LV Low Angle Smoother Came in

[Sawduster]

Got here yesterday, and though I got it unboxed and sharpened the high angle blade, I've not had much time to play with it, nor to take any pics. Will get that done today sometime.

[ASLNROX]

I will be interested to hear your thoughts Jerry. Mine is a great workshorse in the shop!

Blessings,
--Mark

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[rhull]

I too will be interested to see how your thoughts compare to the reviews I've seen other post (on other forums). Not that I'll be able to get one of these anytime soon...unless I can somehow figure a way for it to be necessary for the baby to have one...<starts scheming>

[Sawduster]

Well, I gave that puppy a bit of a workout, sharpened the low angle blade and put it to work. The top for the cabinet with the coopered doors is glued up and I've been working at leveling and smoothing it. Since the ends of the glue up were not straight, I had some difficulty keeping them butted to the bench dogs for planing the face. Well, it is too wide to be cut on the table saw, so out came my little fine toothed Disston #12, the one with the horse carved into the tote. Wanting to save as much length for the top on this first squaring cut, marked my line about 1/8" from the end of one of the boards and then found that this was a bit shy of what was needed for the saw and ended up having to plane that 1/8" off of the first 8" or so of the panel before I could even get to squaring and smoothing the remainder of the cut. Here's a pic of the saw, the plane and a pile of endgrain shavings taken from the board you see in the foreground.

http://xs55.xs.to/pics/05465/LASmoother01.jpg

And here's another from a different angle as well as in a bit closer.

http://xs55.xs.to/pics/05465/LASmoother02.jpg

And another with a few of the shavings laid out so that they can be seen. These were coming off full length, but the accordian like folding makes them sort of delicate and they break when you try to straighten them out.

http://xs55.xs.to/pics/05465/LASmoother03.jpg

A couple little things about this that can be applied to other planes. First off, I keep a shop towel hanging by one of those cute little bitty spring clamps near the bench and moisten one corner with a bit of mineral oil. Wiping this over the sole of the plane occassionally reduces friction significantly making the planing easier. You could use BLO, but that would create a fire hazard and the towel gets all stiff as the BLO cures. Some folks use a block of canning parafin.

Secondly, when planing an edge or an end it is important to establish square as soon as possible. In the second pic above you can see my little vintage tri-square. It is particularly handy for checking square. By using the lateral adjusting lever I skew the blade one way or the other just a hair as needed to remove a bit more from one side of the cut. Check for square after every couple cuts and then after every cut when it gets close. Also, when checking for square, check at several points along the cut, then resquare the cutter when the edge is sqaure to the face.

[Keystone]

All I can say is WOW!

I've never been able to get end grain to slice that nice!

[dcarter636]

I'll second that WOW.

I was wondering why the shavings weren't curled and then realized these are end grain shavings. I've never seen a full length end grain ribbon before.

That's a keeper!

[DCarr10760]

Another Wow!

I've heard so many good things about the low angle jack planes, both LV and LN. Sooner or later I'll break down and get one.

Right now for end grain I use a cheap Record low-angle block plane. I got it cheap when Woodworkers Warehouse soiled the bedsheets.

I spent an afternoon lapping the sole, filing the "frog" (or whatever you call it when it is cast into the plane) and honing and polishing the iron.

It works amazingly well. I recently bought a tiny low angle block plane from LN, it works beautifully too but it has a fixed and very narrow mouth so is not so good IMO on end grain, where you don't need an incredibly tight mouth.

Congrats on the new addition to the stable!

David C

[Sawduster]

The single negative I've found is that the plane was quite hard to push with the high angle blade installed, much more difficult than my 50 degree Knight Smoother. Of course, pecan is a very hard wood. It did leave a very nice surface, though.

[rhull]

>The single negative I've found is that the plane was quite
>hard to push with the high angle blade installed, much more
>difficult than my 50 degree Knight Smoother.

Any thoughts on why, Jerry? Is the blade much wider? Or extra friction with the larger sole?

[Sawduster]

Not sure at this point. It could be that I did a sort of rush job on touching up the edge in my anticipation of putting the plane to work. Could also be that between the bezel angle of the blade and the bedding angle, the cutting angle may be a bit higher than fifty degrees. I haven't checked the blade angle with a protractor, but I'll do that this afternoon.

Edit in: Just checked the LV site and the high angle blade comes beveled at 38*, giving an effective cutting angle of 50*. I may have increased that a bit when I honed the blade and that could be the issue. I do know that the pecan I was planing got a shiny appearence after a stroke or two with that blade.