Thomas Flinn & Co Reviews 

As a professional cabinetmaker, I depend on the precision and reliability of my hand tools. Over time I have invested in Clifton No. 4½ and No. 5½ bench planes, a pair of Pax 1776 10" saws (one rip, one crosscut), and the Lynx Half Blind Dovetail Kerf Tool. To say I am impressed is an understatement. These tools are the very pinnacle of premium British manufacturing.

The machining quality on the Clifton planes is exceptional. Out of the box, the soles are dead flat, and the sides are perfectly square, meeting, and exceeding strict British Standards tolerances for hand planes. The heavy, stress-relieved castings combined with the Bedrock frog design make them incredibly stable, eliminating blade chatter on difficult timber. Paired with their cryogenically treated O1 steel blades, they take a razor-sharp edge and hold it beautifully, leaving a glass-smooth finish.

The Pax 1776 saws are equally magnificent, heirloom-quality tools. The hand-hammered folded brass backs give them perfect balance, and the hand-sharpened teeth cut effortlessly, the rip saw plows through joinery while the crosscut leaves a remarkably clean, crisp line. To round out my joinery kit, the Lynx Half Blind Dovetail Kerf Tool is a revelation. It is beautifully executed and makes clearing out the blind kerf fast, exact, and repeatable, which is a massive time-saver at the bench. The Walnut handles across these saws, offer fantastic ergonomics for long workshop sessions.

It is brilliant to see Thomas Flinn keeping traditional Sheffield industrial heritage alive while delivering world-class, uncompromising tolerances. For any cabinetmaker or woodworker wanting tools that perform flawlessly straight out of the box, these are truly magnificent!

I've recently bought two saws from Thomas Flinn & Sons; a cross cut dovetail and an 8" flush cut. The saws are ok (ish) but nothing at all special, and the dovetail needed to be sharpened immediately.

I sincerely doubt the claim that Flinn's saws are "made to order". I think that's untrue.

I found a seller on Ebay who offered 67 rip cut Garlick (by Flinn) dovetail saws for sale at £30 less than Flinn was offering them for on its website.

I sent an email to Flinn and asked if the saws offered by Bill's Tools of Ebay were authentic. I received a terribly worded reply from someone describing herself as a "director" and she told me the saws were "legit" (seriously, she used that abbreviation) and told me Flinn "can't control what people sell", which is absurd.

Good old Ebay Bill managed to acquire no less than 67 rip cut Garlick dovetail saws, so I really doubt they're made to order. It may be inferred that Flinn knew Bill acquired the saws. Bill also managed to sell them significantly cheaper than the manufacturer and presumably made a profit, which means Flinn significantly overcharged me on the dovetail saw it sold me.

Since prima facie the only information available to Flinn regarding the Garlick saws sold by Bill's Tools on Ebay was the listing itself, it can be safely inferred that Flinn supplied Bill, or knew of the supply, since the "director" of Flinn had no hesitation confirming authenticity, or as she put it, that they are "legit".

Moreover, I've noticed that Flinn is usually the most expensive seller of third party tools and equipment it sells.

For example, I recently bought a Robert Sorby Pro Edge. Thomas Flinn & Sons was the most expensive seller online, that I saw, by a country mile. Look for yourselves.

I have reason to doubt this company's ethics and veracity and will not trouble it with my money again.

Easy ordering online. Reasonable price for niche musical saw. Rapid delivery via TNT

I own several Clifton planes (4, 51/2, block and shoulder) and a number of Thomas Flinn hand saws. All are top quality and a joy to use. These are heirloom tools that will last generations.

This written at the conclusion of many hours of work in rectifying the manufacturing problems found in a year 2000 approx Clifton no. 5 hand plane and in recently bought spare parts.
The date of this review is indicative since the situation evolved over an extended period.
It seems likely judging by our experience that the bedrock pattern hand planes manufactured by this company could be subject to the possibility of significant quality problems - perhaps over an extended period.
Clifton planes are sold at a very high price point as premium tools - what we found is consequently unacceptable.
We (as it turns out unwisely - it would have been far more cost and time effective to have scrapped the plane and bought another brand) last year finally set out to rectify the manufacturing problems in the plane which had long been set aside because of them - a misplaced lateral adjustment lever pivot, a lever cap prevented from working properly by a depression around the screw hole caused by heavy handed polishing (so that the screw had to be backed off to get the lever cap out), massive adjuster backlash due to loose tolerances between the Y lever and the cap iron slot, an out of parallel frog, an out of flat sole and one badly out of square side.
Having invested many hours in re-machining and lapping the sole and the frog we bought from the maker a new lever cap, bronze Y lever and one piece cap iron to replace the problematic originals.
The lever cap was mistakenly omitted from the original shipment.
The Y lever proved to be mis-cast and unusable, the subsequently received lever cap was chipped at the critical leading edge, its locking lever pin hole was misplaced so that it could not function as was the rivet securing its sheet metal bearing tab. The cap iron had a slot ground in behind the leading edge which left it too weak at the nose and would have been of no assistance is ensuring contact with the iron.
The mistakenly supplied cryogenic iron has turned out to be significantly bowed lengthwise, and quite coarsely ground.
The company refunded the order, but would not engage re. supply of correctly manufactured replacement parts.
Quangsheng and Juuma parts fortunately turned out with a little work to fit and the plane is now in use.
It's fundamentally a very nice tool, but if considering one it may be wise via measurement etc to verify before committing that the example in question is a good one..