Shooting Plane....Not LV or LN

[Larry Frank]

I am looking for a plane to use for shooting. I currently use a LN 4-1/2 but would like something with a lower angle. I am primarily a power tool user but would like to do a bit more hand work. The price tag of the LN/LV is more than I want to spend. I am really a novice at understanding the different planes.

I am looking for a used, older Stanley or other that would work. Can someone make a recommendation.

Thanks

[Jeffrey Martel]

I am looking for a plane to use for shooting. I currently use a LN 4-1/2 but would like something with a lower angle. I am primarily a power tool user but would like to do a bit more hand work. The price tag of the LN/LV is more than I want to spend. I am really a novice at understanding the different planes.

I am looking for a used, older Stanley or other that would work. Can someone make a recommendation.

Thanks

The old Stanleys that are low angle large bench planes are not any cheaper than LN or Lee Valley. A #62 is ~$150ish on ebay right now, and a #51 is way higher.

You can use a higher angle bench plane and just use an old Stanley #5 or #6, but it will be more effort to push through and may not have as good of a surface left behind.

[Garrett Ellis]

i usually use my stanley no. 7 for shooting. with a sharp blade, the mass of the plane really helps.

i would look at a LN/LV low angle jack or jointer instead of the dedicated shooting plane. it will be cheaper and more versatile.

[Patrick Chase]

I am looking for a plane to use for shooting. I currently use a LN 4-1/2 but would like something with a lower angle. I am primarily a power tool user but would like to do a bit more hand work. The price tag of the LN/LV is more than I want to spend. I am really a novice at understanding the different planes.

I am looking for a used, older Stanley or other that would work. Can someone make a recommendation.

Thanks

In terms of used Stanley tools you would want to look for a #62. The #9 is also a pretty good shooter, but it has a 20-deg bed so it wouldn't deliver the lower cutting angle that you specify (at least not without resorting to a back bevel and a really low face bevel). The Stanley #51 is almost ideal despite its high cutting angle (more on this below), but it's going to be the most expensive option of all.

As others have pointed out the #62 is no bargain on the used market, so you might want to look instead at the Wood River equivalent (http://www.woodcraft.com/product/158755/woodriver-62-low-angle-jack-plane.aspx), provided you can find it on sale. IMO the $200 asking price is too close to the Veritas LAJ (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/Page.aspx?p=49708&cat=1,41182,41186,49708) (actually a 62-1/2) and the L-N 62, (https://www.lie-nielsen.com/product/low-angle-bench-planes/low-angle-jack-plane?node=4167) both of which are better-made planes.

The modern Stanley #62 (http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-12-137-No-62-Angle-Plane/dp/B002B56CUY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451588398&sr=8-1&keywords=%2362+plane) may be your cheapest option, though quality seems to be very hit or miss and it's likely to take some work to get the sole flat and the sides perpendicular (the latter is a must for shooting).

IMO the biggest distinguishing feature of the dedicated (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/Page.aspx?p=70926&cat=1,230,41182,48945) shooters (https://www.lie-nielsen.com/product/no.-51-shoot-board-plane-)isn't so much the cutting angle (the Stanley and L-N 51s are both common-pitch bevel-down planes) as the skewed blade. In my experience that makes a huge difference when entering end-grain cuts.

[Matthew N. Masail]

If you have time you could make a laminated plane with a sqaure body and a skew iron. Turn or buy a round knob to thread Into the side to act as a pushing point between your thumb and forefinger. Use a 2 3/8 inch blade from a metal plane you have or better yet buy a wooden plane blade from LV for like 36$. Bed the iron no more than 40 bevel down and you'll have a true low angle plane while retaining a 30 degree bevel. You could make a track for this plane too.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

I use a No. 7 as well. The biggest issue I had was figuring out a grip that would allow me to keep it flat and square on the board and still cut with it. Once you get that figured out it can work pretty well.

[James Pallas]

I used a #6 for a long time until I purchased an LV LA Jack. I use either one now. I like the LA Jack bout the #6 works just fine.
jim

[george wilson]

Yiou can make a perfectly good shooting plane by just taking a wooden jack plane and making sure the side you are going to lay it on is perfectly square with the sole.

