Tool Talk
Woodworking Forum => Woodworking Forum => Topic started by: HeelSpur on June 06, 2012, 11:16:46 AM
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Very nice tools you have there, Scott, and since you collect minatures, was wondering if you know anything about this; It was passed down and the only marking are a 100 and Kunz, made in germany.
(http://i1082.photobucket.com/albums/j368/wvabe/002-6.jpg)
(http://i1082.photobucket.com/albums/j368/wvabe/001-11.jpg)
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the only marking are a 100 and Kunz, made in germany.
Wish I had better news for you.
Your plane is not very old at all. Maybe 40 years at most, and they are still making them as far as I know.
Kunz is very poorly thought of, in tool circles. They make recreations of old Stanley patterns, only there aren't any refinements that made the originals good useable tools.
The cast iron itself is very coarse and grainy, and can't really be polished.
The blades are embarrassingly bad all the way around.
Every woodworking store sells them. Sold to newbies who don't know any better. They are cheap to buy and look like tools from a distance, so when someone doesn't know any better, they jump right on them.
Yes, I was a newbie once myself, 40 years ago. I bought one Kunz tool. One and only one.
Part of "Paying for your education".
yours Scott
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Thanks Scott, it really does look like a piece of junk and the quality is pooor.
Got a box of older solid wood planes somewhere, I'll take some pics if I ever find them.
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Wait! While I have been tremendously disappointed in Kunz tools, I have the older, black version of the squirrel-tail plane, and it has served me well for, oh, maybe 30 years. There isn't much you can do to screw one of these up. The Stanley clone spokeshaves are a different matter. Don't buy one! I did, and that was as close as I've ever come to giving a tool its "Silver Wings." I gave it away to someone who thought he could live with the defects.