My First Impression of Woodriver Planes
I’m no expert on planes, so what I have to say may not be totally accurate for the true aficionados. I also work part time at Woodcraft, so you can make your own decision as to whether there is any prejudice here. I’ve just seen quite a bit of chatter about these planes, so I thought I’d chime in for those of you that haven’t had a chance to see and/or fondle one yet.
We got our first Woodriver planes in yesterday, and my manager and I were like little kids waiting to open Christmas presents. We went with the number 4, and the first thing we noticed was the very nice packaging. They come in their own fitted wooden box, with foam rubber padding. They are also packed in a sealed plastic bag, much like the LN or Veritas, but it’s clear, so I doubt it’s corrosion resistant. They had a light oil on them that had a sweet fragrance. I compared it to the Camellia oil we sell, and it didn’t smell the same. I don’t know what the oil is, but it wipes down nicely with just a soft rag. A HUGE difference from those Groz things!
The first test was for square. Using an Incra square, we couldn’t detect any flaw in the machining for square, and it appeared flat as well. Someone will have to mic them to see what the final verdict is on that part of the machining. The casting and frog appear very similar, if not identical, to the Stanley Bedrock series, except for the lettering. It’s not crisp like other castings, almost like the black coating is more of an epoxy or other thick finish. The finish also isn’t gloss, it’s more of a matt look. The LN bench planes are also patterned after the Bedrocks, so that similarity exists too. We didn’t disassemble the frog, and I wouldn’t know what to look for inside anyway, so I can’t comment on that part. The handles are also pretty much Stanley clones, which I find less comfortable than the handles on the Veritas bench planes. That’s a personal preference issue, but the handles are attractive and seem to be well finished. The screw for the knob is counter bored deeper than most planes I’ve seen, which to my eye detracts from the look, but as to strength or other factors, only time will tell.
One difference that immediately comes to one’s attention is the thickness of the blade and chipbreaker. They’re both thicker than an original Stanley, but not as thick as a Hock, LN, Veritas, etc. The chipbreaker is styled like a Hock instead of the old Stanley style, as well. A light touch of the business end of the blade made it obvious a honing (at minimum) would be needed. We checked the blade for square, and it appeared to be sharpened properly that way, but it was noticeably sharper on one side than the other, which would most likely mean it would have to go to a stone before doing any serious work. I also don’t know the hardness of the blade, so it may have to be sharpened more often than a top end blade.
My boss couldn’t wait to see it against some wood, so he dug out a rough piece of something (I think it was mahogany, but not sure). He clamped it flat and went to work. The plane did a good job, and he even went pretty deep on a couple of passes. The board never got down to the point that he was getting full-width shavings, so again, I can’t testify to that, but the other shavings were pretty clean.
In my opinion, they seem to be a good value. They’re priced at about the point of a user grade Stanley Bedrock, but you get a new plane with all the parts and no rust, with a thicker blade. The nostalgia isn’t there, so if that matters, go with the Stanley. For those that can’t afford a cabinet full of $300-$700 planes, and don’t want to go to the effort of tuning an old plane or a less expensive brand, these are something to look at. They don’t have any specialty planes yet, so it’s still high dollar if you want a good shoulder plane, chisel plane, etc. I don’t know if there are future plans to expand the line into that area or not.
One last note, the block plane looks and feels just “plane” sweet. With the thicker blade, it may be a real winner, but I didn’t mess with it (yet). All I know is that I’m having to come up with a plan for a larger cabinet for storing my planes now.
Hope this helps at least some of you.
Greg
Wood River #5 Performance Testing Results
Method, Actions, and Ancillary Information:
Last night, I spent about 5 hours playing with the Wood River #5.
I polished the machining marks out of the top front bevel edge of the chip breaker (the chip breaker design is somewhat similar to the LN and Hock chip breakers) and did a little polishing on the underside of the bevel area. I also flattened the iron and honed/polished the bevel. The iron flattened somewhat faster than I was expecting, given the published hardness range (Rc 60 - 64). Both the iron and the chip breaker were taken to 8000 grit on water stones.
After re-assembling the plane and adjusting the iron (mouth opening was about 1/8" wide), I tried it out on the edge of a piece of 4/4" poplar. After a couple of passes to get the edge straight, it easily and smoothly peeled off full-length, full-width thick, curly shavings in the .01" - .02" vicinity. The surface was clean, shiny, and smooth to the touch. After retracting the iron and planing in several increments, I ended up with super-thin, spiral, curly, hair-like shavings that would barely stay together: what I call "Angel Hair." These were somewhere around .001", perhaps a bit thinner.
