Allow me to preface this post by saying this is not meant to be a post hating on Veritas tools or their commitment to quality at all - I have purchased almost all of the planes they offer (I'm not particularly affluent, so this means I need to save up/sell other tools to be able to afford them) and have had very few concerns with their tools in the past.
I recently purchased a shooting plane with a PM-V11 blade in store, only to come home and find one of the interior surfaces had a big dent and was missing some paint (it was obvious enough that I wondered how it passed QC). It didn't affect functionality at all, but for a $400 plane (in Canada) I expect something perfect, so I returned it.
I ordered another one online in early February, as they were sold out in store, and just received my plane today. Unfortunately the plane is quite a bit out of square along its length - not a little bit, but a lot (See pictures). I tried it against 3 of my most accurate squares just to be sure. In addition, the blade was also ground considerably out of square. In normal circumstances, I would return the plane immediately, but they are sold out online and in-store until mid April, and I've been wanting to get to use this plane since early February. I'm also a little disappointed that two planes with obvious flaws were allowed to go out to customers.
So how important is it that the sides are square to each other? I know I can adjust the blade to be square to the shooting board, but there will be enough of the blade unsupported do to the side and sole being out of square that I can picture it affecting the smoothness of the way the plane functions. Any thoughts?
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