Taiwanese Style Planes

Lee Valley offers a few "Taiwanese Style Planes" in addition to their regular Veritas ones--and they're a *lot* cheaper. Are they any good?

I don't know but they look alright to me.

I am sure they work good but that aweful green color.

Cynthia, I don't have any experience with these particular planes. (In fact I'd never heard of Taiwanese-Style planes before...just the Japanese ones that look the same to me.) It's my understanding that this style of plane can produce the same results as the traditional iron and steel planes, but it's tuned and operated differently. Some folks like using one style more than the other, some use both. My unexperienced hunch is that the wood body planes can be a bit more finicky to get set up properly than traditional metal ones, but I could be completely off base with that. Hopefully someone who has used both types will chime in.