Mike Cogswell
04-08-2013, 2:39 PM
Recently Chris Griggs started a thread about Why really small planes can be nice in furniture work (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?199966-Why-really-small-planes-can-be-nice-in-furniture-work).
Thanks to Chris, I wound up getting a Little Vic which is indeed a handy little plane. But, being a firm believer in wretched excess and new toys, I followed up later with another small plane: a Lie-Nielsen Violin Plane. While the Vic is a bevel down plane with a conventional bed angle, the little Violin plane is a bevel up design. It is basically a miniature version of a normal low angle bevel up plane. The operative word here is miniature. Like the Vic this plane easily goes where an apron plane or other small block plane wouldn't come close to fitting.
Out of the box it took only a moderate effort to polish the back of the blade and finely hone the bevel so the plane's little 7/8" blade slices easily. Just to put it in perspective, I have included some pictures showing the Violin and Vic together with a small plane (LN 102) and a normal size adjustable mouth block as well as the Vic and Violin in front of a #4. As you can see from the pics, this really is a tiny plane, but beautifully made and with all the functionality you'd find in a much larger version.
259379259380259381259382259383
Thanks to Chris, I wound up getting a Little Vic which is indeed a handy little plane. But, being a firm believer in wretched excess and new toys, I followed up later with another small plane: a Lie-Nielsen Violin Plane. While the Vic is a bevel down plane with a conventional bed angle, the little Violin plane is a bevel up design. It is basically a miniature version of a normal low angle bevel up plane. The operative word here is miniature. Like the Vic this plane easily goes where an apron plane or other small block plane wouldn't come close to fitting.
Out of the box it took only a moderate effort to polish the back of the blade and finely hone the bevel so the plane's little 7/8" blade slices easily. Just to put it in perspective, I have included some pictures showing the Violin and Vic together with a small plane (LN 102) and a normal size adjustable mouth block as well as the Vic and Violin in front of a #4. As you can see from the pics, this really is a tiny plane, but beautifully made and with all the functionality you'd find in a much larger version.
259379259380259381259382259383