Which LN to buy?

[Tom Winship]

I currently have Stanley Nos. 4, 5, and 5 1/4. I have decided to buy a LN in the next couple of months. My choices are a 4 1/2 or the low angle jack. Which would you buy?

[Sean Hughto]

I'd go off the board for a 7, Jack.

[Jeff Heath]

The low angle jack is a very versatile tool for the shop. With a standard iron with a bevel at 25°, you can plane end grain as smooth as butter, and you can also edge plane most docile species of North American hardwood. With a second iron, and a secondary bevel of 40° (or thereabouts) you can turn the l.a. jack into a super smoother for crotchwood, curly wood, and much more difficult-to-plane exotic hardwoods without tearout. It is truly a great tool to have, with an extra iron, of course.

The adjustable mouth also allows you to go from taking fine shavings to being much more agressive without having to move a frog.

Jeff

[Jim Koepke]

I hope to be buying an LN low angle jack (#62) soon. I do already own a Stanley/Bailey #4-1/2 and use it a lot.

My #4-1/2 is mostly used for smoothing faces of boards and large areas.

The main reason for my considering the #62 is to use on my shooting board. Its other benefits are secondary, though sure to come in handy, in my purchasing decision. My current shooting board planes are a #65-1/2 and a #5-1/2. Both of those are a little awkward for more than a few minutes of use. I like the mass of the #5-1/2, but there is no comfortable way to grip it in use. The #65-1/2 is more comfortable, but does not have much mass.

Depending on your needs/situation, you already have a smoother that can fill in for the #4-1/2 so the #62 may bring more "new tricks" into play than a #4-1/2 will at this time.

jim

[Don C Peterson]

I have the LA Jack and like it a lot. I also have a #4. I would hate to go without either one, but if forced to choose, I'd probably keep the #4 over the LA Jack. I use both on a regular basis, and I'll freely admit that the LA Jack is more versatile. But when the job calls for a smoother, I nearly always grab the #4 and it never disappoints, it looks right, and it feels right...

The only time I use the LA Jack for smoothing is with really difficult grain, I have a 90 degree blade that I modified to be a very high angle smoother. The rest of the time the LA Jack primarily does duty on the shooting board.

[Mick David]

+1 low angle jack.

[Michael Gibbons]

4 1/2 but you may consider a different angle frog than 45*.

[Matt Radtke]

The main reason for my considering the #62 is to use on my shooting board. Its other benefits are secondary, though sure to come in handy, in my purchasing decision. My current shooting board planes are a #65-1/2 and a #5-1/2. Both of those are a little awkward for more than a few minutes of use. I like the mass of the #5-1/2, but there is no comfortable way to grip it in use. The #65-1/2 is more comfortable, but does not have much mass.

What? You're not going to wait for the LN 51 to come out?

[Tom Winship]

I think more people are leaning toward the LA Jack. One of the reasons for considering it is when making drawers with hand cut dovetails, the LA jack will handle the end grain much better as many of you have mentioned. I used both at the recent LN Hand Tool Event in Austin and both did extremely well. I didn't carry a piece of mesquite to see how it would handle it.
Tom

[Richard Magbanua]

I like the LA jack option. I use mine for shooting with a 25 deg blade (very happy with this) and for pre-smoothing and edge jointing with the 35 deg. blade. I really prefer my #4 and #3 Stanley for smoothing as I find the LA jack a bit long for smoothing. However, having the LA jack enables me to use my other 2 #5 Stanleys as a fore/scrub plane and a jack set for a heavier cut.
The catch with using the LA-jack as a shooting plane is that you'll have a craving for a nice LN X-cut carcass to go with it!

[Rick Erickson]

Tom, based on what you already have I would have to say the LA Jack. The 4 1/2 is a great one and I use mine all the time but seems you already have that area covered. Sharp blades are what cut end grain regardless of the angle (within reason) so I wouldn't buy it just for that. I use my 5 1/2 as my primary plane for DT boxes / drawers. No issue with end grain.

[Graham Hughes (CA)]

Of your choices I'd suggest the LA jack, but I really would suggest a jointer, perhaps an old Stanley. My jointer is easily my most used plane.

