low angle smoothers

Oh boy, here we go again...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA

>I'm not going to start the LN vs. LV battle here yet again. Do a archive search to get some more info on brands.

To answer your other question, yes they do very well on hardwoods when the blades bevel is taken to where the plane cuts at 50 or even 60 deg.

Good luck in your quest. If you and find a place where you can touch and feel a LN or LV plane together it shound be fairly easy to pick the one that feels best to you.

Re: low angle smoothers

Greg Sloop, Portland Oregon

>How big is the piece you want to smooth? How flat is it?

While I think many of the "wars" over plane bevel-up vs. bevel-down is really some people who basically don't like it giving all sorts of non-rational reasons it doesn't really work, you don't need it, it was good enough for grandpa etc.. But here's some suggestions.

For 95% of what I do, a jack sized plane is great. If you don't already have a jack plane, consider this the starting place.

I've owned both the LV and LN bevel up jack planes, and much prefer the LV. You'll have to flatten and smooth a greater area with the jack, but often it's not too difficult to do ... and ... getting a great general purpose plane that can also do a very apt job smoothing is, IMO, better than a smoother that isn't nearly as versatile elsewhere.

Bevel down may work well, but it's difficult to get the total cut angle up above 50 degrees on most "regular" bevel down bench planes unless you use back bevels - which is more involved.

If you have very difficult wood, it may well take more than 55 or even 60 degrees to get the best surface finish. It's easiest to do this on a bevel up plane - esp if you might use the plane for other tasks, like end-grain, or more general flattening etc. (Switching irons in a bevel up plane is easy. Doing it on bevel down isn't nearly as easy - unless you have multiple chip-breakers etc.)

If you want a dedicated smoother, then consider the LV heavy smoother. The LN is nice, and I've used it. but it doesn't use the same iron as the LN jack and jointer line the LV does - which makes a difference if you might eventually end up with more than just the smoother. Further, there are some nice touches on the LV. There's no attachment on the iron you have to remove to sharpen - or move when you switch irons. (Or buy additional adjuster attachments for the LN)

The side stops on the LV are very nice, as is the very smooth adjuster, and the mouth stop.

If the LV feels reasonably nice, then, IMO, it's a better deal, both in features and in cost. And this applies to all the bevel-up designs - jointer, jack and smoother.

Beware, however, the regular LV "light" smoother doesn't use the same iron. Only the heavy smoother, jack and jointer...

Best of luck.

-Greg