Bevelup/low angle plane question

[Steve Stack]

For those of you who use BU/LA planes, how many of you have extra blades ground at different angles for differing applications and how often do you actually use that feature of this style plane? To clarify a bit, I am considering the LV LA smoother as one of my next purchases. One of the selling points is the versatility of being able to match the cutting angle to handle everything from cross grain to figured grain which "sounds" very intriguing. Thus, my question relates to how practical is this in actual use? Is it truly a swiss army knife or do you only use it for a dedicated purpose?
Thanks, Steve

[Joel Goodman]

I have a LN low angle jack and keep an iron at 38 degrees and one at 26 degrees for end grain. Most of the time I use the 38 degree microbevel iron for a "York Pitch" of 50 degrees included angle. Getting two irons is not a mistake. That way you can experiment a bit and see what works in what situation. The advantage of keeping the primary bevel at 25 for all your irons is that it is fairly easy to microbevel to whatever angle you want.

[John Schroeder]

I have the veritas la set and share three blades between them, up to 55 for curly maple and other really difficult woods. It really makes things easy and a huge difference. highly recommended.

[lowell holmes]

I have all of the irons for my BU smoother and BU jack. Your scheme is very practical.

Include the toothed iron in that collection.

[Harvey Pascoe]

Not much choice for me, I have blades all the way up to 68 degrees. For my use of very hard, figured woods, the BU/LA plane turned out to be a mistake. More often than not I end up using my finely tuned cheap old Stanley.

[Randy Briggs]

For those of you who use BU/LA planes, how many of you have extra blades ground at different angles for differing applications and how often do you actually use that feature of this style plane? To clarify a bit, I am considering the LV LA smoother as one of my next purchases. One of the selling points is the versatility of being able to match the cutting angle to handle everything from cross grain to figured grain which "sounds" very intriguing. Thus, my question relates to how practical is this in actual use? Is it truly a swiss army knife or do you only use it for a dedicated purpose?
Thanks, Steve.

I have the LV LA smooth plane with 2 blades at standard angle and steep 50 degree angle to tame tearout. Also have the LN LA jack with standard and toothed blades. Haven't tried the toothed blade yet, but the LV w/62 degree effective angle is pretty awesome on minimizing tearout.

PS I mistakenly ordered a LV BU smoother blade w/the 50 degree grind that I'm looking to get rid of in case anybody is interested. Spent time honing/polishing and then realized it was too wide....:mad:

[Zach England]

I have all three Veritas planes and all three blades, plus the toothed blade. The higher-angle ones don't get much use because I usually just use a bevel-down plane instead. Somehow I ended up with two 50 degree blades. I was always going to grind the extra one at another angle (like super-high angle), but I don't really see the need. I'd rather have two 25 degree blades since that is the one I use the most. Anyone want to trade? I figure someone might have superfluous 25 degree blades since, as I recall, that is the stock blade sent with the plane. I wrote the bevel angle on the top with a sharpie so I can quickly see which blade is in which plane.

[Steve Stack]

Thanks to all who have responded so far, very interesting, sounds like most if not all who buy these get the set of irons to handle varied applications. Curious, Harvey and Zach, why do you not use the higher angle irons for difficult grain, better results with another plane or not wanting to reset the LA plane with the higher angle iron? Again, thanks to all,
Steve

[lowell holmes]

I use the 50 deree iron frequently. It doesn't take much time to swap irons. The 50 deree iron is difficult to push if it's not really sharp.

I find that a bit of back bevel makes a significant difference. Some of you will disagree with me on the back bevel, but I use it. The Larry Williams post talks about wear on the underside of the bu iron and I agree with him. I use the back bevel to create a sharp edge.

[Will Blick]

> you have extra blades ground at different angles for differing applications and how often do you actually use that feature of this style plane?


Steve, great question.... but be careful about the responses, as many might not use the same woods you plan to work with..... if you use a wide array of woods, from soft to highly figured, you are right, the LV versatility of interchangeable blades (angles) is a great advantage to have in your tool arsenal. If you only use certain woods that are very obedient to the common blade angles, of course your buying options open up tremendously. Also remember, there is other options for highly figured woods such as sanding, scraping, etc. As always in ww, there is many ways to skin a cat...

I too have nearly the full LV BU line-up...and while I don't use a ton of highly figured woods, I like using the higher angled bladed when I do. I also love using the very low angle blades on end grain. So versatility heavily influenced my buy decision, and I am quite happy with the my decision. Of course I learned quickly, any plane is only as good as the edge you are capable of honing, so I soon turned my obsession to sharpening, which really changed my outlook on planes :-) i.e. its amazing how many "plane angle rules" you can break with an ULTRA SHARP blade.