Do you know why..

[Chas Fuggetta]

they make the mouth about .187" wider that the iron? After puttering around this evening, I wasn't able to get an even cut unless I re-centered the iron after each adjustment. Is there a mechanical reason for this? I'm tempted to support both sides of the iron with only a little clearance to prevent it from skewing too much. :confused:

[Matt Benton]

Any hints as to who "they" are?

[lowell holmes]

Lee Valley takes care of it with set screws. It works!

[Chas Fuggetta]

Any hints as to who "they" are?

'They' would be the designers of the newer Stanley and Groz planes.


I saw the LN #4 1/2 in the classified forums I was on the edge but I decided to wait a year to see if I really wanna spend that kind of money on a plane. In the meantime, I'll continue to fiddle with the ones I have and keep hitting the flea markets in the area.

[Jim Koepke]

they make the mouth about .187" wider that the iron? After puttering around this evening, I wasn't able to get an even cut unless I re-centered the iron after each adjustment. Is there a mechanical reason for this? I'm tempted to support both sides of the iron with only a little clearance to prevent it from skewing too much. :confused:

There needs to be some room for lateral adjustment. Looser tolerances make for less expense when machining.

If you have to re-center the iron after each adjustment, then there is another problem. It could be the cap iron screw is loose. One sixteenth of a turn on a cap screw can be the difference between too loose and too tight. A change of blades, even with the same cap iron (chip breaker), may require a change of the lever cap screw. Moving the cap iron on the blade can also cause need for a change.

If your blade of cap iron is bent or has too much spring, it could be putting more pressure on one side of your blade causing it to seat on the frog incorrectly and turn like a treaded tractor when an adjustment is made.

If the frog is not set correctly, the blade could be dragging on the back of the mouth. Hold you plane up to a light and look at the side. In a perfect seating, you should not see light between the frog and the blade.

As Lowell mentioned, LV uses set screws to fix the blade laterally. I have never used one of their planes so I am not familiar if this is something that is a problem if the use of the plane is changed from surfacing to shooting or when changing blades if the blade is not honed exactly the same as the previous blade.

For different purposes, one system may be better than the other. Maybe neither is really better and they are just different.

I have reservations about many of the planes made by Stanley after the 1960s or 1970s. I have seen some of them do OK. A lot of them seem like a lot of work. I have never seen a Groz plane. I have also heard more negative than positive comments about them.

Currently I am working on a WW II vintage Stanley/Bailey #5 plane. I am surprised about how well it works, but I can see where some corners were trimmed. The frog was very easy to lap the blade seating area since there is so much less metal than the earlier frogs. It is a bit more difficult to adjust the frog because of looser tolerances on the casting. The lateral adjustment also seems to over compensate. The machining seems to be better on earlier planes. To top it off, rosewood handles have spoiled me.

jim