German Style Smoothing Plane.
The following Smoothing Plane has been sitting in my workshop for the last 5yrs waiting for an opportunity to be fettled in and put to use. Today was that day. The sole of the plane needed a light dressing back, the irons wooden bed and wedge abutments were received a fettled in, and the double iron was de-rusted and prepped for use. The sole of the plane then received a rubbing of wax and was put to use on a short length of wedge stock that needed to be hand thicknessed down from 1" to 5/8". Thick or whisper thin shavings, this smoothing plane managed it effortlessly. This post should be treated as a kindly reminder that you don't need to spend a lot of money on a premium brand bench plane.
Stewie;
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Primus English Pattern Jack Plane
I have a German Primus English Pattern Jack Plane that I bought years ago to help with flattening my rock maple bench top.
It worked great once I got over the learning curve on how to set the blade, and how to adjust the tension spring.
It works great as a jack and with the very good blade setting capability, it can be used as a super smoother ( ala David Charlesworth's technique with a #5 ).
The steel is very good and keeps an edge through most of my projects and is fairly quick to hone back to top form.
Highland Hardware was the source and is currently priced at about $270 with tax or so.
The sole needs very little maintenance and I just use a card scraper to tune it back to needs. Maybe do that once a year just for giggles.
Enjoy!