[Patrick Chase]

Yiou can make a perfectly good shooting plane by just taking a wooden jack plane and making sure the side you are going to lay it on is perfectly square with the sole.

It's not clear to me what that buys the OP over his current setup with a 4-1/2. Ditto for the suggestions for a #6 or #7 - they add some length and mass, but the cutting mechanics are more of the same.

The fact that he mentioned reduced cutting angle makes me think that his real issue is difficulty of cut and maybe some chatter in end grain - is that right? If so then be aware that a skewed blade will do more to address that than will a lower cutting angle...

[Robert G Brown]

A ramped shooting board might help if not using one already.

[Chris Hachet]

Let me be a contrarian. Invest in stones and refine your sharpening technique. I shoot quarter sawn white oak, hard maple and beech with oittle trouble with a really sharp vintage number 5 Stanley. I did finally break down and drop a Hock blade into it though. Was going to get a PMV 11 blade from Lee Valley but am very happy with the Hock. YMMV.

[Brian Holcombe]

I don't find a low angle to be really necessary for shooting, I use a #7 plane....which has eclipsed my use of a low angle jack.

[Frederick Skelly]

I used a #6 for a long time until I purchased an LV LA Jack. I use either one now. I like the LA Jack bout the #6 works just fine.
jim

Both of these work well for me too.

[Patrick Chase]

A ramped shooting board might help if not using one already.

Ramped shooting boards are typically about 2.5 deg (3/4" of rise along a nominal 16" board). When you use a straight blade on such a board to cut, say, a 3/4 thick workpiece the effective displacement from leading to trailing edge about is 1/32", which doesn't make any meaningful difference to start-of-cut smoothness. There's a good reason why all real shooting planes have ~10X that much blade skew.

Ramps help wear, not cutting performance.

[Derek Cohen]

lI have used a wide range of cutting angles for shooting, ranging from a 60 degree bed of a HNT Gordon Trying Plane to the 37 degrees of a LV LA Jack, and the low cutting angle wins every time. A sharp blade helps enormously on higher beds, but the low cutting angle leaves a smoother finish and cuts more easily.

A very good alternative to a metal LA plane is a wooden strike block plane, which has a 37 degree bed and is used bevel down. There is a pictorial for building one on my website.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/BuildingaStrikeBlockPlane.html

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/BuildingaStrikeBlockPlane_html_71a1e942.jpg


A ramped board, such as above, certainly does aid in shooting. The principal factor is its reduction in impact, which also reduces blade wear. There is some spread of blade wear in addition.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

A ramped board, such as above, certainly does aid in shooting. The principal factor is its reduction in impact, which also reduces blade wear. There is some spread of blade wear in addition.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hmm, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on that count. From an analytical perspective the amount of skew you get from a ramped board strikes me as "homeopathic", and my own experience is consistent with that. I don't see much difference in ease-of-cut between unramped and ramped boards with straight blades, while I do see a very significant improvement with 20+ deg of blade skew as on the dedicated shooting planes.

Out of curiosity why do your configure your board so that you shoot top->bottom? The lateral component of the cutting force will tend to lever the workpiece up and away from the bed in that configuration. It probably doesn't matter at such negligible skew angles (see above) but there's a reason why the blades on the shooting planes are oriented the way they are.

EDIT - Never mind, you do it so that you have the option of working tall-but-narrow workpieces that wouldn't be feasible if the fence were at the high end. Given my own conviction that such small skew angles are irrelevant, that's logically the "right" configuration :-).

I agree that a lower cutting angle helps. No debate there.

[Graham Haydon]

I'd echo Brian, George and others in regards to using a normal bench plane. On the basis you use mainly power tools a #6, #7 or wooden jack will work great and offer the ability to shoot long grain edges as well.

[Patrick Chase]

I'd echo Brian, George and others in regards to using a normal bench plane. On the basis you use mainly power tools a #6, #7 or wooden jack will work great and offer the ability to shoot long grain edges as well.

As has been previously stated, the key thing to note here is that the OP is already shooting with a bench plane (a 4-1/2) and is looking for something with a lower angle, presumably to help with end-grain shooting. Given that context I don't see how recommending more of the same in the form of a bigger bench plane is responsive to the OP's requirements (though ideally he should clarify why he thinks he needs a lower cutting angle - I suspect that skew might actually be more helpful...)

