Groz Bench and Block Planes

[Tony Bilello]

were on sale at Woodcraft for $55. Cabinet scrapers are getting to be old news on table tops since I dont have a belt sander so I bought their #4 Bench Plane and Block Plane. I got to my shop and figured I give it a test drive for a few minutes. Both of the planes failed miserably and I didnt have the time to mess with them so I went home. Since I havent used a plane in over 25 years I went on the internet and found several sites that tell how to tune up a plane and how to restore old planes. To paraphase one author " Buying a plane today is like buying a kit". He is right on.
Yesterday I went to the shop and spent 3 hours on the planes. I did everything from filing the throat and frog to flattening the bottoms and of course, sharpening the blades.
I tested them out on some teak boards I have and now I can make see-through paper thin shavings. The bench plane still has one more issue and I will deal with that in the future. For now, they both perform wonderfully.
Right now I would highly recommend them. Obviously, I dont have them long enough to see how well they will hold up in the future.
I thought I might pass this info on to you folks.

[Blake Barr]

were on sale at Woodcraft for $55. Cabinet scrapers are getting to be old news on table tops since I dont have a belt sander so I bought their #4 Bench Plane and Block Plane. I got to my shop and figured I give it a test drive for a few minutes. Both of the planes failed miserably and I didnt have the time to mess with them so I went home. Since I havent used a plane in over 25 years I went on the internet and found several sites that tell how to tune up a plane and how to restore old planes. To paraphase one author " Buying a plane today is like buying a kit". He is right on.
Yesterday I went to the shop and spent 3 hours on the planes. I did everything from filing the throat and frog to flattening the bottoms and of course, sharpening the blades.
I tested them out on some teak boards I have and now I can make see-through paper thin shavings. The bench plane still has one more issue and I will deal with that in the future. For now, they both perform wonderfully.
Right now I would highly recommend them. Obviously, I dont have them long enough to see how well they will hold up in the future.
I thought I might pass this info on to you folks.

Could you link to one of the better tutorials you found?

[Douglas Brummett]

Yep, that about agrees with my experience with those planes. A good 2-3 hours of tuning and you have yourself a couple of decent user planes. Quality of the tools is not very high, fit and finish is lacking, and out of the box they are pretty much dysfunctional. I tuned mine, used them for a while, but eventually swapped them out for older stanley and newer Lie-Nielsen planes for patriotic reasons.

[Tony Bilello]

Here are some of them. The woodtreks site has 3 videos.
I just typed in the search box "hand plane tune up" and this is some of the stuff.


http://www.woodtreks.com.
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=5218
https://home.comcast.net/~stanleyplanes/planes101/tuneup/tuneup.htm

Have fun