david weaver
..though warren's far along in this and so are a lot of other people who probably don't speak up.

But a lot of us appreciated the brightness of the finish we could get off of a bench plane, even when we thought it wasn't practical to use one in an "i can't afford any tearout" situation.

While the rest of us are left figuring out what we can get away with still assuming that we want negligble tearout, it's definitely the case that you can see evidence that a close set cap will injure softer wood.

However, for woods that a lot of us plane on show surfaces, even where we might not like to have the cap iron as close as the study shows (because it's just not needed, and the wood is soft), it's still clear to me that even if it's set a bit close, the finish level is still better than it is on a plane with a single iron at 55 degrees.

That's my thoughts at least - that's a plane I'd never use on pine to begin with. But on cherry I've used one a lot, especially on stuff that's a rough ride with a bench plane, like very curly cherry.

So for the rest of us, nobody should be deterred from setting the iron close to start if they're worried about tearout. Anything that you'd want to do to improve the surface after starting with a close set is a lot better than dealing with tearout.

At least that's what I gather so far.

And all of this has given a lot of new life to a common pitch panel plane that I have that I was ready to cast off for a scratch built single iron 50 degree panel plane. I may yet still build that, but at this point, I'll build it at common pitch also and with a double iron instead of a single.