New dinky plane

Kalimna

SteveF - I see you're in Scotland. If you're ever out Stirling way, you would be most welcome to pop into my workshop (messy garage) and have a play with some of my planes. I have a fair range, and it mught give you an idea what works best in your hands before buying anything. Ive a selection of chisels and saws too.
Adam

SteveF

Thanks mate much appreciated  

Corvus

In that case Steve skip the modern Stanleys, I would. Also don't get everything at once, like get one Rider and see how it looks or something like that.

Basically-
#7 & 8 is a jointer, long things used for making joints flat & true
#6 you can ignore but is a 'try plane'. short nose - used when a rough board has the worst taken off say with a scrub plane, and before a jointer plane. The short nose helps in this intermediate stage.
#5s - jack planes, can do all sorts
#4s are smoothers - the last step for flat boards etc, refining the finish, taking very fine cuts. Personally very rarely use mine but is sometimes handy.

There is crossover with these^^ like it's perfectly possible to joint blanks with a 4, 4 /12, or a 6 etc etc. But a 5 or 5 1/2 would be a good bit nicer for blank jointing than a 4 and might be all the plane you need. I'd probably get a good 5 or 5 1/2 and a proper machined straight edge, if getting only one plane, or as the first one.
Better to have one good true plane well set-up than a few not-so-great ones, too much runout in the sole or iffy machining and suchlike.

SteveF

Thanks @Corvus extremely helpful.

Roland

The advice I was given is: don’t buy a tool until you need it. Then buy a decent quality one which will last.