LV Trifecta... (aka: Neander Gloat)

[Kevin Murdock]

All,

Finally got the last for my shipment from LV....

These are really nice. Smooth with soles flat, true and ready for a sharp blade to start shaving.

Looking forward to buying more LV's in the near future. :D

Thanks to all for recommending the medium shoulder plane.... it fits perfectly into the hand.

/Kevin

[Tyler Howell]

All fine tools Kev. You'll love them:cool: I you haven't tried a HA blade on your jack, do so. Big fun.

[Steve Beadle]

I've tried telling myself "Thou shalt not covet," but I want a LV Trifecta, too! Better hurry up and do my taxes and see if I've got a refund coming!

Congratulations on your fine new planes!

[Terry Hatfield]

Kevin,

Ooooohhhhhh....NICE!!

I have the LA Jack and the LA block.....next on my list is the shoulder. As Tyler said, get the HA blade for the Jack if you didn't already. It is amazing!!

Enjoy,

Terry

[Kevin Murdock]

Hey Tyler and Terry,

Yes... I ordered the HA blade as well, given all the great feedback you guys have given for it.

Thing is, I'm still not 100% sure when to use the LA and when to use the HA. Kinda bought in blind. I know that the LA is better for curly woods and such.

I really need to ed-ju-ma-kate myself on planes now that I own a few.

Can you folks help to enlighten me? :D

Thanks,
/Kevin

[Terry Hatfield]

Hey Tyler and Terry,

Yes... I ordered the HA blade as well, given all the great feedback you guys have given for it.

Thing is, I'm still not 100% sure when to use the LA and when to use the HA. Kinda bought in blind.

Can you folks help to enlighten me?

Thanks,
/Kevin

Kevin,

LA blade great for end grain. HA blade great for smoothing figured woods. I'll probably use the HA blade 99% of the time. Sure leaves a sweet surface with zero tearout.

t

[Tim Sproul]

Thing is, I'm still not 100% sure when to use the LA and when to use the HA. Kinda bought in blind. I know that the LA is better for curly woods and such.

IME, I've found using the lowest angle possible leaves the "best" surface. "best" as defined very subjectively in terms of "feel," "shine," "polish" and other really quantitative terms.... :rolleyes:.

In seriousness, as long as the fibers don't tear out, the lower angle of attack leaves the most desirable surface.....if the fibers tear out, then go to a higher angle.

[Richard Gillespie]

Spent a wonderful afternoon using a LV LA Jack to clean up planner makes from Yellow Birch. When I went to get the wood I need for the current project, my supplier was low on 4/4 Birch and sold me, at the unfinished price, Birch planed 7/8" thick, 2S, with one edge jointed. The planner used did a worse job than my 12 year old craftsman would but that's another story. My craftsman is on it's last legs and I was glad I didn't have to pass 80 more board feet through it.

My hats off to the craftsman of old, who had to process all their wood by hand. I didn't do that much this afternoon and was dead tired after doing it. The LA LV Jack is doing a wonderful job of taking the planer marks out. Light fluffy shavings all over the place and no wood dust floating by to sneeze with. I tried some of my other planes as a comparison but they didn't hold a candle to the LV Jack. My Stanley 4-1/2 chattered badly. I can now tell that I need a thicker blade in it.

I also got to use my new large LV Tenon plane for the first time. That plane took me a while to get use to and get the blade adjusted right. Anyone else have the blade pin flop over everytime you try to put the blade back in? Once I got it set up it worked great. I had used my table saw tenon jig to bring 16 tenons to within .035" and hand fit them from there. 4-5 pases on each side and they fit great.

[Kevin Murdock]

Oh ya... forgot that one more plane was on the way (which showed up today)....

It was a 4 plane order, with the full set of Narex Chisels to boot.

Can't wait for the new planes to come out this spring/summer, especially the ones that use the same blades. I'll pick them up on blind faith 'cause Rob Lee has never let us down!

Thanks for your eyeball time!
/Kevin

[Roger Nixon]

My hats off to the craftsman of old, who had to process all their wood by hand. I didn't do that much this afternoon and was dead tired after doing it. The LA LV Jack is doing a wonderful job of taking the planer marks out. Light fluffy shavings all over the place and no wood dust floating by to sneeze with. I tried some of my other planes as a comparison but they didn't hold a candle to the LV Jack. My Stanley 4-1/2 chattered badly. I can now tell that I need a thicker blade in it.


The craftsmen of old didn't process their wood by taking light fluffy shavings :D .
A common thread in woodworking is working from coarse to fine. Trying to remove tearout and machine marks with a plane set to take fine shavings is wasting a whole lot of strokes. Use the coarsest set plane you can without taking off too much or creating more tearout. The proper plane to use on your birch would be a jack plane. Even though the LV is called a jack, it really isn't. Technically it would be a panel plane which about the same size as a jack but it is set up for smoothing. A true jack plane would have a cambered blade and an open mouth for taking thick shavings. As you got close to having all tearout removed you could switch to a fore plane or possibly to your LV Jack for a few final passes.
A thicker blade won't stop your #4 1/2 from chattering. If it is setup as a smoother, which is normal, this isn't the application for it. For your purpose, my planes are set up so I would use a #5 (jack), #5 1/2 or #7 (fore), and then a #4 1/2 (smooth).
I keep 2 ea #5's, #5 1/2's, & #7's each set a little differently at hand so I have the right plane for the job. I keep a #8 set as a jointer (flat across blade) and a #4, #4 1/2 and Knight coffin smoother for smoothing. I will probably add the LV "Jack" as a panel plane since I have heard so many good things about it.