Thanks to everyone who responded,

I just brought a stanley low angle block plane, It doesn't have an adjustable throat as there wern't any of this model available, but I read somewhere that you close up the mouth when planning hardwoods, since I'll only be using it on softwood (I've got an electric plane for hardwood) It really does seem to be a feature I don't need, everything else seems to be adjustable tho. The plane doesn't seem to be of the same quality that you see in old tools (sign of the times) though it works very nicley :-)

I also got one of those jigs for sharpening irons and chisels. The Silicon carbide sandpaper method of sharpening works great, I've used it for my chisels they are all so sharp it's frightening, I recommend it.

All up this lot cost me the eqivalent of $US65 ($50 for the plane alone), OUCH!

Paul.