A question for Mr. Rob Lee or others

[Marc Hills]

I know that most of the buzz coming from the newest Lee Valley catalog has focused on the new large Veritas shoulder plane. But I couldn’t help notice that our Canadian tool fiends, er, friends are now tempting us with a high angle Asian style smoothing plane. It's the high bedding angle (around 60 degrees) that caught my eye.

Is this plane the same or similar to the Mujingfang rosewood smoother that Lyn Mangimeli raved about in his high angle smoother comparison (http://www.traditionaltools.us/LJM/hiangle.htm).

That plane always struck me as a poor man’s solution for smoothing wild grain and exotic hardwoods.

[Wendell Wilkerson]

Lyn posted this comment recently on WoodCentral:

As for the other things new things listed, do note that new "Honk Kong Style" rosewood finish smoother. This looks to be virtually identical, but for a brass mouthplate, to the Mujingfang smoother that has performed so very well in both my first and second planing investigations (and that reference to "cocobolo and blackwood acacia" can't make it any clearer). This is a fantastic value in a specialized smoothing plane for hard, dense, reversing grain woods. It doesn't cost much more than a dedicated HA blade, and offers you a whole second plane already set up for the purpose.

Wendell