LV Bevel Up Smoother - a review *LINK*

Re: LV Bevel Up Smoother - a review

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Hi Derek,

Nice long technical review. Looks like you put allot of effort into it. Nice to see the planes touch wood and see some results

Curious to know why you did not throw the Bedrock 604 into the mix? At one point you talked about the difficulty setting up the Stanley 4 1/2 and one of the advantages of the Bedrock 604 is the ability to move the frog without removing the blade? If I recall correctly you also have the LN blade in that plane and the improved chipbreaker or maybe I am thinking of somebody else, dunno.

Cheers,

Dan Clermont

Re: LV Bevel Up Smoother - a review

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>Gad, Dan - you have a good memory! Yes I do have a #604 with LN set. I chose not to include it since it would have been a match in size for the LA Smoother, but not for the BU Smoother. As it happens, I have been asked to do a review of the LV LA Smoother for a magazine, and I will include it there.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: LV Bevel Up Smoother - a review

Jim Shaver - Oakville, Ontario

>Hi Derek,

Super article, Great review!!!

Take care,

Jim

Fiddlier? Australian term? ;>)

Tony Sade (Charleston, WV)

>Great review! Tony

fiddly...fiddlier .... fiddliest....? :)

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>

Call me a heretic...

Denis Chénard, Orléans, Ont.

>First, excellent review. I tend to agree with all that you've written. I'm still a beginner when it comes to handplanes, but I'd like to put in a few comments.

A couple weeks ago we gathered a group of people and most of the Veritas bench planes (and lots of others) for a little planing party (gotta write up the story! I just need a free evening...). We had the chance to compare the Veritas planes between themselves and against others.

I read you 100% regarding the fuss of adjusting the Stanley. I have a Record #4 that I souped up with a Veritas blade and the Clifton two-piece cap iron. EVENTUALLY you can get it tuned, and once there it does a good job, but it's a royal PITA compared to the simplicity of the Veritas BU planes (even their bevel down planes are a joy to tune compared with the Stanley design, but the BU planes are easier still). Just dealing with the adjuster backlash drive me nuts...

One member of our group was interested in either the Veritas #4 or #4 1/2 (bevel down), but wanted to try them both before purchasing. So he and I in succession tried the #4, #4 1/2, LA smoother and BU smoother. All four did an excellent job on a piece of curly, birds' eye maple. Out of the four planes we both preferred the LAS because of its weight and feel. I, for one, felt the BU smoother heavy for its size and somewhat lacking in feel. Since you demonstrated that the LAS can do as good a job as the BUS, my friend will be happy to hear that...

Here comes the heresy... For my money, all four of these planes are beaten by the LA jack. It has the weight of the BUS and then some, yet feels much more balanced in my hands. The feel is as good or better than the LAS, and the extra length helps with registration and in keeping the surface flat. I know, this is not technically a smoother, but I think people get too tangled up in knots over the use of specific planes in various conditions... If I were to buy another plane to have one ready for different grain situations, I would buy another LA jack, set one with a LA blade and the other one with a HA blade, with the Record doing the middle ground.

Funny that you mention Ian Kirby, because someone told me that he does most of his smoothing with jointers (this info has not been corroborated, though). Judging by the performance of the Veritas LA jointer (we had one) one could easily use one for smoothing, but the size gets a bit too large for my taste in this situation.

Regarding the totes, none of the Veritas planes ever bothered me, I tend not to notice them (I would probably be able to make a better judgment if I planed wood all day long, which is not the case). The only one that I had somewhat of an issue with was the jointer's, I felt that it tended to "dig" in the web of the hand between the thumb and index, partly because of the length of the stroke a jointer requires. But then again (and another good point of your review) this might have been due to the bench height... That bench was set up temporarily in my garage, and with the bench hooks the height was probably 37-38" (and I'm 5'9"). I guess I'll have to tell my wife that I need to buy the jointer to keep experimenting with it 8^)

Finally, we seem to own the same digital caliper... The 0.0005" accuracy is not enough for measuring shavings, I'm afraid. It will indicate 0.0005" for a real thickness between 0.00025 and 0.00075", a factor of three. But I guess I'm a bit picky, if one can get shavings this thin they should be happy...