After re-adjusting the iron for a heavier cut, I then went to work on the face of this same piece of poplar. Again, it produced nearly full-length, full-width thick, curly shavings around .01" - .02" thickness. Again, the surface was clean, shiny, and smooth to the touch. (There were some plane tracks from the corners of the iron, which I deliberately did not camber, since I do not own this plane and did not have permission from the store owner to do that to the iron.) I again retracted the iron in stages, with each retraction producing increasingly thinner shavings. I finally ended with shavings similar to those from the edge that would barely stay together. The surface quality was also similarly smooth.
To test edge retention, I used a piece of rough-sawn 6/4" Red Oak approximately 10" x 12". I started with a straight edge to find the big "hills", which were marked and spot-planed to the approximate height of the rest of the board. I then planed from the left side of the board, perpendicular to the grain, over the entire board, and then did the same thing from the right side of the board. Next, I followed the same sequence, but planing diagonally, at about 45 degrees to the grain, instead of directly across the grain. Finally, I planed with the grain across the face of the board, ending with a more or less flat board (I wasn't really aiming to produce a "perfectly" flat board; I was more interested in seeing how the iron would hold up to heavy planing on a tougher wood.) The surface was shiny when held obliquely to the light, but I could see small track-like lines all across the board, parallel to the grain (more on this later), along with fewer heavier lines which were similar to the plane tracks seen in the poplar. The surface was reasonably smooth to the touch, but would obviously need the attentions of a smoothing plane to make it finish-ready; the small track-like lines could be felt on the surface.
The final planing test was on the face of a piece of 4/4" hard maple, approximately 8" X 14". I adjusted the iron to a very, very light cut and then closed the mouth opening to about 1/64". I then re-adjusted the iron so that it just barely was showing above the sole. Peeling about 3/4 width "Angel Hair" shavings even thinner than the poplar shavings was no problem. After several passes across the width of the board, I pulled it off of the bench and held it obliquely to the light. The surface was very glass-like shiny, but again there were numerous small track-like lines parallel to the grain all across the face of the board, as well as the heavier tracks from the corners of the iron. The board was very smooth to the touch, almost like polished marble, but again, the track-like lines were just barely discernable to the touch.
After finishing planing, I the pulled the iron off the plane and re-adjusted the mouth opening back to approximately 1/8".
Observations and comments:
In attempt to somewhat reduce the length of this post and to moderate repetition, I'll try to keep the repetition of previously-posted information to an absolute minimum.
Good stuff:
The mass of the plane allows it to develop significant momentum and take heavy cuts easily. With a heavily cambered iron and an open mouth, this plane could perform scrub plane duties all day long.
All adjustments are smooth and positive. There is a bit of backlash in the depth adjuster mechanism (about a turn to a turn and a half or so). Frog adjustment is very easy and positive, both forward and backward. If you need to remove the frog from the casting, the frog retaining pins are notched on the top showing where the screw holes are, making alignment with the tightening screws very easy. Lateral adjustment of the iron is easy and positive, but it is somewhat sensitive to the tightness of the lever cap; if the lever cap is loose, the lateral adjuster tends to let the iron shift slightly from side to side in use. Slightly tightening the lever cap screw (about 1/4 turn or so) solves this minor problem.
The iron cut well, and after flattening and honing, was able to produce very thin, fluffy shavings typical of a good quality hand plane. The surface was generally polished marble smooth and of very nice quality. (However, see below in the Not So Good Stuff: section for some caveats to the preceding statement.)
The chip breaker has a very interesting design. The upper portion is quite similar to the Hock and Lie-Nielsen type chip breakers, in that it is flat with a fairly wide bevel at the front end. On the bottom side, however, is the interesting part. It appears to be something of a hybrid of the LN and the old Stanley types: there is a machined lip at the front end, but it is not flat like the LN, instead it is somewhat curved, almost like a tongue. The intent of this design appears to be to combine the mass of the LN lip with the flexibility of the old Stanley curved type chip breaker, and take advantage of the virtues of each. In the limited amount of time I've spent using and testing this plane, it appears to be a success: while using the plane, the chip breaker did not allow any shavings to come between the chip breaker and the iron.
