LV LA Jack

[Jerry Thompson]

Has anyone used another grind blade, e.g., 38*, with this plane to use on figured wood such a curley or birds eye maple?

[Joe Leigh]

Yes.
Just yesterday actually. I took a new 38deg iron and set my Mark II honing guide to 40deg plus a 2deg microbevel to give me a final cutting angle of 54deg. Practiced on some heavily figured curly Maple with zero tearout....sweet....

[glenn bradley]

I have the 25 and the 38 for my LA block and use the 38 for reversing grain with good success. I have the 25 and the 50 for my LA Jack and use the 50 on the shooting board. Peels off end grain in strips you can read through.

[Mark Salomon]

I use the 25 on my shooting board and about a 58-60 degree for really gnarly woods. At this angle it works better than any other plane I have--including a new LN 5 1/2 with 55 degree frog.

[Tony Shea]

I personally have decided that the other bevel angle offerings for the BU planes are not neccessary and can actually be a bit harder to use in the long run, depending on your sharpening strategy. Derek's website is what turned me on to this theory and works absolutely wonderful.

With the 25* initial bevel you can always add whatever micro-bevel you want. And this 25* initial bevel makes this proccess much easier and last longer between grindings than a steeper initial bevel. The low 25* also helps with adding the neccessary camber to the blade to avoid track marks. The lower angle requires much less metal to be removed to get the right camber or micro-bevel.

IMO, you would be better off just buying the 25* blades and adding whatever micro-bevel and camber you want to the blade.



I have the 25 and the 38 for my LA block and use the 38 for reversing grain with good success. I have the 25 and the 50 for my LA Jack and use the 50 on the shooting board. Peels off end grain in strips you can read through.





I'm not real sure how this 50* blade is your blade of choice on the shooting board. A lower bevel should do better with slicing the end grain, therefore I always keep a 28* blade honed straight across for use on the shooting board. This gives me better results than anything I've ever used on a shooting board. I also seems to me that the 50* bevel on the shooting board would get dull a bit faster as this high angle is a bit hard on a blade even on face grain, let alone on end grain.

[Sam Takeuchi]

I'm not real sure how this 50* blade is your blade of choice on the shooting board. A lower bevel should do better with slicing the end grain, therefore I always keep a 28* blade honed straight across for use on the shooting board. This gives me better results than anything I've ever used on a shooting board. I also seems to me that the 50* bevel on the shooting board would get dull a bit faster as this high angle is a bit hard on a blade even on face grain, let alone on end grain.

I also think using lowest cutting angle (in this case with LA jack, 25 degree blade) is a better choice for end grain work than higher cutting angle. Using higher cutting angle seems counter intuitive and inefficient for achieving easy and clean end grain cut. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's definitely not helping to achieve efficiency or cleaner cut.

As for OP, modern LA/BU planes were designed to be used with varying bevel angle blades for variety of planing tasks. If they are bought and used only with default blade bevel angle, I think a lot of its potentials are ignored unless they are supposed to be dedicated for a particular task. You are supposed to be using whatever blades of desired angle to get the task done. If anything, the advantage of LA/BU plane is its ability to accommodate wider range of cutting angle than BD planes, so you are really free to change cutting angle as you please to achieve the most efficient and desired result.

[Jim Paulson]

Has anyone used another grind blade, e.g., 38*, with this plane to use on figured wood such a curley or birds eye maple?

Jerry,

I opted to buy the 38 and 50 degree blades and so far I've had great results with the 50 degree on the curly maple. I haven't had any problems honing the 50 degree bevel, and I'm quite aware that Tony and Derek prefer to apply secondary grinds to the stock 25 degree irons. To me it boils down to being able to sharpen an iron in a consistent manner. It is my preference to buy irons with the primary bevel I want to start with. I also haven't found the need for a guide yet either.

The LV LAJ is one of my favorite planes now and I'm sold on using A2 for blades as well. I have the high angle frog (55 degree) for the LN 4 1/2 and quite honestly, it is excellent as well when it comes to working with curly maple.

Best wishes,
Jim

[glenn bradley]

I'm not real sure how this 50* blade is your blade of choice on the shooting board. A lower bevel should do better with slicing the end grain, therefore I always keep a 28* blade honed straight across for use on the shooting board.


I also think using lowest cutting angle (in this case with LA jack, 25 degree blade) is a better choice for end grain work than higher cutting angle

Sorry, should have mentioned "difficult grain" in the prior post. I didn't mean to confuse or misinform :). For nice stack-of-soda-straws-like end grain I too use the lower angle. Much less effort required for this task and a beautiful result. This is the benefit of multiple irons and a body design that lets you change out irons quickly with minimal fussing around before you can get back to work. The 50* is my go-to for wild or reversing grain whether on the shooting board or at the bench. Higher angles can be a bit of a struggle when it comes to the force required to drive them forward in a controlled manner. I wouldn't want to use a high angle across a large surface without reason; it would poop me out fast. For gnarly end grain shooting or smoothing patches of figure around knotted areas on open surfaces, higher angles serve me very well.

[Jim Neeley]

Three of my first planes were the LV BUS, BUJ and LAJ who all took the 2-1/4" blades. At the time I ordered them I ordered enough spare blades to end up with 2 blades each of 25*, 38* and 50*, thinking that would be the most versatile. Now, after time here reading Derek's (and others) posts and experimenting, my "to-do" list includes regrinding the primary bevels to make all of them 25* and then just using secondary and tertiary angles for steeper angles.