Any thoughts on the new Lee Valley toothed irons?

[Matt Lau]

I'm thinking of adding a toothing plane to my lineup for thicknessing guitar wood.
Since I have a Small Bevel up smoother and Low angle Jack, the new Veritas blades can fit right in (the original toothed blades were too coarse).
Currently, I use a Kanna and scraper for most of my thicknessing. I have a hard time with harder, figured woods.

Any thoughts/recommendations on these new blades for thicknessing tough woods like flamed maple, cocobolo, mahogany?


-Matt

[john zulu]

There are 2 questions...... Are you aiming for smoothing or scrubing? Both are very different functions. Scraper for thicknessing is odd.......

I used a tooth plane when I am leveling the board at times. This is to ensure that the board does not tearout. My last workout was with Chengal, local hardwood. Scrub plane for the thickness and
LAJ with 25 blade for leveling. The tooth blade did not level the hardwood well. A lot of energy spent. For the LAJ I did the usual routine which is to close the mouth. Minimize the blade depth. Skew the plane while planning. All helped to level the hardwood.

Thicknessing general is achieve with a scrub plane or a camber blade.

[Jim Belair]

I have a toothing blade for my standard angle block but don't have much experience with it. I didn't realize they had come out with some new, finer toothed versions. Could you post a link?

As usual, the Lee Valley webpage index is dismal in trying to find such things. Search for "tooth", toothing" doesn't help either. Whenever I give this feedback to Customer Service all they do is get back to me with the link. This is my only complaint with this great company. (sorry for the side rant)

[Stewie Simpson]

BD toothing planes at a range of 85 - 90* beds I can endorse and recommend. I have no experience using low bed BU planes fitted with a toothing iron. Other than to suggest that on difficult grained timber the effective cutting angle of a BU (bed + bevel angle) fitted with a toothing iron, should be targeted close to 90* .

John Walkowiak has a very sound knowledge on Toothing Planes.

Stewie;

[lowell holmes]

I suggest you contact Lee Valley and ask your question. They will give you truthful answers. I have the BU smoother and jack planes. I have the 50 degree toothing iron.
I have used it on figured maple and cherry.

[Lars Larson]

I have had one of the older toothed irons for my LV BU Jack for a couple of years. I think it works well for preventing tearout in cross grained woods while still taking a healthy cut. I mostly use it in combination with my jointer plane when trying to take a twist/cup/bow out of boards that would require me to take really light passes. I usually do 2-3 passes with toothed plane followed by a few with the jointer to remove the tooth marks. One other benefit is that it really shows your high/low areas with the tooth pattern cut into the high spots.

[Sean Hughto]

Hmmm. I don't know how much more straightforward LV could make it. I just went there - tapped "woodworking" - tapped "planes" - tapped "blades" and tapped " toothing for BU". After this simple logical and rather strongly intuitive progression, I was presented with a clear page with pictures and detailed written descriptions of their fine medium and coarse offerings. Maybe the Canadian page is different?