Veritas Scraper plane question

[Matt Evans]

Recently purchased a Scraper plane from Lee Valley. When I first put it to wood, one side of the plane had the frog retaining pin fall out almost immediately. Put it back in, tightened the frog, double checked my iron setting, went back at it.

Dang thing did it again. and again. and. . .

What the heck? Only the one side does it. It looks like it should be a tight fit into that hole, but it is sort of loose.

Am I just to tired to think of why this is happening, or is that a bit out of the ordinary? Before the pin falls out it works wonderfully. But, not I'm gonna deal with resetting the thing all time unless I absolutely have to.

Any suggestions?
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[Christopher Charles]

Hello Matt,

I've the same plane and no issue. Sumpin not right. Over bored hole?

[ian maybury]

Mine (not much used) seems OK too. Can't really tell how it's meant to work as my pins don't come out (maybe the pin is retained by a press fit in the bore in the frog?), but there's a socket headed set screw threaded into the outer end of the pin. Which might be intended to expand the end of the pin to tighten the fit, or to make provision for a tool used to pull the pin out?

Presuming everything is present it sounds as Chris that there might be a fit problem with the pin or the bore in the frog. You could with care (avoiding getting it in the pivot area) probably retain it with some thread locker, but if the fit is a little loose replacement of the parts would be a lot better. My instinct would be to call Lee Valley. Hopefully the hole in the side of the body is correctly sized, and it's just down to replacement with a new frog and set of pins….

[Don Orr]

Contact Lee Valley-they WILL make it right or at least let you know if you need to do something to make it work properly.

[David Weaver]

I had one of those scraper planes for a while and no such problems.

Before I'd go to the trouble of sending the thing back, I'd apply some shellac to the pin and insert it to make the fit tighter. If you decide you want the shellac to come off later, you can take it off with alcohol very easily.

Anything else would do, just something simple to make the fit tight. It will be more trouble to put it in a box and run it somewhere to ship it than it would be to fix it.

[glenn bradley]

Ditto on the "no problem" front. Even Rob Lee's outfit can have one or two things slip by. Call 'em up and I'm sure they'll take care of it.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Contact Lee Valley-they WILL make it right or at least let you know if you need to do something to make it work properly.

For sure.... They make great products and are very good at answering questions and then making it right if there is an issue, or if you think that there is. They have taken a bunch of my money and the one time I had an issue they were all over it. Odds are they can answer that one quickly.

Interested to hear about the resolution.

[john zulu]

The pin is undersized or the hole is too big. Just ask LV to solve it. They will change it without questions.

[Matt Evans]

Called Lee Valley yesterday morning. They are Supposed to call me back today to get it all sorted.

If it wasn't a brand new tool from a company I have always gotten very high quality from, I'd probably make another pin and not worry about it. But. . .Lee Valley Has put out some really awesome tools with high enough standards that I'd really like to keep with their parts for the plane. (Especially since I can already tell that I'll be using this thing 5 days a week once its fixed. . .)

[Andrew Pitonyak]

If it wasn't a brand new tool from a company I have always gotten very high quality from, I'd probably make another pin and not worry about it. But. . .Lee Valley Has put out some really awesome tools with high enough standards that I'd really like to keep with their parts for the plane. (Especially since I can already tell that I'll be using this thing 5 days a week once its fixed. . .)

When I had a defect on one of those new fancy Stanley planes, my only choice was mail it to them to see what they would do since they never answered a single email and I could not get through on voice. The only other Stanley tool I have purchased since then was a single stanley chisel (very narrow) to compliment my Lee Valley PM-V11 set that I purchased before they had the narrower versions for the PM-V11. And I purchased that from Lee Valley. I ended up repairing the stanley plane myself based on advice I received here.

[Frank Martin]

Called Lee Valley yesterday morning. They are Supposed to call me back today to get it all sorted.

If it wasn't a brand new tool from a company I have always gotten very high quality from, I'd probably make another pin and not worry about it. But. . .Lee Valley Has put out some really awesome tools with high enough standards that I'd really like to keep with their parts for the plane. (Especially since I can already tell that I'll be using this thing 5 days a week once its fixed. . .)

Like others said, I am sure you will be very pleased with how they handle it. Over the last 12 years I have purchased many things from Lee Valley. Needed their excellent customer service only several times and everything has always been resolved to my satisfaction. It is a very rare company in that sense...

[john zulu]

If all fails ask Rob Lee. He values the customers :)