Low angle jack or Dedicated Shooting Plane?

[glenn bradley]

Hello Lucas,

I have the LV shooting plane but do not have a LA Jack. I am quite content and will note that I have used the shooting plane to plane end grain freehand as one would with LA Jack. A bit awkward, but doable. Regardless, the shooting plane is quickly becoming my favorite, especially for the small and med scale work you describe.

Best of luck deciding.

I was shooting some parts for a current project when the wife walked into the shop. When I finished the current operation I looked up and noticed her. She said "I remember when you used to look at me that way". I assured her that her place in my heart was secure. Definitely a solid smidgen or two higher on the scale than my shooting plane.

[Phil Mueller]

Stewie, thanks for sharing that article. Was very imforming to me. Perhaps it speaks volumes to my sharpening skills...finding a less than super sharp LA plane more forgiving on end grain, along with the mass and skewed angle of the shooting plane. Nonetheless, “sharp” does seem to be the solution for many issues.

[Matt Evans]

In retrospect, for me in my work, the LA jack has not been the highly used plane I thought it would be. Right or wrong, 90% of what I use it for is endgrain like cleaning up dovetails.

I am actually considering getting a LAJ just for cleaning up dovetails. I use a low angle block plane now, but the block planes are just too small for using for an extended period of time for me. Its fine on small drawers and boxes, but on case work my hands start cramping up in short order.

Not sure that a luthier would need one for the same operation though.

Shooting, I tend to use a #6,#7 or #8. The mass, as mentioned by someone else earlier, helps quite a bit in harder woods, particularly in 5"+ wide material.

[Jim Koepke]

My shooting used to often be done with a standard bench plane. Sometimes it would be done with a low angle block plane. Many years ago an accident messed up my right shoulder. The impact of a bench plane taking a shaving was more than the LA block plane. This led me to the decision to purchase a low angle jack plane. At the time the shooting planes were not yet available nor even under discussion.

The LA Jack blade is still at 25º and is likely to stay there.

Without the equipment of analysis my experience is all that backs up my finding. The bevel up blade honed at 25º + 12º bed for a total of 37º leaves a better surface than a standard bench plane's angle of attack at 45º.

There may be a couple of factors involved in this. To me it appears the low angle is shearing the wood whereas the bench plane is more or less pushing the wood. The low angle has more of a tendency to lift the wood as it cuts. This is great on end grain but can be a problem going with the grain. The 'pushing' of the end grain by a higher angle of attack can separate the fibers and leave what looks like tear out but is actually grain separation.

Just my 2¢ Two Cents.png.

As always, YMMV!!!.png

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

BTW, if shooting planes were available at the time of purchasing my LA Jack my choice may have been different. The good point is it may have been my choice to purchase the right hand version. With my bad shoulder, that would have been a mistake. Now days almost all of my shooting is done left handed.

jtk

[Ron Patrick]

I got a LV laj for shooting and it worked well, then LV came out with their shooting plane. After reading Derek Cohen's comparison of the different shooting planes, I decided to get a LV shooting plane and I couldn't believe how much better it worked. It is such a pleasure to use, they will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. The laj is a wonderful bench plane, so it gets plenty of use also.

[Stewie Simpson]

The LA Jack blade is still at 25º and is likely to stay there.

https://paulsellers.com/2014/10/cust...up-jack-plane/
Reading between the lines becomes ever important when considering plane makers. Most if not all of the bevel-up low-angle plane makers, sellers and so on currently producing and or selling BU planes will write in their promotions stating the plane irons are ground and polished out at 25-degrees primarily to prove that the planes present the lowered bevel cutting edge at a the lower angle than the bench planes with bevel down irons installed, which are generally bedded on a regular bed of 45-degrees. This really isn’t altogether true. They state that the combined angle will be 12-degrees for the bed and 25-degrees for the iron and so total the two out as a presentation of 37-degrees. In reality the cutting edge is quite weak and you’d be better off grinding and polishing out at least 30-degrees on an O1 blade and the very least 35- degrees for A2 blades. That would mean the O1 steel iron would present very close to the bevel down plane at 42-degrees and the A2 iron would in fact be higher at 47-degrees.

https://knowledge.axminster.co.uk/o1...el-is-for-you/

To summarise:
O1 steel – grind at 25° and hone at 30°
A2 steel – grind at 25° and hone at 33-35°
PM-V11 – grind at 25° and hone at 33° for low-angle planes; grind at 25° and hone at 30° for ordinary Bailey planes.

[Robert Hazelwood]

I am no big fan of A2, but it holds up fine for me with a 25 degree bevel in my LN 60-1\2. Same for PM-V11 in a Veritas Jack Rabbet (15° bed). For me the whole point of bevel up planes is to utilize a low cutting angle, so sharpening at 30 degrees or higher defeats the purpose.
My experience is different on bevel-down planes. A2 did not perform well with a 30 degree bevel, and was only marginal at 35 degrees. I changed that blade in favor of a Hock O1 iron, which performs ideally at 30 degrees (fails gradually from wear, not from chipping).
I think the force on the edge is different (more in-line) in a low angle bevel up plane, such that it can tolerate a lower angle.

[Derek Cohen]

The article by Paul Sellers has erroneous information. One example is this: "The BU plane iron meets the same demands as the bevel down and you should treat the iron the same way after determining the pitch of the bevel in relation to the steel type if you so decide to change it."

This is simply not true, especially when it comes to planing end grain. I have demonstrated time and again that, on a shooting board, a A2 blade with a 25 degree bevel in a BU (12 degree bed) plane will by far outlast a a similar A2 blade in a BD (common angle bed, 45 degrees). In fact, the 25 degree in a BU will outlast a BD plane with a 30 degree bevel. By far!

There is a reason for this. The BU is shooting at 37 degrees. The BD plane is shooting at 45 degrees. The latter has more "impact" when striking the wood than the former. There is also less cutting and more of a scraping action with the higher angle blade. These two factors together increase wear and damage to the blade edge.

I have used a LV LA Jack to shoot end grain for at least 10 years. Until the PM-V11 blades came out, I only used A2 blades. I had nil issues with the A2 blades in regard to wear, and never chipped one ... never. (I changed them to PM only because I prefer the way they sharpen, that is, how the wire edge lets go more easily).

In my woods (your boat may float differently), O1 steel has a more limited lifespan than A2. I love the ease of honing O1, but for overall use I prefer A2 or, better still, PM-V11.

Regards from Perth

Derek