EDIT: Given the OP's apparent constraints, Derek's suggestion of a low angle Jack is probably the most reasonable one so far.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Patrick

With a ramped board, I am not suggesting that the "skew" action creates a slicing cut. I am stating that the skew action causes the blade to enter the wood in a progressive manner, rather than all at once/ straight on. This has a noticeable effect on the the way the plane strikes the work piece, reducing the impact. This is not a theoretical issue. This is factual. I have used and compared different shooting boards over some years, as well as eliciting the opinions of others. Try it for yourself.

There is no noticeable tendency for a workpiece to lift when shooting on a ramped board. In the same way that a straight-bladed plane does not impart a slicing cut, a ramped board does not impart an upward angle to the plane. In both the situations, only the initial impact is skewed, and thereafter the workpiece remains .. just a workpiece without angle.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

Hi Patrick

With a ramped board, I am not suggesting that the "skew" action creates a slicing cut. I am stating that the skew action causes the blade to enter the wood in a progressive manner, rather than all at once/ straight on.

Yes, everybody agrees on that point. The key question is: How much does does the impact have to be spread out to create a noticeable effect?

Let's try reducto ad absurdum: Several of my planes (the Veritas customs, the L-N and WR Bed Rock clones) have frogs that can be skewed by a fraction of a degree. By doing that I can cause the blade to "not enter all at once". Do you think that doing so would have a meaningful impact on shooting? For that matter no plane has a perfectly straight blade, even with modern CNC tolerances. Do you think they really vary in shooting performance? The answer to both is clearly "no", and so we must accept that there is some threshold below which the impacts are so negligible as to not be meaningful.

Now let's consider a ramped shooting board: The effective skew amounts to a couple/few degrees. When shooting a 3/4 workpiece this will cause the blade to enter the bottom of the workpiece about 1/32" before it enters the top (using the way your board is laid out as a benchmark). Most people seem to shoot at ~2 feet/second or a bit faster, so the net impact is that the impulse at workpiece entry is spread out over just over one millisecond (1/1000 sec) instead of being instantaneous. If you look at the mechanics of cutting (not all of the work is done at the exact moment of impact), the mass and momentum of the plane and the amount of compliance in your arm/body, spreading the impact out by that amount simply cannot possibly make a perceptible difference, just as homeopathic remedies cannot possibly have a medical impact (hence my choice of words in my previous post).

In each case the math is what it is, and its conclusions are inescapable. With that said, plenty of people have convinced themselves that homeopathy works, just as many people have convinced themselves that a tilted shooting board makes a difference. At that point it's a matter of faith and not really open to debate (except to say that I've tried it, and it didn't make a difference. Then again I'd already done the math before that and had a clear idea of what "should" happen - expectation is a powerful thing :-)

[Derek Cohen]

As I said Patrick, this is not for armchair reasoning or speculation - the effect can be demonstrated easily on a practical level.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

As I said Patrick, this is not for armchair reasoning or speculation - the effect can be demonstrated easily on a practical level.

Oddly enough, so can homeopathy - there was a recent study demonstrating positive medical impacts. The key thing in that case was that the patients *knew* they were getting homeopathic treatments and *expected* that they would work, leading to a classic case of a placebo effect.

Same thing here. Unless of course you've rigged up a plane with a representative (similar compliance to human) robotic arm and a force gauge and collected data?

EDIT: Actually there's a simpler way to test this: Mill some stock at a complementary angle to the skew, and have people shoot it in a blind trial (the latter part would take some doing since most experienced woodworkers can spot 2 deg of cant on the edge of a workpiece. you'd have to prevent them from seeing at least that part of the workpiece, or maybe paint a pattern on it that obscures geometry). See if the perceived benefit stays or goes away.

[Graham Haydon]

Hi Patrick

As the OP mentioned his inexperience with hand tools I thought a larger standard bench plane would prove more versatile. That's the thing with opinions and experiences, they all vary. My 47.5deg pitch wooden jack works great on a flat shooting board and I like the fact I can then bring it to long grain work with confidence.

