Crappy import planes: they'll make you cry, but (now) they work
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Hello! This was me. I conquered the $20 plane and I’ve been able to take some full-width shavings from a 1×2, leaving a glistening trail on second (with luck) rate pine.
This is what I found, I hope this helps someone trying to rescue another horrible, horrible plane:
- I’d love to get the ones Paul tested, here in Latin America we end up with the rejects from the cheap knockoffs: NOTHING is parallel, smooth or aligned.
- My problems with the frog angles were “resolved” by advancing the frogs. I tested by placing the blade bevel-up on the frog and sliding it down to the mouth, until it no longer touched the back of the mouth.
- As soon as I tried to assemble the plane again, I found the blade came out completely skewed, beyond the limits of the lateral correction arm/stick. The culprit? The screw that advances the frog right in front of the tote was seriously misaligned and it pushed the small “Y” plate connected to the frog, to the side. I took out the screws and plate, lightly sanded the contact areas of the frog and the sole to increase friction and screwed the frog down with only the two vertical screws in front of it. I think it shouldn’t move with regular use and if it does I’ll make a new plate with a skewed “Y”.
- The $20 plane has a thumbscrew on its cap iron, the other one a regular cam lock. I couldn’t remove the pin to file the hard corner, so I had to get a jewelers’ file between the lock and the spring plate and jiggled the cam lock until the corner got rounded (but not greatly reduced). Smoother operation now.
- The $20 plane has a concave area behind the mouth that I’m not crazy about. I’m torn because now it seems to “work” as it is, but the thing is a couple mils so it would be really easy to take out.
- Both planes came with meh blades, not hardened (I tested them with a file). Do yourself a favor and buy Stanley 12-313 blades to improve the tool. I get them for less than $5 (knockoffs? they look pretty “official”). I’ll toy around with the bad blades, I want to try my hand at making a scrub blade for the $10 plane body.
Now that I can stop procrastinating-via-tool-fiddilng, I need a couple projects for this long weekend.
Cheers!
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You must be logged in to view attached files.20 November 2016 at 9:15 pm #142561This sounds familiar, though, I had different issues. Same price, and the guy who forced the worker to do such a poor job on assembly and fitting should be punished (or his superior who forced him to force the worker, etc.). I got the pin out, that held the locking lever of the lever cap, but I had a hard time getting it in again. In the end, I filed a bevel onto one end.
However, this shows, that a plane, in order to take good shavings, only needs a good blade and something that offers it to the wood at the right angle.
I wouldn’t use the original blades for a scrub plane. Scrub planes are for quite rough jobs and I think, they deserve good blades. But since the original blades aren’t hardened (much), why not try to change the edges to some fancy shapes for moulding planes? You could even cut the blades lengthwise and then make four moulding plane blades! And, by the way, you can harden them Paul Sellers style (to cherry red on a BBQ, quench, then temper in a kitchen stove) and get fairly stable edges.
Dieter
Thank you Dieter, the blade suggestion sounds good, but I’ll limit myself at curving and hardening the edge. I’m way early in my practice to start thinking beyond smoothers.
As for your “simplified plane definition,” you’re more than right. The difference between brands and makers is repeatability, material quality, etc. It seems like Bailey got to an ideal design and 100s after him tried but couldn’t improve it.
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