My first plane!

[Tim Cooper Louisiana]

My girlfriend bought me a Veritas LA jack plane for Valentines. It arrived a few days ago and it's beautiful. If I were to order just one of the alternate blades, should it be the 38 degree bevel or the 50? I'm out of town on a business trip and my girlfriend asked for a sexy pic last night.

It's not weird to travel with your hand plane is it?

Coop

[Phil Mueller]

Poor girl. She has no idea what she's started.

[Jim Koepke]

It's not weird to travel with your hand plane is it?

Of course not. I have heard many a traveler talking about the great planes on their travels.

jtk

[george wilson]

A NUDE plane in bed???? Shame on you!!

[Bill Houghton]

Sounds like you've got a keeper there. Oh, and a nice plane, too.

[David Eisenhauer]

Its this new generation - first thing already posting bedroom photos of his beloved. I am a gentleman of the old school that does not share such stuff with strangers. Where will it all end?

[David Eisenhauer]

Oh yeah, your question. Why not hold off on buying more blades and just use the thing for a while as-is. It will probably do 99% of what you want for a while, if not longer. I could see, perhaps now, wanting a second standard blade so that you could leave a square edge on one blade for shooting, etc, plus a second blade to put a camber on for jack work, but the high angle and toothed blades are more specialty items that may come into more use as you get more practice with the standard blade. By all means, spend more money on more tools, but maybe spend it on something that do not have at all.

[Patrick Chase]

My girlfriend bought me a Veritas LA jack plane for Valentines. It arrived a few days ago and it's beautiful. If I were to order just one of the alternate blades, should it be the 38 degree bevel or the 50? I'm out of town on a business trip and my girlfriend asked for a sexy pic last night.

You can always hone a high secondary bevel onto a lower-bevel-angle blade, but you can't do the opposite. I'd get the 38 or even another 25 and experiment with the secondary bevel to find how high it needs to be for the woods you work.

Another related consideration is camber - As Derek pointed out in one of his articles a while back, it's easy to put a cambered high-angle secondary bevel on a 25-deg blade, but truly odious to achieve the same thing by cambering the entire face of a 38- or 50-deg blade.



It's not weird to travel with your hand plane is it?


Yeah, that's pretty weird. Normal people build a stalker-shrine (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StalkerShrine) to their plane and keep it there. The shrine is also used for elaborate planing rituals involving ceremonial robes and slippers.

[Patrick Chase]

Oh yeah, your question. Why not hold off on buying more blades and just use the thing for a while as-is. It will probably do 99% of what you want for a while, if not longer. I could see, perhaps now, wanting a second standard blade so that you could leave a square edge on one blade for shooting, etc, plus a second blade to put a camber on for jack work, but the high angle and toothed blades are more specialty items that may come into more use as you get more practice with the standard blade. By all means, spend more money on more tools, but maybe spend it on something that do not have at all.

While I generally agree with the sentiment, I think this is a case where buying the extra blade is a no-brainer.

With its default 25-deg blade that plane is great on end grain and achieves spectacular surface quality on straight-grained woods, but isn't so good for working difficult woods with reversing/interlocked/curly/etc grain. A second blade with higher secondary bevel unlocks a lot of additional functionality for not much $$$$.

[Bill McNiel]

OK Patrick, it seems significantly more disturbing that you have a link to a "Stalker Site" than Tim's desire to post nude photos of his "LA Jack". All of this is occurring on a forum than has banned "Lucky Ducks"!

[Patrick Chase]

OK Patrick, it seems significantly more disturbing that you have a link to a "Stalker Site" than Tim's desire to post nude photos of his "LA Jack". All of this is occurring on a forum than has banned "Lucky Ducks"!

Huh?

That link is to the definition of "stalker shrine" on tvtropes. I would never share a picture of my shrine - that's far too personal.

[Chris Hachet]

All sarcasm aside, I hope you enjoy this and get some great use out of it.

