go all out, you get get a heavier iron and it will do as well as any other plane at any price.

CharlieJ · Post by **CharlieJ** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 4:13 pm

I totally agree. ALL of my planes are flea market or salvaged old Stanley Baileys or KeenKutters. I'm sort of a nut about planes. I do have a few transitionals with iron uppers and wooden soles, and one all wooden one, but my working planes are all iron soled. I probably have about 25 planes around the shop.

You can find older planes around for good value, but they are starting to get more expensive. People are catching on the the fact that modern newly made stuff is largely junk, unless you spend bigger bucks for it.

keelbolts · Post by **keelbolts** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:46 pm

Most of my planes are Stanleys, but I am a big fan of Millers Falls stuff & have 2 or 3 of their planes. I have a MF #7 which I hope to restore this winter. I was once on the Air Force base on Matagorda Island. I was Coast Guard, flying out of Corpus. I wasn't a sailor then, but as I remember it the Texas Gulf coast must be a helluva great place to sail.

CharlieJ · Post by **CharlieJ** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:35 am

Kewl-

We love sailing the bays for sure. Good sailing, wind almost all the time ( often more than we want) and great fishing.

We love wandering the old runways out at Matagorda. It's recently been dropped as a State Park though and now there are REALLY no facilitys. Just the free docks and a pit toilet. No water, carry all trash out with you etc. Now is a Federal reserve. You can still go there, but nobody is there for anything. Almost totally deserted, particularly after dark- We love it!!!

The state reintroduced Aplomado Falcons there a few years ago and they now have a dozen nesting pairs.