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In this video, I'll be giving you a detailed tour of a brand new line of affordable, high-quality
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hand planes, but before I do, I have a quick story to share
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When it comes to hand planes, I have a special appreciation for these great classic woodworking tools
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This wooden hand plane, for instance, was the very one that my grandfather used to teach
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me how planes work back when I was seven years old. This old No. 4 Bailey smoothing plane belonged to my great-grandfather, a cabinetmaker, and
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I used it to plane hundreds of board feet of rough sawn lumber smooth while building
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furniture for sale as a teenager in the late 1970s. I've since grown my collection of hand planes and I take their care and use seriously
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But as useful as hand planes are, these tools are also one of the most underappreciated
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in all of woodworking, and there are really two reasons why. First, it takes care and finesse to tune any hand plane so it works properly, especially
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when the tool is brand new. You can't just pick up a plane, even a great one, and expect it to perform well without
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at least a little tender loving care, both initially and then also when it comes to periodic
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sharpening during use. And second, many modern hand planes are just built too poorly to perform to their full
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potential no matter how skilled the owner and how well the tuning has happened
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So this video is about a brand new line of high-quality hand planes that really are good
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enough to serve you well. They're able to deliver the kind of high-end results planes are capable of, and they sell
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at very reasonable prices. New hand planes don't hit the market very often
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In fact, such a thing might only happen a few times during your entire life
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Busy Bee is a familiar name in the tool world, and they've been bringing reasonably priced
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high-quality woodworking and metalworking machinery to the world market for more than
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40 years. They've now turned their attention to doing the same thing but with hand planes, and I
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have to say I'm impressed. I've had the Busy Bee planes in my workshop for several months now, and there are six
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main items in the current lineup. There are number four and number four and a half smoothing planes, number five and number
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five and a half jack planes, a number seven jointer plane, and a cabinet scraper plane
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all packaged in boxes that are suitable for attractive long-term storage. So sit back and let me show you some affordable high-end hand planes that fill a niche that
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has been completely unserved in the marketplace until now. But first, let me tell you about a problem
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The problem with cheap hand planes. Once upon a time, every new hand plane for sale had the potential to be tuned to work well
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This was the case back before power tools became common when woodworkers earned their
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living exclusively with hand tools. But as machines began to take over more and more of the work of hand planes, tool manufacturers
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often got caught in price wars, making planes that didn't actually work all that well
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although they looked okay superficially and had the one advantage of impossibly low prices
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This race to the bottom in terms of quality and price is why typical hardware store hand
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planes don't work well, except perhaps after a lot of skilled reworking of the metal parts
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And even then, there'll be nothing to write home about. Thin blades, less than accurate machining, and flimsy overall construction are the big
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reasons why many woodworkers have, mistakenly I might add, given up on hand planes altogether
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without even realizing what they're giving up. Over the years, this widespread lack of quality led a small handful of manufacturers to buck
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the trend and build some very high-end hand planes that work exceptionally well, but also
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at very high-end prices. So the Busy Bee lineup I'm going to show you here aims at something different
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It's the first attempt that I've seen to combine excellent hand plane performance with
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very affordable prices. That's what caught my eye about these planes in the first place, and it's what I'll show
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you here in this video. So what goes into a great hand plane
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The five biggest quality parameters that all good planes should have include a thick, vibration-dampening
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blade made of a metal that can take a keen edge and retain that edge after a lot of work
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Next, you need full support of that blade by a crucial part of the plane called the frog
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A truly flat bottom of the plane is important, and the bottom of any plane is called the
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sole, like the sole of a shoe. So smoothly operating blade depth and angle controls are important as well, and you'll
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want, of course, an inviting fit and finish and operation of all parts
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So like I said before, an effective plane is all about subtle but important details
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coming together, and now I'm going to show you what these details are by comparing a
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brand new bargain-basement hardware store hand plane with the corresponding features on a comparable Busy Bee plane
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Blade thickness and metallurgy. In the world of hand planes, the blade is often called a plain iron
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All else being equal, as far as steel quality goes, the thicker the plain iron, the better
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the plain iron. That's because a thicker blade resists chatter better. Chatter happens when the blade flexes and vibrates back and forth repeatedly during
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use, creating less than perfectly smooth results. Support of the blade by the frog, and more on this later, is also essential for preventing
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chatter, but a thick blade helps as well. Here you can see the plain iron from the Busy Bee No. 4 smoothing plane compared to the
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brand new hardware store hand plane and its blade. The hardware store blade measures 89 one thousandths of an inch, while the Busy Bee iron measures
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a whopping 101 and a half thou thick. It's quite a difference
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As useful as a thick blade is on a hand plane, the quality of metal of that blade is absolutely
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key because this determines how sharp an edge the blade will accept in the first place
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and then how long it will retain that sharp edge during use
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Busy Bee planes use something called O1 steel for the blades. O1 is an advanced oil hardening steel that does not shrink and can be hardened to an
