My first LV planes... obligation to post.

[John Dykes]

So my Lee Valley order from Berea arrived at the office today (errrr... don't ask). I'm kicking myself for not ordering the twin-screw when I had the chance, but that's another story...

For the record, I'm a Stanley bigot - search my posts to confirm. I enjoy the hunt, I enjoy the restoration, I enjoy tuning to perfection, and I enjoy the nostalgia when using them. I bought a LN #4 several years back because it looked like a Stanley...

Though I've never publically poo-poo'd the new fangled Veritas planes, I've never been too smitten with the looks. They don't look like Stanleys - they've all been "improved!" Bleh! I have, however, publically strutted, bragged, and boasted that I can tune an old Stanley to perform just as well as these new premium planes. I've stood side by side with Marcus against the best of them!

Yes, Lee Valley is a great company, Rob Lee is a fine man, etc, etc. I've gotten quite a bit of this and that from them over the years. I just don't like their new fangled, high falutin' planes... If I ever wanted another premium plane, I'll buy a LN (since they look right).

But with that said, I picked up a Veritas Bevel-up Smoother (BUS) when I was in Berea - mainly to confirm my ... err ... thoughts that there was nothing more than a lot of hype and celebrity to these planes.

I was wrong.

Now hear me folks, I had a LN #4 that was perfect. Tissue paper, newspaper print, sub thou kinda perfect. And I have several Stanleys that can compete with it. But this BUS is... well... it's just a wholly different animal. In Berea, on a whim, I just happened to pick it up to give me some credibility in supporting my assumption (ignorance). I rolled it over in my hands - Norrisy adjuster - ha! Short, stubby iron - ha! Twisty knob - poo! Set screws - Silly! Low and wide - joke! Funky looking to boot - figures!

I set that thing to wood... And I had to buy it. Can't explain it really...

Anyhow - to make short story much longer... My first - errr - few Lee Valley planes came today. I spent about 10 minutes with the BUS. Man, that thing is a strange beast. (I know I'm probably a few years late - bear with me - I'm obligated ). The iron is short and stubby, but Lord, that thing is thick. I'm sure you can finds specs and all, I'm just telling you - it's thick; I thought they'd messed up an sent me some crazy Japanese iron. Secondarily, I have some 20+ Hock irons, and several Lie-Nielsen irons. I found some paper in the shipping that said that LV irons are lapped to blah, blah, blah. "Yea, right" says I. "I buy the best blades in the business, and they ain't nowhere close to fully lapped." Uh - this first blade I grabbed was lapped - uh - like perfectly lapped. I went right to the 8000 Shapton and had a perfect polish in 2 minutes. Insanity. Honed up the blade... thought I'd give it a shot.

The frog - uh - "machined area" of the iron bed seemed to be just as big as the iron. Seemed well machined to me (I'm the emotional reviewer, nothing whatsoever to do with measurable data!). I didn't read the instructions, but kinda figured out how to move things around. Still not a big fan of the adjuster - the whole "put the little pin in the little hole" is probably easy enough for a monkey, but I've not evolved quite that far. Projected the blade, twisted this and that to close the mouth and started taking shavings...

Fellas - I'm a Stanley bigot. They are my favorite planes - by far. I'm not a Lee Valley fan boy by any stretch. I'm an traditionalist - Disston and Stanley for me, and I reserve the right to poo-poo funky saws, new fangled planes, and $300 block planes in velvet socks. But I have to tell you (Marcus, sorry my friend...), everyone who works wood owes it to him\herself to try this plane - and I say that with all the sincerity I can muster. It's a strange beast, but what I could do with this 50 degree blade was quite amazing. I take sub-thou shavings at will, but pushing this smoother, I continually chuckled and said, "Wow." I've taken mountains of shavings with many different planes I've tuned to be "super smoothers," but after just a few shavings with this plane, it just felt very different; like a ... "real smoother," a "super duper smoother?" And I'm not sure how else to explain that - low center of gravity, mass, blah, blah. (Go search for Cohen, the difference in review quality and IQ will be readily apparent! ).

I don't know where they sell them locally, or where you can try them - but this Stanley bigot will never give up his BUS... (as much as it pains me to say that!). Yes, I was wrong...

On the negative side, a brass nut on the tote was loose... So there...

My apologies to my Stanley cohorts; I felt obligated to post...

Respectfully,
- jbd in Denver

[Johnny Kleso]

I seen my first LV plane this summer at IWF and was very impressed..

