I have a couple of pair, I like them, they work well, are inexpensive and being small don't take up much room in an over crowded toolbox.
I have a couple of pair, I like them, they work well, are inexpensive and being small don't take up much room in an over crowded toolbox.
I have some of those asian H&Rs.
This one is subjective. Yes they are considerably smaller. But one doesn't usually use them for extended periods either.
It's definitely true that you can't get as close to things as you can with traditional Western designs. I think most situations you could handle without problems though. One could probably trim the corners back a bit and get as close as a western plane without hurting anything.2) Western H&R's have specific shapes at each side of the plane, allowing one to work next to other moulding features/components.
Eastern H&R's lack this, and I found it troublesome to add the side geometries to existing planes. I suspect eastern mouldings don't
present this issue.
They are a little rough out of the box. They can use a bit of touching up here and there. But they definitely do work, and the irons are reasonably close to the proper shape (at least on the ones I have used). I do prefer the Western ones though.