Last night I finally had some time to play with my new toy - the Veritas Low-Angle Jack Plane. My wife graced me with this, as well as all the optional blades. I've had a pretty good experience with my block and rabbet planes (old Stanleys) and my Veritas Scraping Plane. By my one and only bench plane, a Record #4, has rarely produced satisfactory results for me - generally resulting in a lot of tearout, chatter or both. My early experiences with it turned me off of hand planes for a long time.
I started with the 38 degree blade which, combined with the 12 degree bed yields a 50 degree angle - similar to my #4. The instructions with the plane / blades said it is sharp and ready for use right out of the box. While the back did seem thoroughly flattened, the bevel edge looked like it could use some work. So I took it to task on my Worksharp, starting at 80 grit and working my way up to 4000 at a 35 degree angle. Then I micro-beveled the edge using the micro-bevel feature on the Worksharp's wide-blade honing jig, which claims to add a 1 degree micro-bevel - close enough to the original 38 degrees, I hoped :>
Then I installed the blade. The plane has set-screws on either side of the blade to fix it in place and prevent any side-to-side movement, while still allowing the lateral adjustment - very handy. After adjusting those, I lowered the blade until it contacted the wood that the plane was sitting on and then adjusted the lateral adjustment as best I could. Then I used the mouth-adjustment stop screw to close up the mouth without any chance of it hitting the blade - something I've had difficulty with on other planes. Every adjustable-mouth plane should have this feature! With that done, I took a few passes, lowering the blade each time until I was making light curly shavings - pic is below. The test wood is a glue-up of red oak - in a variety of grain orientations. I've had lots of tear-out with red oak but no such problems this time! Dunno how much of that is the plane and how much is improvement in my sharpening / setup skills. I doubt the latter, but for completeness I suppose I should give my #4 another go.
Years ago, I could never have imagined spending this much $$$ on a plane, but I figured this one is like getting 3 planes in one...at least, that was my rationalization :> Next I'll need to sharpen the other blades and have a go at some oak end-grain and curly maple. If the results are as good, I foresee more Veritas planes in my future.
:gar-Bi
I started with the 38 degree blade which, combined with the 12 degree bed yields a 50 degree angle - similar to my #4. The instructions with the plane / blades said it is sharp and ready for use right out of the box. While the back did seem thoroughly flattened, the bevel edge looked like it could use some work. So I took it to task on my Worksharp, starting at 80 grit and working my way up to 4000 at a 35 degree angle. Then I micro-beveled the edge using the micro-bevel feature on the Worksharp's wide-blade honing jig, which claims to add a 1 degree micro-bevel - close enough to the original 38 degrees, I hoped :>
Then I installed the blade. The plane has set-screws on either side of the blade to fix it in place and prevent any side-to-side movement, while still allowing the lateral adjustment - very handy. After adjusting those, I lowered the blade until it contacted the wood that the plane was sitting on and then adjusted the lateral adjustment as best I could. Then I used the mouth-adjustment stop screw to close up the mouth without any chance of it hitting the blade - something I've had difficulty with on other planes. Every adjustable-mouth plane should have this feature! With that done, I took a few passes, lowering the blade each time until I was making light curly shavings - pic is below. The test wood is a glue-up of red oak - in a variety of grain orientations. I've had lots of tear-out with red oak but no such problems this time! Dunno how much of that is the plane and how much is improvement in my sharpening / setup skills. I doubt the latter, but for completeness I suppose I should give my #4 another go.
Years ago, I could never have imagined spending this much $$$ on a plane, but I figured this one is like getting 3 planes in one...at least, that was my rationalization :> Next I'll need to sharpen the other blades and have a go at some oak end-grain and curly maple. If the results are as good, I foresee more Veritas planes in my future.
:gar-Bi
