Clifton Bench Planes by Christopher Schwarz

When woodworkers talk about modern hand planes, you often hear them rave about Lie-Nielsens and complain bitterly about their newly made Stanleys. But when it comes to Clifton’s line of Bed Rock-style bench planes, what you mostly get is silence.

American woodworkers I’ve talked to during the last three years actually have more questions than they do opinions about this British-made line of premium planes. They wonder about the quality of manufacturing and machining and how the tools compare at the bench to more the expensive Lie-Nielsen planes and the Canadian line of VERITAS planes.

This Clifton No. 3 is simply a jewel. It was a breeze to set it up and met all my expectations. Larger Cliftons I’ve tested were not as perfect.

After almost three years of working with the Clifton planes, I’ve found that they can be tuned to a very high level of performance – what you would expect from a Lie-Nielsen or highly tuned Stanley Bed Rock. But what I’ve also found is that the manufacturing is a bit inconsistent.

Some of the Clifton planes have been nearly perfect out of the box, while others have had problems that required considerable effort on my part or – in two cases – for the tools to go back to the seller.

On paper, the Clifton bench planes seem like a good value. Despite the weak U.S. dollar, the Cliftons are less expensive than the Lie-Nielsens across the board – anywhere from $17 to $60 less, depending on the size of the plane. Like the Lie-Nielsens, the Cliftons are based on the venerable Bed Rock pattern but have some enhancements: thicker castings, fancy brass fittings, Bubinga handles and an improved iron and chipbreaker assembly.

From an aesthetic point of view, the Cliftons have a decidedly
English look to them and appear at home on my toolbox,
an adaptation of Benjamin Seaton’s famous tool chest.

But it wouldn’t be fair to say the Cliftons are a British clone of the U.S.-made Lie-Nielsen plane. The Lie-Nielsens are cast from ductile iron, which renders them nearly invulnerable to breakage. The Cliftons are made using the same grey iron used in Bailey-style planes, and the tools can crack from a nasty fall from bench height. The Lie-Nielsens have an exotic cryogenically treated A2 alloy cutter, while the Cliftons stick with tried and true high-carbon steel.

There’s bitter disagreement among users about how sharp you can make A2 and if it’s a fitting tool steel for hand planes, particularly for the demands of smoothing. That discussion could fill an entire issue, but my shorthand opinion is that A2 is perfectly suitable for hand planes and appears to keep a working edge longer than high-carbon steel.

Some Are Perfect; Some Have Some Problems

The first Clifton plane I purchased was the No. 3, and it was one of the first tools off the boat in 2001. It was practically perfect. Like all the Clifton planes I tested, the mating between the frog, sole and iron was excellent. The iron itself required little work – the back was remarkably flat and the chipbreaker fit perfectly with no tweaking. The sole of the plane needed no flattening. It was, all in all, as much as I could ask of any premium hand plane. A second No. 3 purchased later proved similarly perfect. Then I purchased the No. 5 and I began scratching my head.

I’m not a nut about flattening the soles of planes, but if they don’t behave as expected, the sole is one place I’ll look for trouble. Sure enough, this No. 5’s sole was too high at opposing corners. In other words, it was warped and rocked slightly on the work. According to a straightedge and feeler gauges, it was out of true by .005” (Clifton’s literature states its maximum deviation should be .003”).

That was the same amount of warpage I found on the Indian-made Anant jack plane and the British-made Stanley jack. Otherwise, the plane was in good shape; after a grueling sole-flattening session, the tool was a winner.

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