Reply To: Stanley No. 4 – what am I doing wrong?
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Hi Kirsty,
For what its worth here’s my (somewhat inexperienced) two pence worth!
The lever cap screw does look like it has been cast off centre. Never seen that before! If you are worried you can pick a replacement frog up on ebay for about a fiver but to be honest, if the plane was working initially it probably wasn’t having a negative effect on your planing anyway.
Have you checked the lever cap screw is set correctly? With everything in place, the lever on the cap should firmly snap in place. If it is too loose you might be getting chatter ie the plane feels like its bouncing along the wood. It shouldn’t be too tight either or you will struggle to use the depth adjuster. Once set, you rarely need to touch the lever cap screw. Also, when backing off the cut using the depth adjuster, always remove the excess play from the adjuster by turning it back until its starts trying to tighten again.
If that’s all set ok, I think it’s possible you aren’t applying enough downward pressure on the planing stroke. You need to press down on the front of the plane when starting the stoke, balance the pressure through the stroke and put pressure on the rear of the plane at the end. Some people describe it as trying to plane a hollow in the middle of the board.
With regards to sharpening, If you have gradually created a steeper bevel it could make the plane harder to push through the stroke and could be causing a lack of control. Veritas do a cheap(ish) brass bevel guide which I find very useful for checking angles. You could probably benefit from picking up an eclipse style honing guide. They are dirt cheap, easy to use and will give you an idea of what the bevel should look like. You can always try freehand sharpening later but many people stick with the guides permanently (no shame in that!). Paul has a canny video on using the Eclipse guides somewhere in the video library.
I’m sure others on here will have other suggestions to help too.
Cheers
John