Can i retrofit lie nielsen cutters to stanley bench planes

[James Taglienti]

I have no problem doing a little filing etc, i am mostly wondering about the diameter of the LN lateral adjuster pawl vs the stanley pawl... Will i have to make a new one, file the old one?? I found some LN cutters pretty cheap.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I know somewhere, I read of someone doing this, and I don't remember any issues with the lateral adjuster pawl. The two issues that I do remember them addressing were the mouth opening, and getting the depth adjuster to engage the iron properly. (The thicker iron puts the chipbreaker farther away and can make it difficult for some planes to depth adjusters to function right.) But in the end it worked well. Sorry I can't find the link I'm thinking of off the top of my head.

[David Weaver]

Josh pretty much sums it up, you'll have backlash a go go, but you can silver solder tabs to the chipbreaker to reduce it.

If the lateral adjuster causes a problem in some bailey style plane (I don't think it will) I'd take it off.

It'll probably take a pretty new plane to not need any mouth filing. I wouldn't put one of those irons in a pristine T11 that has a crisp original mouth, but that's just opinion.

[James Taglienti]

Thanks guys!
The pristine type 11s are on a shelf david... As found with the cobwebs and everything :eek: I just had a friend surface grind a couple keen kutter k series and im gonna take a shot at some frankenplanes...

[Jim Neeley]

If you don't already have the blades, I've been told that Pinnacle (by IBC) makes a blade with the tabs for the Stanleys. In a recent plane blade shootout I read online, the Pinnacle blade was rated #1, over the LN at #2.

No flame war intended here.. just FYI and YMMV..

[James Taglienti]

Thats good to know, the pinnacle cutters for LN planes are the ones i found on sale... Thanks!

[David Weaver]

If you don't already have the blades, I've been told that Pinnacle (by IBC) makes a blade with the tabs for the Stanleys. In a recent plane blade shootout I read online, the Pinnacle blade was rated #1, over the LN at #2.

No flame war intended here.. just FYI and YMMV..

Who did the "shootout", FWW? When I have counted strokes (well, a couple of years ago, I did), the newest version of LN irons lasted the longest, but the difference between any of the irons wasn't much, and it depended on whether or not an iron had the tendency to chip out (which is something that varies within brands as much as it does between brands). Chipout makes a huge difference, bigger than anything else. Tiny chips mean an early end to an edge (and a finish that isn't that nice to look at in raking light).

I suppose they could've graded irons on features, and at least IBC irons and pairs have come down in price to match others. At first, when they came out and they were $100, they made no sense at all to buy.

That all said, as a pig who has bought replacement irons from several places, LN is my favorite replacement iron based on post-prep performance and uniformity and so far of what i've seen, best resistance to chipping out. But my sample is fairly small, perhaps 10 LN irons, 6 hocks, 3 LVs and 2 IBCs. I think my IBCs were pretty early ones. The rest of them have been spread out pretty evenly over the last 6 years.

The only iron that I've had that's really disappointed me is a shepherd A2 iron. it can chip out at any time, meaning that you can't use the plane it's in as a smoother, which is a shame, because mine's in a panel plane.

(none of them can come close to touching a muji iron that was, I think, $12 over here when you could get it).

[Jim Foster]

I picked up a veritas 01 replacement for my Rocord #7, and I have a LN #8 that's at least ten years old, (not sure what the steel is, but maybe A-2) and as far as I can tell the LN blade gets "chippy" faster than the Veritas. I'm still not far enough along in my sharpening skills and have been planing rift-sawn Oak that varies a lot, and the grain directions are pretty crazy and different from board to board, so comparison might not be fair, but that's what I think I've seen so far.

[David Weaver]

If the iron doesn't say "lie nielsen" on it, it's unlikely to be A2, I think it's probably W1 or something equivalent.

If it has Lie Nielsen stamped into it, it's unlikely to be anything but A2 as far as i know.

From what I can gather with mine, over the last 5 or 6 years, the quality of their irons in terms of their edge holding has improved, and so has the preparation time required (it's less now).

Some of my older A2 irons chipped out a little bit at the outset (stanley replacements) but after some use and honing, the iron was very good. The newest iron I've gotten from them didn't exhibit any of that at all.

The shepherd iron you may sharpen to a very blunt final bevel that would be very strong with an acceptable iron (like 35 degrees), and still end up with chipout on your first few strokes of the plane. Or it may not chip out for a while, you never know with it. Not exactly going to get warranty service on something like that, though.

Oak is easily fair game for general performance for any plane iron.

[Jim Foster]

On the LN site, it's mentioned the bench planes come with A-2 or O1, so I assumed the blade that came on my LN#8 is A-2, Just checked the box the plane came in and it's stamped July 2003, so it's close to 10 yrs old. The blade does have LN engraved on it. So if you don't think it's A-2 and they added O1 over the last few years, what would it be made out of? I tried the way back machine to look at their site in 2003, but I did not get too far in the time I had available.


If the iron doesn't say "lie nielsen" on it, it's unlikely to be A2, I think it's probably W1 or something equivalent.

If it has Lie Nielsen stamped into it, it's unlikely to be anything but A2 as far as i know.

From what I can gather with mine, over the last 5 or 6 years, the quality of their irons in terms of their edge holding has improved, and so has the preparation time required (it's less now).

