Veritas has introduced a small plow plane that is ideal for plowing grooves up to 3/8-in. wide in drawer sides, door frames, and cabinet backs. It also can cut rabbets up to 3/8-in. wide for shiplap joinery or for preparing a flat panel for insertion into a grooved framework.

I’ve used several plow and combination planes over the years. Often they are a bit finicky and require time to set up. This is not the case with the Veritas plow plane-it was ready to use right out of the box. A minute spent honing a microbevel on the blade made things even better.

New plow plane is easy to adjust. Adjusting the blade depth is simply a matter of turning a knob.

It takes a minute or less to install and set the blade, and less than a minute more to set the fence position and depth of cut. The whole process is quicker than setting up a router or a tablesaw with a dado blade.

Depth stop. Thanks to spring tension, the stop stays put when you release the lock knob.

I used the plane on walnut and cherry, plowing grooves in a range of sizes and rabbets with and across the grain. (Cross-grain rabbets must be scored first with a marking gauge.) In all cases, the plane performed flawlessly. Granted, if you have a mountain of grooves to cut, a router or tablesaw will do the job more quickly. But if you have just a small batch of grooves, the ease of setup and use make this small plow plane a practical option. The plane sells for about $200 with the 1/4-in. A2-steel blade. 1/8-in., 3/16-in., 5/16-in., and 3/8-in. blades are available separately. Go to www.leevalley.com for more information.

Photos: Staff

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