Tradition Improved: Lie-Nielsen Toolworks Thomas Lie-Nielsen The hand tools made by Lie-Nielsen Toolworks are both familiar and foreign to the long-time woodworker. While they certainly look like the Bailey- and Stanley-style planes we grew up with, they perform at an astonishingly higher level than many original. Thomas Lie-Nielsen, the founder of the tool company than bears his name, explains how the tool company took old forms and improved them using modern technology.