I purchased the new version of the Stanley Sweetheart no. 4 plane. I regret to say that it was huge disappointment. Heres how it was. The saddest thing about his plane is that Stanley really tried to get it right. Boy was I happy when I first got it home. I checked the sole against a machinist straight edge and square. It was dead flat and required no truing. If you ever trued a plane like the cheap Stanleys or Records or whatever you can imagine what a relief this was. It was heavy and well made. The handles were Cherry and the plane was very handsome. I'm finicky about sharpening and was very happy to find the iron had a flat back and was a full 1/8" thick. It was a breeze to polish the back. Again no truing required. I put it on the Tormek and put a hollow grind on it. I marched it up through the stones all the way to a surgical black Arkansas. I put the iron in the plane dialed everything in and tried it out. Heres where it got dissapointing. The iron would just not hold an edge. It chipped up in a twinkling. It gouged and tore. I put it back on to a white hard Arkansas and worked back up to the black surgical. Same thing. A few passses (over poplar for crying out loud!) and it chipped up and went dull. So I went back to square one and worked it up from an 800 japanese water stone all the way up to Arkansas Black. Same result - chip and tear. I did this three times! Chipped up and tore every time. What junk! I use this the same extensive sharpening procedure on all my tools - British-made Sorby chisels, German-made two Cherry chisels, inexpensive Marples and ironically the planing irons in the inexpensive Stanley planes. They all take and hold an edge way, way, way, better than whatever the hell kind of steel is in this new higher-end Sweetheart by Stanley. In light of all the nice workmanship evident in this plane I have no sure answer for this strange anomaly. Maybe I just got a bad one. Maybe whoever supplies the steel to Stanley is ripping them off. But, whatever the reason, the plane was absolutely useless. It was like buying a Rolls and finiding out it had an Izuzu transmission. Needless to say, it went right back to the store. Has anyone else had this experience? Anyway its a shame because the plane was really a keeper otherwise. Well I guess I'll continue to use my old cheap Stanley planes with their thin, but usuable irons while I save up to buy planes from Lie-Nielsen.