Thanks again for a great review,

DC

I have a real problem with this...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>There is no such thing as a 0.0000 thick shaving. I think you need a better measuring device;^)

After that, nice review, thanks for sharing.

Re:FWIW, the LVBU Jack is my most used smoother

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>

A valuable analysis and excellent presentation

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>

Well...

Rob Lee

>... we have a prototype we're working on to do better than that...

We're trying for a -.005" shaving...

Just have to tweak a few more physical laws, and we're set. Watch for it early April....

Cheers -

Rob

Would that be an...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Air-plane ;^)

No, that would obviously be a...

Denis Chénard, Orléans, Ont.

>- 5 1/2...

DC

Re: I have a real problem with this...

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>If you take into consideration Denis' comments on the calipers, a readout of 0.0000 probably means something less than about 0.00025", which would indicate a very gloatable cow (sacred, cash, holy, brown or otherwise), assuming nominal values of precision and accuracy.

Re: two questions

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>I have two questions about the tests: Concerning shaving thickness, are you suggesting that some planes are less capable of making thin shavings or are they just more difficult to adjust for thin shavings?

For the Stanley plane, how far was the chipbreaker from the edge when planing the camphor or the karri?

Re: LV Bevel Up Smoother - a review

Hub in Ontario

>Derek,

Thanks for your article. I always look forward to them to help with my decsion making process.

Keep up the good work.

Hub

Re: LV Bevel Up Smoother - a review

Dean in Burlington

>Derek,

I would be interested in you trying Jatoba. I've had no luck removing tearout with a 62 degree angle on a bevel up plane. Maybe Jatoba is just too hard and is dulling the blade too quickly. I have had better luck with the Jatoba with a 5.5 bevel down with a 50 degree frog. I've had better luck with a ROS :)

Have a look at these shavings ....

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>Scott

The problem is that the measuring device cannot read under .0005, so it reads .0000 instead. That is why I said "read as .0000". But I should have clarified the point. It is definetly well under .001". Frankly, anything remotely near this range is an indicator that the plane is working superbly.

Below is a picture of a Jarrah shaving around the .0000 (???) mark. (Just to produce an intact shaving on Jarrah is a feat in itself).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Well...

Denis Chénard, Orléans, Ont.

>Your "FWIW" is worth quite a bit to me, it tells me that I'm not that crazy :-)

What other smoothers do you use?

DC

Re: two questions

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>Hi Warren

Some planes will have more difficulty making thin shavings because they are, simply put, let capable planes. This may be due to a larger-than-ideal mouth, less blade support, too little vibration damping, etc.

Some capable planes are harder to set for a fine shaving. I was surprised that I did not do better with the HNT Gordon - I probably could have with more time/on a better day(s)/etc - but the point is that the BUS (for example) made this task easier.

Lastly, the Stanley chipbreaker was set 1mm from the edge for all planing tasks.

Regards from Perth

Derek

jatoba?

Steve Kubien

>My 45 degree Knight coffin smoother worked well with the jatoba I've used. Granted, it was pretty straight-grained but it did a good enough job that I made a guitar stand for my sensei. If it had sucked, he would've kicked my a** !

Regards,

Steve Kubien

Ajax, Ontario

Re: Well...

Dean Lapinel

>Rob,

I can probably expedite your R&D with my prototype that does indeed take off shavings at 0.00 with a measuring standard deviation of .005. This certainly fits your parameters.

Essentially it's a #4 1/2 without a blade.

:)

Wow!

Denis Chénard, Orléans, Ont.

>Mighty thin indeed...

DC

Re: Fiddlier? Australian term? ;>)  *LINK*

paul womack

>


http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861673867

Re: two questions

paul womack

>For the Stanley plane, how far was the chipbreaker from the edge

The verdict is pretty much "in" on chip breakers. Assume for the moment that smoothing require shavings below 1/100". Essentially, this shaving is too weak for its passage over the chip breaker to effect the action at the separation point (i.e. blade edge) of the shaving.

Chip breakers are simply a way of keep the blade (and consequently edge) held firmly, and they also help the shaving "clear" the plane.

Despite loads of books and "the old guys" telling you different, in some cases with diagrams :-)

BugBear (who's too lazy to look up the reference links today)