Some of my older A2 irons chipped out a little bit at the outset (stanley replacements) but after some use and honing, the iron was very good. The newest iron I've gotten from them didn't exhibit any of that at all.

The shepherd iron you may sharpen to a very blunt final bevel that would be very strong with an acceptable iron (like 35 degrees), and still end up with chipout on your first few strokes of the plane. Or it may not chip out for a while, you never know with it. Not exactly going to get warranty service on something like that, though.

Oak is easily fair game for general performance for any plane iron.

[David Weaver]

It's A2. It's "older" A2, though. I talked to them last year, or maybe two years ago when I had an A2 iron that I thought yielded to the sharpening stone a little too easily, and they mentioned that while my iron was A2, they are not identical to newer A2 irons (i don't know if heat treat and tempering are different, or if the steel is from a different source, etc) and asked if I'd like to exchange it for a new iron. It was, however, in spec hardness so I declined.

At any rate, the ones that are W1 are the old irons that had nothing on them at all (no "Lie-Nielsen" printed on the iron).

based on my experience, the newer/newest irons are a little better straight from the box.

But it goes back to my comment above, I wouldn't worry about brand of iron, they're, for the sake of performance argument, all the same. Brent Beach's site confirms this also. You have to actually go to a different steel before you get an appreciable difference, and even then, the difference in durability depends on what you're planing (for example, cocobolo that dulls A2 and O1 quickly, may not dull a high speed steel iron quickly at all, but the same HSS iron may not last as great of a ratio vs. the A2 in more pedestrian wood, and in fact has some annoying habits, like leaving tiny lines on pedestrian wood once the iron has a little wear, something a good A2 and O1 iron will not do.

When I counted strokes, I used hard maple, which doesn't threaten an iron much, and to my dismay, doesn't wear one as fast as you'd expect it to, either. I got about 750 - 1050 strokes out of the various irons on a stick about 20 inches long before I couldn't get a .002" shaving. I was curious and offered to do it for someone, but other than knowing what I know now, it was kind of a waste of time.

If your LN iron is chipping on oak, increase the final bevel angle until you are in the low 30s. I belive about 32 is optimal and there's nothing to gain beyond that in terms of durability.

[James Taglienti]

Oak is easily fair game for general performance for any plane iron.

I dunno David... Oak has all of those gaping early wood crevices that are loaded with silicates and anything else that the tree sucked up... When i am planing oak it is hard for me to tell when the cutter is dull or failing because the shavings are divided regardless. I like maple or beech for test cuts, i will keep a chunk of beech on hand to take a test pass once in a while, anything tight grained like that is good to check for chips, etc.

[David Weaver]

Well, I guess oak is hard to pin down because of how many different woods are actually sold as oak, esp. white oak.

I'm not fan of the stuff sold as white oak where the pores are filled with dust. No matter how cleanly you plane it, dust is always spilling out of it somewhere.

It shouldn't chip a blade, though, but wear faster maybe.

[Jim Foster]

My next projects will be with Walnut or some North American hardwood besides Q-Sawn and Rift-Sawn White Oak. I like the results, but I am itching to see what it's like to work with another wood that planes a little more nicely.


Well, I guess oak is hard to pin down because of how many different woods are actually sold as oak, esp. white oak.

I'm not fan of the stuff sold as white oak where the pores are filled with dust. No matter how cleanly you plane it, dust is always spilling out of it somewhere.

It shouldn't chip a blade, though, but wear faster maybe.

[David Weaver]

Soft maple, cherry, mahogany (not that you can find the real stuff easily) and walnut are all nice to work.

[Jim Neeley]

James,

The IBC's are specifically for the Stanley's & Baileys. See Woodcraft's site.

[Brandon Craig]

James,

I have an LN iron in my Keen Kutter K5 plane and it works well. Josh is right about the depth adjuster; in some planes it's a little too short to reach the chipbreaker with the thicker iron. That said, I think it works fine in my K5 plane. Also, I have the LN iron (for the LN plane), not the Pinnacle iron for the LN plane.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

The pinnacle chipbreakers (with the extra bit that extends into the blade slot) look like a nicer solution than brazing something extra onto your depth adjuster tab, but can you get just the chipbreaker separately?

[David Weaver]

You should actually be able to do a pretty tidy job with silver solder with whatever you have in little scrap metal bits floating around. That idea of extending the slot on the chipbreaker with tabs is not new with the IBC chipbreakers, it's a shop trick that's been done for longer than I've been around. two small tabs of steel about half the thickness of the iron could also be peined into an old stanley style chipbreaker pretty easily, since the chipbreaker isn't hardened on old stanley stuff (and to my knowledge, generally not on anything, though it is moderately hardened on the IBC chipbreakers).

There's not a great reason to use an iron that thick on a stanley plane, though, anyway.

[James Taglienti]

James,

The IBC's are specifically for the Stanley's & Baileys. See Woodcraft's site.

I saw those but they cost a lot more than the LN ones... The cutters made for LN are almost all on sale right now, Its what made me want to buy some in the first place.

Also the IBC cutters for the veritas block planes are like 18 bucks each so you might wanna grab 1 or 3 because i have never seen them that cheap! Might be nice to grind different angles.

[Jim Neeley]

That's a darned good question, David, and I can't honestly remember. I want to say it was FWW but I'm really not sure.