LV/Veritas left & right edge trimming planes
dave brown
>Got the left & right edge trimming planes two days ago. Really nice to have a matched set. They're larger than the similar LN offerings but they weight about the same.
That new lapping that LV does is awesome. Looks about the same as when you lap with a 1000 grit waterstone. The blades come ground @ 20degrees. I tried out both planes on some red oak. They worked well -- of course honing would have helped. The 20degree crumbled easily on the oak -- of course oak is tough stuff.
Rather than increasing the primary bevel angle, I put about a five to seven degree back bevel on the blade and honed the primary bevel w/ a 1 degree microbevel. Then, I tried the oak again. I got a much smoother cut and no crumbling.
I recommend back bevels on blades where you want to keep a low primary bevel but make the edge more resistant to failure. This technique is best applied to low angle block planes where trimming end grain regularly causes the edge to fail.
