Lie-Nielsen Toolworks

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

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.^[3]

A few years later, Lie-Nielsen moved into a 384-square-foot (35.7 m²) 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 8,000-square-foot (740 m²) building in the town of Warren, Maine, which the company still occupies. In the mid-1990s, Lie-Nielsen moved the entire production to a 13,000-square-foot (1,200 m²) facility.^[3]

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.

Lie-Nielsen uses manganese bronze and ductile iron castings, and cryogenically 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