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impressive Rockwell 65 level, and it shows, as I'll let you see right now
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The best way to assess the quality of blade metal in the field is to hone as keen an edge
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as possible on that blade, then see how it performs with actual cutting
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Here you can see me honing the Busy Bee plane iron using a hard felt buffing wheel
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This is a very fast and effective way to hone an edge to its full potential
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I use buffing like this all the time for honing and haven't used my sharpening stones in decades
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Honing is so much faster and easier. You really need to try it
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Here you can see the same edge I was honing just now shaving hair cleanly off my hand
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Another test I like to apply is slicing the end grain of a board
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A truly sharp blade will slice wood cleanly and leave no tear out, just like you see here
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Top hand plane performance ultimately comes down to the sharpness of the cutting edge
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so this is the kind of thing you need to see in any good plane iron
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Working hand in hand with the blade is something called the chip breaker. This is an angled or curved component that's bolted to the blade
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directing shavings up and out of the plane. In the case of the Busy Bee planes, the chip breaker is made of a specific kind of steel called
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cold rolled, close annealed steel, or CRCA for short. This is essentially a cold finished steel that takes a polish beautifully well, as you can see
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allowing shavings to pass through the plane with minimal friction. So take a close look at the polished surface I applied to this chip breaker
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as part of my initial one-time setup of this plane. Only the best steel polishes this nicely
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A polished surface in this area reduces friction and allows the shavings to leave the plane
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most easily and effortlessly. Full blade support by the Frog. As I mentioned before, a thick blade resists flexing and chatter better than a thin one
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all else being equal, but the Frog affects things here too. The Frog is that part of the plane that you see here
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and it's held in place in most planes with two screws like this
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The best way to ensure that the Frog is truly flat and able to support the blade fully
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is by taking it out just once and rubbing the working surface of the Frog
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against something abrasive, like you can see here. A well-made plane comes from the factory with a fully flat Frog that properly supports the blade
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But here you can see the Frog on the cheapo plane, and it's not completely flat and needs work
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You can see those areas here where I've rubbed it on the abrasive
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and it's shined up these areas, whereas the other areas remain untouched
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That's not what you want to see and requires a fair amount of work to rectify
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By contrast, this is the working face of the Busy Bee Frog
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It takes just a few strokes to show that this Frog is flat and able to do its work properly
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This Frog on the Busy Bee plane needs no remedial attention, not now nor later
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A flat, accurate sole is also important, and checking this detail is similar to checking the Frog
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Rubbing the Busy Bee plane on a flat abrasive surface shows that the sole really is truly flat
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with no high areas and no refinement needed. In fact, these planes are rated to be flat within 3 one-thousandths of an inch along their entire length
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with sides that are within also 3 one-thousandths of an inch of being perfectly square
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Compare this to the hardware store plane you can see here, and how the areas of the sole are higher than the rest, requiring a lot of time and elbow grease
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to get where it should be, and that's truly flat. The metal that a plane body is made of is another thing that separates cheap planes from great ones
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As with some other high-end planes, the body of the Busy Bee offering is made of ductile iron
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long recognized as the world's best, fairest metal, and stable for plane production
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Ductile iron will not break even if you drop your plane from a height onto a concrete floor
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You certainly can't say that about the cast iron used to make cheap planes
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High-end planes like the Busy Bee line also have perfectly square edges
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that are essential for certain planing operations. This metal machinist's square shows that cheap planes often lack truly square corners
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where the sole meets the sides, whereas properly made planes have completely square edges, just like you can see here
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Control Operation There are two main controls on any hand plane, and their smooth operation is something you'll appreciate regularly
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The depth control wheel moves the blade in or out from the sole, affecting the depth of wood removed in each pass
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The other control is this lever. It angles the blade one way or the other, depending on what you want
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Most planing is done with the working edge of the blade parallel with the opening it extends through
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just like you see here. The controls on the Busy Bee planes work very well and smoothly
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and you can certainly tell the difference compared with the cheapo plane, even with your eyes closed
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Fit and Finish Besides proper function, beauty and refinement are reasons to own a high-quality hand plane, too
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It's simply nice to have and to hold, because the best planes are both attractive objects as well as useful tools
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Many people buy hand planes for this reason, and that's perfectly legitimate
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A beautiful object that makes curls of wood and rough boards smooth
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is certainly something that's easy for any woodworker to like. The current line of Busy Bee planes I tested include
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handles made of an African hardwood called sapele. It's about the same hardness as hard maple
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but I'm told that the sapele was chosen because it has an interlocking grain pattern
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that makes it much more resistant to splitting. It's one of the nicest handle woods around
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Knurled brass adjusters are also easy to use and easy to like
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So what can a truly great hand plane do with a piece of wood
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Well, it can produce nice, predictable curls of wood, and even curls that are so thin you can see light through them
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Once you get a great hand plane working like this, you'll have discovered the best-kept secret in the world of woodworking
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Can you see why I like hand planes so much