328361

[Steve Voigt]

As I said Patrick, this is not for armchair reasoning or speculation - the effect can be demonstrated easily on a practical level.

Regards from Perth

Derek


Completely right. You can present rational arguments all day, or you can try it and I'm sure most will be convinced.The problem here, as is so often the case, is that the rational arguments are too simple, and fail to take account of all the forces and factors involved.

Instead of frog angles and homeopathic comparisons, consider a closely related situation: skewing a plane when face-planing. Try face-planing for a long session, pushing a 2 1/2" jointer blade, and always presenting it at 90° to the edge of the board. Then try skewing the plane just a few degrees on every stroke. The difference is dramatic. For me, it's the difference, after a couple hours of work, between being tired and being exhausted.

[Patrick Chase]

Completely right. You can present rational arguments all day, or you can try it and I'm sure most will be convinced.The problem here, as is so often the case, is that the rational arguments are too simple, and fail to take account of all the forces and factors involved.

Instead of frog angles and homeopathic comparisons, consider a closely related situation: skewing a plane when face-planing. Try face-planing for a long session, pushing a 2 1/2" jointer blade, and always presenting it at 90° to the edge of the board. Then try skewing the plane just a few degrees on every stroke. The difference is dramatic. For me, it's the difference, after a couple hours of work, between being tired and being exhausted.

Actually the case you cite is NOT "closely related", and the analysis works out very differently and predicts exactly the result you describe.

For starters you're using a 2.5" blade on a wide surface, instead of shooting a 0.75" thick edge as I assumed, and that buys you a 3X increase in "diffusion".

Furthermore people usually aren't up to full speed by the start of a long jointing stroke (a shooting board allows more of a running start) - If you're at, say, 1 fps then that's another 2X. Admittedly this one his highly variable by user.

Finally I'd be willing to bet that your skew angle is >5 degrees (5 deg corresponds to 2" of total offset over the ~24" length of your jointer) which buys you another >2X. Note that this is a fundamental difference - with a shooting board the total skew is limited by the need to keep the entire length of the workpiece on the blade. When you skew during roughing, jointing, or smoothing you don't need to do that.

Taking all 3 of those together you're now diffusing the impact over ~10 msec, which should be perceptible. Not coincidentally that's also about what you get with the ~20 deg skew angles on most dedicated shooting planes - it's almost as though Stanley, L-N, and LV did their homework and figured out how much skew is required to make a difference...

[Pat Barry]

Yes, everybody agrees on that point. The key question is: How much does does the impact have to be spread out to create a noticeable effect?

Let's try reducto ad absurdum: Several of my planes (the Veritas customs, the L-N and WR Bed Rock clones) have frogs that can be skewed by a fraction of a degree. By doing that I can cause the blade to "not enter all at once". Do you think that doing so would have a meaningful impact on shooting? For that matter no plane has a perfectly straight blade, even with modern CNC tolerances. Do you think they really vary in shooting performance? The answer to both is clearly "no", and so we must accept that there is some threshold below which the impacts are so negligible as to not be meaningful.

Now let's consider a ramped shooting board: The effective skew amounts to a couple/few degrees. When shooting a 3/4 workpiece this will cause the blade to enter the bottom of the workpiece about 1/32" before it enters the top (using the way your board is laid out as a benchmark). Most people seem to shoot at ~2 feet/second or a bit faster, so the net impact is that the impulse at workpiece entry is spread out over just over one millisecond (1/1000 sec) instead of being instantaneous. If you look at the mechanics of cutting (not all of the work is done at the exact moment of impact), the mass and momentum of the plane and the amount of compliance in your arm/body, spreading the impact out by that amount simply cannot possibly make a perceptible difference, just as homeopathic remedies cannot possibly have a medical impact (hence my choice of words in my previous post).

In each case the math is what it is, and its conclusions are inescapable. With that said, plenty of people have convinced themselves that homeopathy works, just as many people have convinced themselves that a tilted shooting board makes a difference. At that point it's a matter of faith and not really open to debate (except to say that I've tried it, and it didn't make a difference. Then again I'd already done the math before that and had a clear idea of what "should" happen - expectation is a powerful thing :-)
We had this same discussion a month or so ago and I brought up the same points as you are regarding the ramped shooting board and the same people had the same thoughts about a perceived benefit from the ramped board. A ramped board is nowhere near as beneficial as a skewed blade but some perceive it worked (subjectively) but that's likely because they want to believe it works, after al, they built it because they wanted to believe. I also agree that planning forces with Derek's ramped board would tend to lift the work piece. I guess if it works for you then have at it but buyer beware.

