After many cross-country phone calls and trans-Atlantic faxes, we had the privilege to shop test one of the brand-new Clifton bench planes from Clico Tooling Ltd. in Great Britain. These well-made beauties are aimed to compete with the expensive-but-worth-it planes from Tom Lie-Nielsen in Warren, Maine. After a few weeks with the Clifton #3, all we can say is: Watch out Lie-Nielsen. At its core, the Clifton #3 is a lot like the Lie-Nielsen bench planes. Both have a frog that seats on a fully machined section of the base casting. This feature, which was pioneered on the Stanley Bed Rock series of planes (1898 -1943), was expensive to pull off (and it still is), but the results have always been worth it. Like the Lie-Nielsen’s, the Clifton’s frog can be adjusted forward and back to tighten the throat without dismantling the frog, something you have to do on most Bailey-style planes. Instead, you merely loosen two screws at the back and turn the center frog-adjusting screw. Check your depth of cut, and you’re good to go. OK, so how did this thing do out of the box? The sole looked a bit bowed when checked with a straightedge, so I lapped it. To my surprise, however, the sole needed very little attention to become perfectly true.

The blade is a 1x8"-thick hand-forged job that comes with Clifton’s two-piece Stay-Set cap. Clifton sells these blades with the cap for more than $80 in some catalogs, so getting one on this plane is a nice bonus. The face of the blade was perfectly flat out of the wrapper — something I have never seen. The primary bevel was also ground true. I honed a secondary bevel on the edge and put her back together and got out a cherry board. Yes, the plane is nice. Yes, you need one. Yes, you can afford it if you start saving your money right now. It’s worth every bit of the $200. In fact, the Cliftons are a bargain because some of them are priced significantly less than the comparable Lie-Nielsen models. Supply of Clifton planes is limited now; good luck if you want one tomorrow. To buy one, we recommend you contact the Robert Larson Co. for a supplier in your area.— Christopher Schwarz

SPECIFICATIONS:
Clifton Bench Planes
Street price: #3, #4 and #5: $200, #6: $280, #7: $300
Blade: 1 x 8" thick, hand forged
Blade hardness: Rc 60-62
Handles: bubinga
Performance: 5 stars (out of five) Value: 4 stars (out of five)
Robert Larson: 800-356-2195, or www.rlarson.com