Hi there.
I recently purchased a block plane and a bench plane from Lowes. No – they are not the best quality in the world…
Anyway, I’m having a heck of a time using them. I have sharpened the blades. I must be doing something wrong because I cannot get them to shave without gouging the wood to death. I remember using my father’s old planes as a kid, and never having these problems.
There must be a technique or three that I don’t know about.
Thanks in advance.
Tony S.
Replies
You have probably purchased a plane made in India. Unfortunately these planes do not work out of the box and need a good deal of tuning to work at all. Fine woodworking magazine has run many articles on how to tune up a plane. I might suggest starting with Metal Smoothing Planes by Chris Gochnour in issue 177. You can call this up as a pdf file as a member of FW.com. It deals with Indian planes.
The poorness of Indian planes is why I always recommend finding older Bailey Planes at flea markets and garage sales. You can pick up such planes for between $25 and $100 and have something to work with. My tape Tuning Up Flea Market Planes by Taunton Press (The publisher of Fine Woodworking) has much information on finding, restoring and tuning flea market planes. It would also be a good resource for tuning up your Indian plane.
With best regards,
Ernie Conover
Ernie -
Thank you for the advice. I watched a video of Chris Gochnour's on the site and my planes have improved 100%. The change is remarkable!
Now I'm just trying to fine-tune my technique without destroying too much good wood. Thanks again.
Tony
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