[Patrick Chase]

We had this same discussion a month or so ago and I brought up the same points as you are regarding the ramped shooting board and the same people had the same thoughts about a perceived benefit from the ramped board. A ramped board is nowhere near as beneficial as a skewed blade but some perceive it worked (subjectively) but that's likely because they want to believe it works, after al, they built it because they wanted to believe. I also agree that planning forces with Derek's ramped board would tend to lift the work piece. I guess if it works for you then have at it but buyer beware.

Yeah, this one has the feel of an unwinnable holy war. Guess it's time to go on forum vacation...

As I said above I think that the ramp direction on Derek's board makes sense on balance. Yes, there is an upward force component, but it's small due to the very low ramp angle. IMO the benefit of having more usable edge at the fence end and therefore being able to shoot short-but-thick edges outweighs that. I'm actually thinking of reconfiguring my own ramped board to match. I have one for perfectly rational blade-wear reasons even though I have an LV shooter with a skewed blade :-).

[Larry Frank]

Thanks for the comments and varied opinions:-)

I am mainly shooting smaller boards and based upon what I have read is that my LN 4-1/2 will work. I really would really like what I think is called a hot dog handle. Maybe not for my LN but for a similar plane. I have pretty bad arthritis in my wrists and that type of handle would make it easier on me. Any thought on a used Stanley plane that would could put that type of handle on?

[Pat Barry]

... the benefit of having more usable edge at the fence end and therefore being able to shoot short-but-thick edges
The ramp angle doesn't really buy you much of any increase in thickness so I'm not seeing that there is any benefit in this as compared to a plain shooting board.

[Patrick Chase]

The ramp angle doesn't really buy you much of any increase in thickness so I'm not seeing that there is any benefit in this as compared to a plain shooting board.

There is a benefit IMO, it's just not what people claim.

When shooting longer pieces a ramped board distributes the wear more evenly across the blade. My point in my previous post is that ramping "down" towards the fence as Derek did enables you to both spread the wear out on long-but-thin pieces while still being able to shoot short-but-thick ones. Obviously you still get uneven wear with short-and-thin pieces and the ramp means you can't shoot long-and-thick ones- there's nothing to be done about that.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

I have found the best grip for me with a Bailey style plane is putting my thumb sort of on the adjustment knob, with the rest of my hand wrapped around the iron and frog assembly. That works well without any additional handles on the plane. With your arthritis, a different handle may be necessary, but it might be worth a try if you have not tried it that way yet.

[Patrick Chase]

Thanks for the comments and varied opinions:-)

I am mainly shooting smaller boards and based upon what I have read is that my LN 4-1/2 will work. I really would really like what I think is called a hot dog handle. Maybe not for my LN but for a similar plane. I have pretty bad arthritis in my wrists and that type of handle would make it easier on me. Any thought on a used Stanley plane that would could put that type of handle on?

Yeah, the 4-1/2 is certainly a serviceable shooter if shorter than average, but if your work is small then that's of no concern. The ergonomics are similar (and the mechanism identical to) the #5-1/2, #6, and #7 planes that others have suggested in this thread, so I see no reason to invest in any of those - If they could be made to work for you then your 4-1/2 can too.

A few random thoughts based on what you said:

1. The #9 (Stanley (http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan2.htm) or the one that LN recently discontinued (http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/lie-nielsenironmiterplane.aspx)) or the modern LV interpretation (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=73208&cat=51&ap=1) thereof might be worth a look, since their ergonomics are close to what you describe as your ideal. I realize that the LN and LV are probably out of your price range, but if you can find one to play with it might help you narrow your preferences down (and here I was questioning the purpose of the LV miter plane just a couple days ago in another thread :-).

2. While you can put a hot dog on anything, in my experience they work better with the "down low" action of a low-angle plane. It's hard to describe, but there's a tangible difference in how the cutting forces are transmitted.