I found the tote and knob very comfortable in use. If you like the completely rounded somewhat oval profile (the ones with no flat areas on the sides) of the totes that Stanley used on Type 11 and earlier bench planes, you'll probably like these -- a lot: they are a well-executed, near-exact copy of that style tote. To my hand, they felt "just right". If, on the other hand, you're a fan of the more upright and angular Veritas style tote, you may not like these quite as much....
The machined surfaces on the top and the bottom of the frog both appear to have been ground. There are very subtle machining marks (like the ones on the sole and sides of the casting), but they are quite smooth to the touch and the surfaces are very flat.
The machining and polishing on all of the brass/bronze parts (except the yoke which is left largely in a rough casting state) is quite nice and precisely executed. The machining around the circumference of the depth adjuster knob is particularly nicely done.
The balance in the hand, the heft, and the overall "feel" of the plane ranks right up there with the best that Stanley produced prior to WW II, and with the better modern plane makers' products. Overall fit and finish are impressively good.
Not So Good Stuff:
The rivet that connects the lateral adjuster to the frog appears to have loosened up with just a small amount of use. There is about 1/8" to 1/4" of vertical play on the lateral adjuster lever. As noted before, the lateral adjuster lever is folded/twisted, stamped steel. On a personal note, I strongly dislike this style of lateral adjuster because it feels rather flimsy in my hand; my preference is for the old Stanley version (what they used before they replaced it with the stamped metal version currently in use) and the LN version (an improvement of the old Stanley type).
After completion of the planing and removal of the iron, I examined the iron under 10X magnification. What I saw explained the tracks on the surface of the oak and the maple. What I saw was also extremely disappointing: across about 3/4 of width of the iron, the edge had crumbled. Instead of a plane iron, I had a serrated steak knife. :( The serrations were sub-millimeter in size, but very distinct. Despite the fact that they were present in the first place, one good thing is that they were pretty even in size; that suggests that the crystaline structure of the steel is reasonably uniform -- a very good thing. The crumbling might be a residual effect from the heat treatment (where one must hone/grind back a bit to remove the slag-like damaged surface metal that often results from heat treating), or it might be an indicator that the heat treating was improperly done, or that (the as much as) Rc 64 hardness in an iron of this thickness, composition, and bevel angle (25 degrees) might be too hard to retain an edge in anything other than the softest woods. My metallurgical knowledge is far too limited to be able to make anything other than a semi-SWAG.....so I won't. Regardless of the actual causes of the metal crumbling, there are a couple of obvious potential solutions that suggest themselves: (1) hone/grind back a couple of hundredths of an inch to remove all of the residual slag components; (2) re-heat treat; (3) increase the bevel angle to 30 degrees (since this is a bevel down plane, the effective cutting angle will remain 45 degrees; it won't make any effective difference in the cutting capability or effort, but will increase the durability of the cutting edge). FWIW, it took about 5 minutes with a coarse diamond stone and 800/1200/4000/8000 water stones to restore the cutting edge. It worked fine and a gave clean surface cut for the couple of passes that I did, but I did not do any further testing to check the durability, etc. (it was nearly 0130.....).
Conclusions and (additional) Editorial Comments:
Overall, I find these to be very well-designed, well-executed, and well-manufactured hand planes, especially when the price is taken into account. As noted in previous postings, there are a couple of details that better quality control could easily corrrect.
The main problem I found is with the iron. Since I have not done further testing after re-honing, I do not know whether the edge will have the same problems that I encountered in the above tests or whether the re-honing has solved the problem. (More on this later after more testing....)
The edge retention problem with the iron and the other relatively minor problems with squareness (mentioned previously) aside, these appear to me -- based on the limited time that I have had to "play" with them -- to be high-quality planes that will provide good service and will give the user very good performance (probably something in the vicinity of 90% - 95% of the performance of a premium plane -- i.e., LN or LV -- at about 1/3 of the price: very similar to what can be extracted from a well-tuned pre-WW II Stanley). If Woodcraft corrects the couple of quality-control problems previously mentioned, and fixes the edge retention problem with the irons, I think they will have a real winner here: one that gives plane users a very high performance level at a very reasonable cost. FWIW, that is intended to be high praise from someone who thinks that Lie-Nielsen is the cats' meow when it comes to production Bailey style planes.....
Finally...please keep in mind that all of the previous comments and observations are based on a statistically insignificant sample population: 2 X LA Block planes, 2 X #4 Smoothing planes, 1 X #5 Jack plane, and 1 X #6 Try/Fore plane. YMMV!!!!!
It is my hope that the above/previously-posted information/commentary will be of some use to anyone who is considering the acquisition of any of these planes.