The latest post on The Village Carpenter blog pays homage to the excellent creations of Konrad Sauer, some of which I had the great pleasure to handle and play with at length at my Wilton Winter Wonder Bash just before last Christmas. As you can see from the pics, the dining table was almost collapsing under the weight of some very expensive ironmongery!
However, prior to that event, I'd had a previous chance to look and them in earnest in Waka's 'shop earlier in the year, where I tested them in a side-by-side comparison with a well set up Veritas LA jack (which also belonged to Waka) The wood I used was some of his interlocked rosewood and after some pretty exhaustive planing, there was no perceptable difference in the finished surface using Konrad's BD planes and the BU jack...which rather got me thinking, if not a little baffled because I expected the BD planes to be far superior...but they weren't!
On seeing Kari's blog though this afternoon, I remembered that Waka had let me have some oddments of true birds eye maple, so I came home at full tilt on the 'Blokebike' and straight out into the 'shop.
The results can be seen in the pics, (click on the image to see a huge enlargement) Bear in mind that the my LV BU plane was grabbed from under the bench and wasn't particularly sharp, though the mouth was very tight. In fact the thin wispy shavings were taken first, so I decided to increase the doc a smidge to see what the result was...still a perfect, polished surface, no tear out of any sort.
The only conclusion that I can come to is that although Konrad's planes are fabulous, equally good results can be achieved with planes costing a fraction of the price...but I know that Waka didn't buy them just to use at the bench.
Great though they are...I won't get fooled again into thinking that acres of polished steel and exotic timber is in any way superior.
Shame really...'cos I wouldn't have minded owning one.
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