3. IIRC Derek published plans for a really nice hotdog for the Veritas LAJ (or maybe it was the jack rabbet) a while back. You could probably adapt those to any other 62-class plane.

EDIT: http://inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/Building%20the%20Hotdog%20Mk%20II%20for%20the%20LV %20LA%20Jack%20pics.html

[Derek Cohen]

...
EDIT: Actually there's a simpler way to test this: Mill some stock at a complementary angle to the skew, and have people shoot it in a blind trial (the latter part would take some doing since most experienced woodworkers can spot 2 deg of cant on the edge of a workpiece. you'd have to prevent them from seeing at least that part of the workpiece, or maybe paint a pattern on it that obscures geometry). See if the perceived benefit stays or goes away.

Hi Patrick

I have attempted to do so ..

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/ShootingPlanesCompared.html

Still subjective, but a collective viewpoint that is more objective than a single vote.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Mike Holbrook]

May be a dumb question but does anyone use a skewed rabbit plane for shooting? There is a skewed blade and typically a fence to keep the blade at 90 degrees. The depth stop screws off on my new Veritas skew rabbet, which should allow it to lay flat on its side. The side appears to be machined flat so it could be run on it's side, although the grips, as supplied, may not be ideal. I think many people prefer a heavier plane. I was just wondering how the 30 degree skew on one of these planes might help vs the additional weight of something like a bevel down or bevel up Jack or jointer type plane? I understand that the skew rabbet is designed to work surface grains not function as a shooting plane on end grain but if one does not own a specifically designed for shooting plane...

[Pat Barry]

There is a benefit IMO, it's just not what people claim.

When shooting longer pieces a ramped board distributes the wear more evenly across the blade. My point in my previous post is that ramping "down" towards the fence as Derek did enables you to both spread the wear out on long-but-thin pieces while still being able to shoot short-but-thick ones. Obviously you still get uneven wear with short-and-thin pieces and the ramp means you can't shoot long-and-thick ones- there's nothing to be done about that.
That is true. I actually always run material through the planer at a skew for this exact reason. Of course with that tool I'm purposely concerned with having to resharpen or change the planer blades as it is a major chore. With a shooting plane this is not the case and no one likely wears out their blade with the types of work we are doing (ie: hobby /non industrial)

[Phil Mueller]

Larry, I have the hot dog handle for my LN low angle plane. It seems it has enough slot width to fit the side of a Stanley, but the issue will be the frog/iron on a traditional BD plane does not leave enough room to attach the LN hot dog (I just tried on a #3 and #4). I'm not familiar enough with the longer traditional Stanley's to know if it would work on planes longer than a #4.

[don wilwol]

I just made this one, http://timetestedtools.forumchitchat.com/post/a-shooting-plane-refurb-7853877?pid=1290290206

Add a board like Dereks and you'd be good to go.

[Pat Barry]

Hi Patrick

I have attempted to do so ..

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/ShootingPlanesCompared.html

Still subjective, but a collective viewpoint that is more objective than a single vote.

Regards from Perth

Derek
Thanks Derek - very interesting read. You like the ramped shooting board based on your experience and I respect your expertise in this. I don't see any significant downside to it, and much of the debate has been just theory versus practice. In fact, while I'm not ready to make a new shooting board just yet, I will likely give a ramped design a try next time.

[Phil Mueller]

Nice solution Don...and most likely much more ergonomic than the LN hot dog. If my modern Stanley 62 was even close to having a square side I'd convert it to a dedicated shooter using your design.

[Patrick Chase]

Larry, I have the hot dog handle for my LN low angle plane. It seems it has enough slot width to fit the side of a Stanley, but the issue will be the frog/iron on a traditional BD plane does not leave enough room to attach the LN hot dog (I just tried on a #3 and #4). I'm not familiar enough with the longer traditional Stanley's to know if it would work on planes longer than a #4.

If you have to position the hot dog either behind or in front of the frog on a longer plane then that's going to somewhat defeat the point. IMO you want those slightly behind the center of effort, i.e. right where the frog is on every BD plane, regardless of size.

[Phil Mueller]

Patrick, I agree. Given the limited clearance between the frog/iron and the side of the plane, a custom handle is the only real option IMO.