[David Gendron]

+1 on the jointer, it look like it's what you are missing in your collection!

[lowell holmes]

I have the 4 1/2 and a LV low angle jack. I use the low angle jack more ofter. Having said that, I wouldn't part with either plane.

[David Keller NC]

Tom - I have the L-N 4-1/2 with a 50 degree frog, the LN LA jack, the LN LA smoother, as well as roughly 25 other L-N offerings, both bench and specialty planes.

The L-N low angle jack plane is a fine tool and definitely their most popular one, but it may help your decision to know why it's the most popular. Generally, that's its inexpensive price versus the bevel down planes.

Many folks, particularly power tool converts, have an inappropriate metal calculation about what a plane from a good manufacturer should cost. I say inappropriate because these mental calculations are usually based on comparisons to either the mass-manufactured hand-held power tools like sanders and routers, and/or comparisons with what an antique stanley costs.

Because of this, the reactions I see frequently on internet forums is "I can't afford a Lie Nielsen - $350 for a plane is ridiculous!". Generally speaking, most folks on 'net woodworking forums can certainly afford $350, they just don't want to afford it because they perceive that the $400 router or the thousands of dollars in power tools that they have in their shop have motors, after all, and a handplane should be way less than that because it's just a chunk of metal.

Obviously, you've already gone past these ideas, so the reason I'm explaining all of this is so that you realize that there's a bias inherent in the bevel-up/bevel-down debate that has to do with cost, not versatility or usefullness in the shop. Often, the ability to change blades and achieve a different planing angle with the same plane is cited as an advantage of a bevel-up plane.

However, this isn't actually true. You can very, very easily modify a bevel-down blade to give you the same planing angles as a bevel-up plane by simply putting a mico back-bevel on the blade. And I can tell you that it's a whole lot easier to change out the blade in a bevel-down plane than it is in L-N's bevel-up designs. In particular, getting the correct distance and orientation of the frog catch in the blade assembly of a L-N bevel-up plane isn't very easy - it takes trial and error. In contrast, the adjustment of the chip-breaker/blade assembly in a bevel-down plane has a certain, one-step outcome.

From the standpoint of use in the shop, the L-N LA jack is a wonderful plane for use on a shooting board, but planing end grain is the only and slight advantage that it has over a bevel-down plane. That's because you can get a 37 degree planing angle out of it, which is very slightly better than the 45 degree angle that you get out of their #9 miter plane.

But this is the only real advantage of a bevel-up plane with respect to bevel-down planes, and the BU planes do have some disadvantages not often noted. In particular, BU planes don't make good roughing planes, which is the intended purpose of the jack-plane length. The reason for this is somewhat complicated, but it has to do with the additional curvature necessary on a bevel-up blade and the lack of clearance behind the cutting edge on a BU plane. Moreover, it's been my experience that my BU planes just don't perform very well in really hard woods unless an incredibly thin shaving is taken - they tend to chatter and stall.

So - my conclusion is that a L-N or LV BU jack plane makes a superb panel plane. A panel plane is primarily a long smoother, and it's a better choice when finish-planing a panel for a furniture-scale frame and panel door than a shorter smoother. They also make excellent shooting board planes, though they're not as nice to use as the L-N #9 miter because their sidewalls aren't as tall and they're slightly less stable.

So, after all that, I would suggest that you get a jointer, because you really need it if you process wood by hand, and it's still a necessary tool if you primarily rough out wood with powered planers and jointers, because you will still need to remove machining marks from the edges of a board, and they're critically important in flattening your bench from time to time.

If you don't want a jointer, then I would suggest that a L-N 4-1/2 with a 50 degree frog is a far better choice for you than a LA jack because it makes a better smoothing plane because of its shorter length, and you already have a Stanely #5, which is an excellent jack/roughing plane. If you want to have the versatility of several planing angles in one plane, then get an extra blade for the #4-1/2 and put a back-bevel on it - I would suggest a 10 degree back-bevel to yield a 60 degree planing angle.

If you do choose a BU jack and buy more than one blade, do yourself a tremendous favor and buy one additional frog catch assembly for each additional blade - it will save you a whole lot of frustration.