Handplanes #3: I Want A Better Plane

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I want a better plane

We’ve covered the lower end in the previous blog. There are mid-tier, premium, and art object categories remaining. Three features get pushed a lot as shortcomings of the Stanley Bailey design – thin blades, thin chip breakers, and frog to bed seating/contact area. The more expensive plane makers, and aftermarket parts sellers, claim their thicker blades and chip breakers and the increased frog contact area will solve all your problems. This is marketing hyperbole to sell product. I will reiterate again – if your plane won’t cut right, it’s a tuning issue (or something’s broken), and thicker parts just mask the real problem.

The better materials (A2, PM-V11, etc.) will improve edge life, and a thicker blade will continue to cut longer before chattering and stuttering compared to the thin counterparts. The increased frog contact area helps here as well. While I have aftermarket blades and chip breakers, I elected to get more factory blades and breakers and have them ready to go so I don’t get in the middle of a project and need to sharpen. This is a very expensive proposition with aftermarket blades.

Tighter tolerances (less tuning, better adjustment control, easier to use), ductile cast iron (if dropped on a hard surface it won’t crack), longer intervals between sharpening, and bevel up planes are the main things you get with the more costly planes. Another is handling grain tear out in unruly wood.

The task that standard bevel down bench planes struggle with is planing reversing grain without tear out. Even the premium BD bench planes struggle with it – why does LN offer steeper angle frogs? My handplane performance blog has tuning methods to help, but the plane design can only do so much. High angle planes are designed for this task, but are more difficult to push so you only want to use them when you really need to. I bring this up because many folks think going to a premium plane will solve this issue. While a 45

Handplanes #3: I Want A Better Plane