All the photos I have seen of these are so de-saturated and tweeked or home shot that they did not show who nice they are ..

They are finished much nicer then I though just seeing photos.. I was thinking New Stanley plane finish when they are much better than that...

[Marcus Ward]

Ah, don't feel bad, John. I have 2 Lee Valley planes. They're wonderful. One day I'll have their whole line of bevel up planes. They WORK. Really well. The LV bevel up jack is my go-to plane these days. Nothing else I have can plane cherry and leave it looking like it's been polished.

I still like my Stanleys. :P

[John Keeton]

John, you sound much like a repentent lost sheep, overwhelmed with guilt for its transgressions! But worse, you are not helping my attempt to slip one of these things from some unsuspecting owner with my WTB post!

Glad you like the plane(s) - you neglected to fully disclose how many and which you bought. Don't guess you want that kind of info floating around in cyberspace for the wife to see??!!??

Hope to see you sometime this month. PM me if you have misplaced my cell #.

[Jim Becker]

John, that was a great write up and it teaches us all something important...maybe we shouldn't pre-judge something that is different or just appears to be different just based on our normal preferences. Sometimes that little bit of differentiation can be wonderful when you least expect it.

[Douglas Brummett]

Glad you like the plane(s) - you neglected to fully disclose how many and which you bought. Don't guess you want that kind of info floating around in cyberspace for the wife to see??!!??

There are wives in cyberspace

Mine just reads my blog to find out if I have snuck anything exciting into the garage Kind of keeps me honest

[John Dykes]

Whoops. Sorry John. Didn't think about that...

And no, I didn't mention the other things in the box. Mostly because I gripe so much about the focus of tools over technique - I didn't want to add the title of "hypocrite" to that of Stanley Bigot.

But I can explain, really... The BUS is a great tool, hands down. I'm moving more and more to hand work, and am selling my table saw (but yes, full disclosure necessitates admitting my recent bandsaw purchase). For shooting, I've got a good range of Bailey\Bedrock jacks (5, 5.5), but having the LA Jack for shooting up hand sawn pieces was intriguing...

Lastly, I got the large LV shoulder plane. The LN seemed a bit too small for me; and though I again hate to admit it, those darn knobs Lee Valley puts on the large plane make it easier for me to use... So yea - with all the silly "improvements" they've done to a age old design, it works better for me... Darn them!

It doesn't really matter if the wife sees this post. My bandsaw is being delivered today, and I haven't sold my tablesaw yet. My life is forfeit....

We'll be in Lexington 21'ish - Jan 4'ish... If I'm still alive, I'll try to slip away for a day at your convenience.

Warm regards,

- jbd in Denver

[David Keller NC]

"I don't know where they sell them locally, or where you can try them - but this Stanley bigot will never give up his BUS... (as much as it pains me to say that!). Yes, I was wrong..."

Ha! John, you do know that Lie-Nielsen makes a BUS as well, right? (As well as a BU jack and jointer). I'm sort of in your camp - I just don't like the looks of Veritas planes, though I've several and they're superb performers. But for that reason (and really that reason alone) I bought the L-N bevel-up smoother. A warning though - this is a very slippery slope. You may soon find yourself looking at a $2000 antique Norris on your bench, or an even more expensive Konrad Sauer or Karl Holtey infill....

[Thomas Pender]

Many of you all (like John) have great skills with planes and appreciate the fine points much better than I, but my LV BUS is even easy for me to use. I use it on QSWO for panels, Curly Cherry Panels, etc., with great effect. It is a bit ducky looking, but it is nice and heavy and it takes out resaw marks beautifully on wide panels. I always mean to get some advice on how to use it to more effect, but I really appreciate John's decision to hang on to his. I note that I have also mounted the LV fence on it and used it after my LV BU Jointer plane (another gem). The side benefit of all these planes is that they do not make much dust, they give me a real workout, and they do not burn electricity. But, I admit I could not do without my Grizzly jointer or planer.

My next foray into the world of planes is probably going to be a scraping plane - I figure since card scrapers work well, one of these may work better. Am I right?

BTW - this forum is one of the most fun to read. Lots of sense of humor and irony.

[David Keller NC]

"My next foray into the world of planes is probably going to be a scraping plane - I figure since card scrapers work well, one of these may work better. Am I right?"

Depends on what you mean by "better" - scraping planes allow something you can't do with a card scraper, which is either create or maintain a fairly flat surface. However, they can be frustrating to set and use if you're not used to hand planes.

