Popular Woodworking 2007-11 № 165, страница 36

Tool Test

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 30

H.N.T. Gordon A55 Smoothing Plane

makes them durable for the long haul.

Plus, the plane has a sweet tight-tolerance adjuster that works like a Norris-style adjuster as it controls both the blade projection and whether it's centered in the mouth.

In use, I found the plane to behave much like a metal plane, but without the weight. The low-slung rear handle feels familiar. And the position of the controls allow you to work much like you would with a traditional metal plane. There's even a place to rest your index finger. In fact, my only complaint with the tool is the escapement. I wish it were larger. Even though I was taking fine shavings, the mouth would quickly fill up. While the mouth didn't clog, it did require me to stop occasionally to clear things out.

Craftsman Studio ■ 888-500-9093 or

craftsmanstudio.com Street price ■ $260 or $278

For more information, circle #172 on Free Information Card.

Also, Gordon planes wear like iron. The A55 is available in tough gidgee ($278, above) and ironwood ($260). There also are exotic steel blades available for scraping. All in all, the A55 is an excellent piece of work.

— CS

Just as there are people who always choose white meat at the Thanksgiving table and those who always go for the dark meat, there are woodworkers who prefer only wooden-bodied planes or only metal-bodied planes. These two groups disagree on how much a plane should weigh, how it feels in use and the features it should have.

And while there are some wooden-bodied planes that have made overtures to the metal-bodied plane users, no plane has done as good ajob as the new A55 smoother from Australian planemaker H.N.T. Gordon.

The A55 has handles and controls that feel like a metal-bodied plane, yet it offers the sweet wood-on-wood feel of a wooden plane. Speaking as a lifetime member of the metal-bodied plane club, I'm impressed.

The A55 has a lot of good features: The iron is bedded at 55°, an excellent pitch for nasty hardwoods and reverse grain. You can even flip the iron over and turn the tool into a scraping plane. The mouth of the tool and the abutments for the tool's wedge are all brass, which

Zem Hearing Protection

You can't argue about the need for good hearing protection, but there is a good argument against how we've been achieving it. Ear muffs and standard earplugs block the sound from noisy machinery and tools, but they also block sounds that you want to hear, such as the phone, the radio or someone coming up behind you to ask a question.

Zem hearing protection is a lightweight solution that offers a noise-reduction rating of 26 decibels, yet still allows you hear many normal sounds. Foam inserts go in your ear as normal earplugs do, but at the end of each is a hollow plastic tube. The tubes are engineered to direct harmful sound levels away from your ears, yet allow everyday noises to get through to your auditory canal.

The tubes are connected at the top with a spring that keeps the earpieces firmly in place. This design keeps the tubes away from the side of your head, so there is no interference between safety glasses and hearing protection. The downside to this is that while these are light in weight, pressure is constantly applied to the opening of the ear.

For me, these were more comfortable than

in-the-ear devices, and about the same level of comfort versus annoyance of ear muffs. Ear muffs are heavier and interfere with eyewear, but I found the sensation of having something poking in my ear uncomfortable when wearing them for more than a few minutes.

The level of sound reduction was impressive; these block the sound of a planer or router as well as do the earmuffs I usually wear. My ability to hear other sounds, such as the radio or a normal conversation, was somewhat diminished. I could tell that the radio in the shop was on, but I couldn't hear it clearly. I could carry on a conversation, but when anyone started talking, I ended up removing the Zem so I could hear clearly and not have my own voice echoing in the tubes.

This is a good system, but the issues of comfort and hearing normal sounds clearly would keep me from we aring them all day. As a wear-it-when-you-need-it device, they are very good. They work, don't interfere with safety glasses and fit comfortably around the neck when not needed. Other colors are available, as are replacement foam ear inserts. PW

— Robert W. Lang

Sensgard ■ 877-208-0883 or zemzone.com

Street price ■ $24.99

For more information, circle #173 on Free Information Card.

34 ■ Popular Woodworking November 2007