Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, Inc. is a family-owned business, established in 1981 and based in

Warren, Maine Warren is a town in Knox County, Maine, United States. The population was 4,865 at the 2020 census. It includes the villages of East Warren, Warren and South Warren, the latter home to the Maine State Prison and minimum security Bolduc Corre ...

. It manufactures a range of high quality

hand tools A hand tool is any tool that is powered by hand rather than a motor. Categories of hand tools include wrenches, pliers, cutters, files, striking tools, struck or hammered tools, screwdrivers, vises, clamps, snips, hacksaws, drills, and kn ...

, primarily for woodworking, based on traditional designs.Garrett Hack and John S. Sheldon. The Handplane Book. Taunton Press: Newtown, CT. 2003. 236-239 It is best known for its hand planes. Thomas Lie-Nielsen is the founder and CEO of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks.

History

In the late 1970s, Thomas Lie-Nielsen (pronounced "Lee-Neelsen"Lie-Nielsen's FAQ page
/ref>) worked for Garry Chinn's company,

Garrett Wade Garrett Wade is a family-owned business, established in 1975 and based in DUMBO, Brooklyn and Cincinnati, Ohio. It sources and sells a range of high quality hand tools, primarily for woodworking, gardening, and outdoor work, based on traditional ...

. In 1981, Garrett Wade's supplier of an adapted

Stanley Stanley may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Stanley'' (1972 film), an American horror film * ''Stanley'' (1984 film), an Australian comedy * ''Stanley'' (1999 film), an animated short * ''Stanley'' (1956 TV series) ...

#95 edge trimming

block plane A block plane is a small metal-bodied woodworking hand plane which typically has the blade bedded at a lower angle than other planes, with the bevel up. It is designed to cut end grain and do touchup or finish work. It is typically small enough t ...

, Ken Wisner, was ready to leave the business, so Lie-Nielsen acquired the tooling, plans and components necessary for producing the #95.Furniture & Cabinetmaking issue 63, Lie-Nielsen Feature. Lie-Nielsen moved from New York to a farm in West Rockport, Maine, and began production of the plane in a tiny back-yard shed. The first of the new planes was delivered to Chinn in the autumn of 1981. A few years later, Lie-Nielsen moved into a workshop on the farm, and started production on his second plane, the skew-angle block plane. In 1988, as business grew, Lie-Nielsen bought an building in the town of Warren, Maine, which the company still occupies. In the mid-1990s, Lie-Nielsen moved the entire production to a facility. Today, the Lie-Nielsen Toolworks products compete with mass-produced tools from companies such as Stanley and Record, with sales in the order of 20,000 tools a year. The acquisition of the Independence Tool Co. in 1998 added

hand saws In woodworking and carpentry, hand saws, also known as "panel saws", are used to cut pieces of wood into different shapes. This is usually done in order to join the pieces together and carve a wooden object. They usually operate by having a s ...

to the product line, which has further expanded over the years to include over 50 different models of planes, in addition to

spokeshave A spokeshave is a hand tool used to shape and smooth woods in woodworking jobs such as making cart wheel spokes, chair legs, paddles, bows, and arrows. The tool consists of a blade fixed into the body of the tool, which has a handle for each ha ...

s, socket

chisel A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge (such that wood chisels have lent part of their name to a particular grind) of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, s ...

screwdriver A screwdriver is a tool, manual or powered, used for turning screws. A typical simple screwdriver has a handle and a shaft, ending in a tip the user puts into the screw head before turning the handle. This form of the screwdriver has been repla ...

s, marking and

measuring Measurement is the quantification of attributes of an object or event, which can be used to compare with other objects or events. In other words, measurement is a process of determining how large or small a physical quantity is as compared ...

devices and

workbench A workbench is a sturdy table at which manual work is done. They range from simple flat surfaces to very complex designs that may be considered tools in themselves. Workbenches vary in size from tiny jewellers benches to the huge benches used by ...

hardware.

Construction

Lie-Nielsen uses

manganese bronze Manganese Bronze Holdings plc (MBH) was the holding company of LTI Limited. The firm's sole business in its final years as a company was London black taxicab manufacturing through the LTI subsidiary. The Manganese Bronze and Brass Co was fou ...

and

ductile iron Ductile iron, also known as ductile cast iron, nodular cast iron, spheroidal graphite iron, spheroidal graphite cast iron and SG iron, is a type of graphite-rich cast iron discovered in 1943 by Keith Millis. While most varieties of cast iron ar ...

castings, and

cryogenically In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures. The 13th IIR International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington DC in 1971) endorsed a universal definition of “cryogenics” and “cr ...

treated A-2 steel. Manganese bronze, a very hard, strong alloy, is the material of choice for Lie-Nielsen tools because it is heavier than iron, doesn't rust, and won't crack if dropped. Where the use of bronze would result in excessive weight in a tool, ductile iron is used instead. Lie-Nielsen products are expensive when compared to the mass-produced items from the likes of

and Record, but these higher prices are often defended by comparing them with the prices paid 100 years ago for such tools as Norris infill planes, which could cost up to "a couple of weeks' wages".Quote from Gerry Chinn in the F&C feature

References

External links

* {{Woodworking Tool manufacturing companies of the United States Woodworking Companies established in 1981 1981 establishments in Maine Companies based in Knox County, Maine Warren, Maine