"hammer adjusted" plane choice

[Pohgunn Ooi]

I have the HNT Trying, Smoother and Jack. They are my go-to planes for hardwood. I have a pair of the Mujingfang Palm smoother too. Works great for the small areas.

Reverse the blade on smoothers and they are a great scraper on knots and difficult grains.

HNT's Trying plane is good on the shooting board as well.

The high angle Mujingfang plane is very good value, understandably not as polished as the HNT but can be re-finished easily and works just as well.

GUNN

[Joel Goodman]

Thanks to all for the advice. I picked up an HNT Gordon smoother. Seem to be getting the hang of adjusting it after a small mishap sent the iron onto the concrete and some work to remove the giant nick! It's a very different feel from a Stanley or a LN or even an ECE. And it is more effort to push but I assume that's the 60 degree cutting angle. I tried it on some walnut and some mahogany and it left a very polished surface. Shavings below. A question -- I assume that I can store it with the iron and wedge in place and ready to go -- is that so?

[Kevin Adams]

Hi Joel--

Nice plane! I have several of the Gordons and they are among my favorite planes.

A couple of comments:

1. This plane is meant more for polishing the surface after the wood has been pretty well prepared/flattened. As such, the shavings are quite light. From the photo, your shavings appear more like what one would see with a jack or maybe trying plane. Yes, this plane has a higher pitch, but it is very light in weight and should glide over the wood without a whole lot of effort. You might try to lighten up the iron a bit for fluffier shavings. Also, you don't show the crossbar attached...have you tried it with the bar yet? I find that using the plane with the crossbar really helps me push down at the start of the cut and then literally "lift off" at the end. You can really get your body into it and less chance (at least for me) of planing tapers instead of keeping it flat (one of my problems).
2. I am just a hobbyist so don't use these planes everyday, all day, so I always release the wedge/iron (and the crossbar for that matter) as I finish using them for the day. Depending on where you live and how much your humidity changes, that's really not a bad practice to get into. I think you will find that these planes are really quite easy to set up quickly if you use Terry's recommended method of pushing the iron down on a hard block of wood and then set the wedge.

Hope you enjoy the plane.

Kevin

[Joel Goodman]

I'm using Terry's setting block but am have trouble getting a really fine shaving. The wider walnut shavings are a bit thick. The mahogany shavings are better but the picture doesn't show it well. But you are so right -- I haven't figured out how to set a really fine shaving yet. Perhaps I'll try Derek's glass block trick. Or maybe try starting with the iron back a little and sneak up on the shaving thickness. I'm using a very small mallet to adjust -- would a brass hammer help? What's getting me is how hard it is to retract the iron a tiny amount.

[RickT Harding]

I'm using Terry's setting block but am have trouble getting a really fine shaving. The wider walnut shavings are a bit thick. The mahogany shavings are better but the picture doesn't show it well. But you are so right -- I haven't figured out how to set a really fine shaving yet. Perhaps I'll try Derek's glass block trick. Or maybe try starting with the iron back a little and sneak up on the shaving thickness. I'm using a very small mallet to adjust -- would a brass hammer help? What's getting me is how hard it is to retract the iron a tiny amount.

This is one of the great trial/error things about these types of planes. You get a feel for it, but it takes some practice to learn how much is enough/too much. It took me a couple of weeks with my HNT jack to get a feel for where the sweet spot was for how hard to tap + the types of shavings I was looking for.

[Raney Nelson]

I'm using Terry's setting block but am have trouble getting a really fine shaving. The wider walnut shavings are a bit thick. The mahogany shavings are better but the picture doesn't show it well. But you are so right -- I haven't figured out how to set a really fine shaving yet. Perhaps I'll try Derek's glass block trick. Or maybe try starting with the iron back a little and sneak up on the shaving thickness. I'm using a very small mallet to adjust -- would a brass hammer help? What's getting me is how hard it is to retract the iron a tiny amount.

For planes like this, you'll want to make all your adjustments in the positive direction... that is, start with the blade just shy of a shaving and tap down to get what you want. If you go too far, retract and start over. You'll get the hang in no time.

On japanese planes, or planes where you don't mind dinging them up a bit, you can get very precise retraction by striking the rear top corner of the plane such that the direction of force is parallel to the blade. This is the reason japanese planes have such a large chamfer on the rear top (well - it's actually front top in japanese terminology, but you know what I mean).

According to Clark and WIlliams lore, someone once asked why they don't put an adjuster on their planes. Don McConnell's response was "That would be like putting a cow-catcher on a jet."