Regards,

Chris

[Frederick Skelly]

It's not weird to travel with your hand plane is it?

Yah, it's wierd. :)

[Mike Holbrook]

Tim, congrats on the LA Jack. I have had one for many years and use it often.
You might check out Derek Cohen's web page. Derek is a very experienced woodworker who posts on SMC often. Derek has lots of very helpful information on using and sharpening Veritas BU planes:
http://www.inthewoodshop.com

[glenn bradley]

You're done for now . . . As to the second iron; as usual, it depends. I find the 50* the most useful second iron in that body. I also have other planes that take the same iron (this was no accident) so I end up with a wide selection.

[Judson Green]

i certainly hope you're using protection :eek:

[Frederick Skelly]

In all seriousness, that's a nice tool. I love mine.

And your girlfriend sounds like she just might be a keeper!

Fred

P.S. Don't rollover on the plane while sleeping with it.

[Mike Holbrook]

Another nice thing about the Veritas LA Jack, eluded to above, is the BU Smoother and the BU Jointer both use the same size plane irons. You can have a smooth (fine), jointer (medium) and a jack (coarse) plane all of which can share blades. If you read Derek's article on sharpening BU plane blades you will find a simple method for adapting a few of these blades to match exactly to specific needs. Of coarse, each of these planes can be adapted to do multiple (fine, medium or coarse) jobs if you so desire. A versatile system using premium planes and maximum bang for the money.

That is maximum bang for three premium planes, both in terms of the economy of money spent and brain strain necessary to get and keep the whole system working. Certainly one might save some money restoring old Stanley type planes vs any of the premium plane offerings. However, among premium planes, I think it is hard to find a more versatile, easier to use system. As many others on these pages have posted it is hard to beat that three plane system for cost, versatility and most importantly for a new user ease of use.

[Glen Canaday]

P.S. Don't rollover on the plane while sleeping with it.

Or you might smother your smoother.

Ar ar ar.

Why not get any other iron and put the bevel on it yourself? It's killer-easy to do.

[Patrick Chase]

Another nice thing about the Veritas LA Jack, eluded to above, is the BU Smoother and the BU Jointer both use the same size plane irons. You can have a smooth (fine), jointer (medium) and a jack (coarse) plane all of which can share blades. If you read Derek's article on sharpening BU plane blades you will find a simple method for adapting a few of these blades to match exactly to specific needs. Of coarse, each of these planes can be adapted to do multiple (fine, medium or coarse) jobs if you so desire. A versatile system using premium planes and maximum bang for the money.

That is maximum bang for three premium planes, both in terms of the economy of money spent and brain strain necessary to get and keep the whole system working. Certainly one might save some money restoring old Stanley type planes vs any of the premium plane offerings. However, among premium planes, I think it is hard to find a more versatile, easier to use system. As many others on these pages have posted it is hard to beat that three plane system for cost, versatility and most importantly for a new user ease of use.

Another thing to consider is that the vintage Stanley #62 is fairly rare (insert snarky observation here about what that says about old-time woodworkers' opinions of BU planes) and commands high prices on the used market. They also didn't make equivalents to the BU jointer and smoother at all. If you're going to go the BU route then this is a case where buying new is more cost-effective.

[Jim Koepke]

Another thing to consider is that the vintage Stanley #62 is fairly rare (insert snarky observation here about what that says about old-time woodworkers' opinions of BU planes) and commands high prices on the used market. They also didn't make equivalents to the BU jointer and smoother at all. If you're going to go the BU route then this is a case where buying new is more cost-effective.

The materials used to make the original Stanley #62 were also a bit less than ideal.

Production on the Stanley #62 didn't start until 1905 and ended in 1942. It was originally advertised for heavy use across the grain. Most likely it didn't appeal to a lot of folks with limited income.

How many people back then has as many different planes in their workshops as we do today?

jtk