Lately I have been more in Warren and Steve's frame of mind regarding planes. I have been thinking about reducing how many I work with. I find that I generally do better work with my LV, LA Jack. I think the reason has more to do with familiarity over a decade or more rather than it being the absolute best plane in all situations.
I decided to delve into Stanley planes, mostly as an exploration into chip breakers. I was determined to figure out how to get them to perform for me. After I got familiar enough with these planes to use them decently and started using my BU planes again, I figured out I was still better with my BU planes because they just felt more familiar in actual use. Then I tried a Veritas Custom #4. This plane feels familiar, probably due to its low weight\balance, handle options and adjustment system and it has a chip breaker. Maybe Rob at LV knows a thing or two about his customer base and how to transfer them to a new plane design.
I liked the option LV offers to order frogs for their custom planes at custom angles. Reading Derek's thread on his custom #4, I found that he ordered his with a custom 42 degree bevel. He mentions that one of the reasons he did this was an old post from Warren in which he apparently said his favorite, or one of his favorite, Stanley planes had/has a custom 42 degree frog. Being more familiar with BU planes with combined 25-30+12= total 37-42 degree bevels I decided to give the 42 degree frog a try. Derek mentioned that he felt that the chip breaker made it possible to handle more difficult grain with lower angled frogs. A frog that could handle the maximum amount of different grain situations was attractive to me.
I am a little lost in all the numbers above and wonder what the ultimate point might be? Particularly could 42 minus 30 or 12 degrees be a "sweet spot" for BD frogs, sharpening angles? It seems to be working well for me.
The other question I have has to do with grinding 30 degree "hollow" bevels on blades in BD planes. Many people hand hone these hollow ground blades. I suspect one of the reasons it works is honing these blades makes some "degree" of micro bevel. The two sides of the hollow, of course, keep the edge registered to the stone at the correct angle. Maybe it is possible to hand hone a micro bevel this way without resorting to a honing jig? The micro bevel created is certainly very small but I suspect it is also relatively accurate. Honing an accurate, small micro bevel quickly and easily at a reliable, helpful angle may be part of the reason for this methods success.