Veritas Shooting Plane - squaring the cut

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

Hi all, I finally got an opportunity to purchase a veritas shooting plane. I have heard nothing but good things about it and it was a pleasure to use during a demo.

I am a little confused about setting it up square.
Veritas intentionally made the plane 88 degrees instead of 90. normally my first step in setting up a plane is to turn it sole up and advance the blade until it barely peaks out. I then use this slight line to make the blade parallel. from there I can adjust with a plane hammer to get pretty perfect cuts.

however if I do this, I get a 92 degree edge.

I'm also confused as to why they would do this. the plane houses a low angle blade so it relies on the mouth to control tearout (more of an issue if you use it for long grain, I know - which I plan to). but it seems that the plane is designed to have the blade depth skewed from the parallel to the sole to achieve a proper cut. Shouldn't this hinder the use of a tight mouth?

I realize that all of this might be the difference between mathematics and engineering, I have heard nothing but good (ravingly good actually) things from owners.

but I still need to get a decent technique down for squaring the blade.

would appreciate any thoughts or tricks on the matter

if it is of any interest I built a shooting board out of baltic birch ply and installed the longer veritas shooting track. everything is as square as I can tell.

Assaf

[Patrick Baney]

I'm confused. Are you sure it's supposed to be 88 degrees?

Looking at the manual online I see "Made of fully stress-relieved, ductile cast iron, the shooting plane is accuratelymachined and ground so that the sole is flat and the side is square to the sole."

[Stephen Rosenthal]

I have a Veritas RH Shooting Plane. Sole to side edge angle is 90 degrees. I did read somewhere (maybe this forum?) that someone had one that was not square and returned it for another one. If I’m understanding you right, I’d contact Lee Valley. You may have a defective plane.

[John Kananis]

Mine is also 90° but the manual says that it doesn't need to be and adjust the blade accordingly if it's not.

[Tom M King]

Mine is also exactly square.

[Robert Hayward]

See the attached pic of a note that was in the box of my new left hand Veritas shooting plane.

[Tom M King]

I would underlay the track to square up the vertical side. 3 thou is thicker than the shavings I take with mine.

[Jim Koepke]

Assaf, are you measuring the angle on the plane or on the finished work?

By my calculation, which could be way off since it has been years since I've had to do any trigonometry, with a specified variance or 0.003" and an estimated height of the plane sole of 2" that would be a tangent of 0.003/2=0.0015 (okay we know the plane sole may be taller, that would give a smaller number).

(tangent = opposite, 0.003 over /divided by adjacent ~2" Also note in the image Robert posted the plane sole is the hypotenuse of the triangle. It will likely work out pretty much the same since this is all ball park figures anyway.)

The tangent of 1º is 0.0175. This indicates you sole is way out of spec. With a 2º error the variance from the diagram Robert posted would be almost seventy thousandths of an inch (0.0686")

If you can you might try checking you shooting board with another plane to see if things remain the same or produce a different result.

jtk

[Matthew Eason]

I had that note in my box as well. It just means the plane is square at the interface with the shooting board. The upper end may deviate away by design. If you had to choose between it tipping in (91 degree) versus tipping out, away from the board (89 degree), it makes sense to choose the tipping away/out from the board at the top.

Forget the theory and math and try the plane out and see how it does. I'm not smarter than the tool makers at Veritas so I don't try to overthink their logic.

For blade projection I'd be curious to hear others thoughts. I just used a small piece of wood to feel for it to catch evenly along a length of the blade projection at different spots. I don't normally do this with my other planes but it made sense to do so with a skewed blade. Make some test cuts and adjust as necessary. Scribble the end grain and see how its removing with each pass.

[Patrick Baney]

By my calculation, which could be way off since it has been years since I've had to do any trigonometry,...
jtk

I believe you're correct.

Frankly, I'd accept very little deviance from square from a plane which is designed from the ground up as a shooting plane. It has no other purpose and I would not compromise on its squareness, even if it can be adjusted for. It just doesn't sit right with me.

