Anant 45a Multiplane: Quality ??

[Clarence Martin]

First time seeing this multiplane from Anant . Any good ?

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I bought an Anant dado plane on the eBay once, got it for the price of shipping, basically.

If their 45 is anything like the quality of the dado plane I got, you're in for a lifetime of fettling, and will probably still have an unsatisfying junker plane. I threw that thing back on eBay (with a disclaimer about the quality) and never looked back. I could see tuning a bench plane or a spokeshave of that quality to a good worker, (and i have) but anything that complex seems like a no go to me.

The thing that sticks out to me was that I could have made better nickers out of cat food cans.

[Ryan Baker]

Yes. I haven't seen the 45a, but the Anant plow is a pretty much unusable pile of junk. I'm not sure you could ever make it work decently with any amount of fettling. It makes Groz planes look good. I would stay away. They are a false economy.

[Robert G Brown]

Don't know about their 45 but I got their #10. It took a lot of work to make it semi-usable.

The lever cap screw was too long. Or where it went was not drilled and tapped deep enough. My fix was to grind the end of the screw to make it shorter. Got the lever cap tight but it still would not hold. The lever cap was smooth where it is against the screw. Any upward pressure popped it up. So I put a Stanley #3 lever cap on. That held. The adjusting nut stud did not go in far enough. Also the adjusting nut kept binding on the stud. I had to run a tap where the adjusting nut stud went and also through the adjusting nut. To remove the blade, it had to be removed from the chip breaker first. Then the blade could be removed by going through the bottom of the plane. It was too wide. After grinding it down to the width of the plane plus a hair or two was the blade (still attached to the chip breaker) removable from the top.

It works for a few minutes now but then falls out of adjustment. The blade and chip breaker are not stable and keep slipping during usage. I have tried tightening the screw as tight as I can, bending the chip breaker and roughing up the surface. But it still slips. It now sits waiting for further attention, which it will not get until I have absolutely nothing else to do in the shop. I will probably have to replace the chip breaker. Yea, maybe it will work then...an Annant plane with a lot of Stanley parts.

Now mind you, this was Annant's premium plane. According to Annant, it was better machined to closer tolerances than their previous planes.

Why are they still in business?

[Carl Beckett]

It makes Groz planes look good. .

Now THAT is a statement. I tried a Groz when the were on sale. $11 or something like that. It really was a complete waste of $11. (and I like a challenge!)

[Sam Takeuchi]

Don't bother with Anant products. Simple as that. Do a search on Anant here. You'll see bunch of posts about horrid quality that is normal of Anant. You end up paying for something that is barely, if at all, usable. I started with Anant No. 4, and I was happy to see it go to a recycler once I learned better.

[Jim Koepke]

For the price wanted of the Anant, you could buy a few Stanley or Record 45s.

It would be hard for me to trust a retailer selling such a product to know much about tools.

jtk

[Greg Wease]

I saved this comment from Amazon to share with students thinking about Anant planes:

“I was surprised to find very crude machining and poor fits. I had to enlarge the holes in the frog to get them to align properly with the holes in the base. The frog did not sit solidly and failed to allow enough adjustment to adequately close the throat. I redrilled and retapped the frog adjustment screw hole as it was too shallow and poorly machined. The frog and base mating surfaces required work with an endmill to get a decent fit and allow adequate movement for adjustment. The sole required a great deal of lapping with grinding compound to true it up. It now works "OK" but had I realized how much work was required I would have spent a couple of hundred dollars more and gotten a usable tool right out of the box. In short, I would look elsewhere if you really want to use this tool to cut wood.“

Hope this helps your decision.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Anant tools are best placed in the category of "Plane shaped objects" along with any tool branded Great Neck made in the last 25 years.