If I were to recommend a "first" one of these, it would probably be the L-N copy of the Stanley #112. It's a large plane intended for wide, long boards. If your work is smaller (like jewelry boxes), then I'd pick the L-N copy of the #212. I've both (as well as the cabinetmaker's scraper), and they both work superbly - once you get used to how to sharpen and set them.

There are a couple of other options, though. One is to buy another blade for your BUS and grind the bevel off, leaving you with a 90 degree face to the length of the iron. Another option is a scraper insert for a Bailey-style bevel down plane:

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...2635&cat=1,310

This is Paul Hamler's design, and you can also buy a more recent re-design directly from him. The advantage to something like this is that you can now have a scraper-plane the length of a jointer for dealing with highly figured woods, and it's certainly cheaper than a wide belt sander.

[Marcus Ward]

Dave - I have one of those, I was underwhelmed. A lot. I don't recommend it.

[Vince Shriver]

Great write up, John. I immediately went to LV online after reading your little "confessions of a Stanley Bigot" to get a little more info on their smoother. I recently purchased a standard LV block plane, and I really like it, so I have a very favorable mind set re their planes. I have been considering adding a smoother for some time now.

Question: What exactly is the differene between the bevel up smoother and the low angle smooth plane? Vince

[John Schreiber]

Is anybody else holding their breath to see what the next plane in Lee Valley's new line is going to be? I'm hoping for a bevel up jack.

[John Dykes]

heh - good question. And one that I've asked...

Again, having stiffened my back against the Lee Valley line, I didn't know there were two types of low angle smoothers. I asked to fondle the Low Angle smoother in Berea, and the fella handed it to me. Of course knowing more than the Lee Valley rep, "That ain't it" says I...

"Is Sir."

"Ain't"

"You must be thinking of the Bevel Up Smoother, Sir."

"Stop messing with me, how is the bevel in this plane?"

"It's up, Sir."

"What's the bed angle then?"

"12 degrees, Sir."

"What is the bed angle in the Bevel-Up smoother?"

"12 degrees, Sir."

"Uh, so you're telling me the BUS and LA Smoother are the same thing?"

"Not at all... But Sir, Who's on first?"

"Can you point me to the Lie-Nielsen booth?"

They are kinda the same, but totally different. Look, I'm not the guy that should be explaining this, let me grab somebody....

Hi John -

The key to the nomenclature in our bevel-up plane line is this:

If we call the plane "Low-angle" - we intend it to be used with low effective cutting angles. These planes will normally have ground sides for shooting.

If we say "Bevel-up" - then we intend the planes to be used with whatever bevel angle is appropriate for wood. The Bevel-up smooth has quite a different feel from other planes, as it's got a *Very* low center of gravity (I seem to remember 1/2" or less). Usually - these planes are used with higher effective cut angles.

The Jack size plane in this series is the most appropriate shooting plane - the Bevel-up smooth (had we put sides on it) just wouldn't feel right.

So - the non-shooters are:

Bevel-up Smooth
Bevel-up Jointer

The shooters/Low angle use planes are:

LA Block (like a #3 size, if you add the optional rear tote)
LA Smooth
LA Jack

Note that all of the LA planes can also be used with whatever angle is appropriate - high or low.

Hope this all helps ....

Cheers -

Rob

So, to my mind - the LA are shooting planes, designed for low angle blades, with machined sides - perfect for shooting. Sure you can tip up the angle up and close the mouth for a great smoother, but it is "intended" for low angles (not just that the bed is machined low).

The BUS doesn't have machined sides. It is a dedicated, high quality, soooper smooother. To me it's an odd beast, that gives amazing results with very little tweaking. It's idiot proof - trust me on this... I ran out to the garage again this morning before work, it's amazing. I pay $20 for great Stanley planes, and begrudge every cent. This plane is a steal at $200....

I think of the LA smoother as a great shooting plane, that can work as a good smoother. I struggled with, "Is it close enough to the BUS that I can have a shooter with BUS smoothing?" I didn't want to sacrifice a bit of the BUS peformance, so I stuck with the BUS (errr - and the LA Jack as a shooter). (Edit: Blades can be swapped out of the BUS, the LA Jack, and the BU Jointer).

Vince - in short - buy the BUS. Or if you're anywhere near Colorado or KY, let me know - you can try mine. It's sick... Then again, I feel icky for pimping it so much lately. Did I mention the tote screw was loose? Unforgivable.

-jbd in Denver

[Marcus Ward]

I think the jack is the first one that should be purchased as it's a little more versatile. Just my 2 cents.