As far as the question goes, I'd wager that most of us eyeball it, then shoot & check. Personally, I find a scrap with a known square edge (face relative to end grain), color the end grain with a pencil, tip the piece against the fence and shoot the corner a bit. If the pencil is removed evenly, it's square enough to check. I tend to do this with fairly thick stock. If I'm square over 1.25", then I'm certainly good to go with the < 1/2" stock I'm usually working.

[Robert Hayward]

I believe you're correct.

Frankly, I'd accept very little deviance from square from a plane which is designed from the ground up as a shooting plane. It has no other purpose and I would not compromise on its squareness, even if it can be adjusted for. It just doesn't sit right with me.
I agree with you. The Veritas shooting plane is written up on the Lee Valley sight as being machined with the sole and running surface square to each other. Then they put a note in the box with the plane about how it may not be at 90 degrees. That note should be included in the web site write up in my opinion.

[mike stenson]

Every manufacturing process includes tolerances. In this case, the plane is designed to compensate well within the tolerances. I've had no issues with mine. All I ever checked was that the cut is square.

[Jim Koepke]

I agree with you. The Veritas shooting plane is written up on the Lee Valley sight as being machined with the sole and running surface square to each other. Then they put a note in the box with the plane about how it may not be at 90 degrees. That note should be included in the web site write up in my opinion.

For some reason when LN and LV revised their web sites a lot of the technical information was removed. It always interested me to read the bed angle of the side rabbet planes or the overall tolerances to which the soles of planes were ground. Perhaps others found all the trivial details boring.


Every manufacturing process includes tolerances. In this case, the plane is designed to compensate well within the tolerances. I've had no issues with mine. All I ever checked was that the cut is square.

If the top and bottom faces of the shoot board platform are not parallel, it could likely cause the work to be more out of square than the 0.003" tolerance allowed in production of the plane's body. The 0.003" variance of the sole would likely work out to less than one tenth of a degree from square.

jtk

[mike stenson]

If the top and bottom faces of the shoot board platform are not parallel, it could likely cause the work to be more out of square than the 0.003" tolerance allowed in production of the plane's body. The 0.003" variance of the sole would likely work out to less than one tenth of a degree from square.

jtk

Totally agreed. If it's outside the tolerance, it's a QA escape and that should be deal with. I'm just referring to the expectation of perfection.

[Robert Hayward]

I think I have my new Veritas shooting plane dialed in finally. Need to say I am a complete newbie to shooting boards and planes. Also in the past seldom used a hand plane of any kind.

Attached is a picture of my shooting plane dialed in to get as perfect a 90 as I can measure. The top narrow gap measured with automotive feeler gauges is between .011 and .013. My feelers jump from .011 to .015. I had a mildly loose fit at .011 and .015 would not go through. The bottom gap is .026 again measured with the auto feeler gauges.

My plane measures .03 out of square from the traveling surface to the sole. I checked this with the plane laying on its traveling side on the table saw top. Then using a Woodpeckers tri square that is used only occasionally to check my daily users for accuracy. Auto feelers were used to check the gap.

That .03 out of square leads to a sizeable tapered gap between the blade and the adjustable toe.

Perhaps there is a way to adjust the iron using the three lateral adjustment screws the plane has. Can anyone suggest anything?

[Jim Koepke]

I checked this with the plane laying on its traveling side on the table saw top. Then using a Woodpeckers tri square that is used only occasionally to check my daily users for accuracy. Auto feelers were used to check the gap.

It might be more accurate to hold the stock of the tri square on the traveling side of the plane to check the sole's variance. There could be some inaccuracy entering your measurement from the table saw top.

jtk

[Robert Hayward]

It might be more accurate to hold the stock of the tri square on the traveling side of the plane to check the sole's variance. There could be some inaccuracy entering your measurement from the table saw top.jtk
I tried that this afternoon and the results were the same as when I used the table saw table. Thanks anyway.

[Jim Koepke]

Perhaps there is a way to adjust the iron using the three lateral adjustment screws the plane has. Can anyone suggest anything?

This is from one of the .pdfs listed under Care & Use:


If all is well, advance the set screws on either side of the body until they just touch the blade, not to clamp it but to create a guide so that you do not have to be concerned about the blade shifting.

jtk