Lie-Nielsen Toolworks

Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, Inc. is a family-owned business, established in 1981 and based in Warren, Maine. It manufactures a range of high quality hand tools, primarily for woodworking, based on traditional designs. 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") worked for Garry Chinn's company, Garrett Wade. In 1981, Garrett Wade's supplier of an adapted Stanley #95 edge trimming block plane, Ken Wisner, was ready to leave the business, so Lie-Nielsen acquired the tooling, plans and components necessary for producing the #95. 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.