Square edge on a LN plane iron.............

[Mark Rios]

So I bought a new LN 60 1/2. Finally took it out of the box today to use it and I noticed that I had to move the back of the blade WAY to the right to get it to square up with the mouth. It wouldn't square up so I took the blade out and checked it with my machinist's square and, sure enough, it was definately not square.

Is this normal for a LN blade to be out of square like this? Or is this part of the tuning that one is expected to do on a new plane? I was under the impression that the only thing one needed to do to a LN block plane was to flatten and polish the back of the iron and maybe put a finer edge on it? Is this bonehead not thinking straight?


Thanks very much for your input.

[Hunter Wallace]

Nope, neither boneheaded nor normal...

I've had two blades come from them with a twist,
one worse than the other, and the really bad one
I called them about and they sent me out a new one
right away.

I'd call them if you're not in a terrible hurry to use
it. It's probably easier (and quicker) for you to just
true it up on your grinder and then polish it up...

[Mark Singer]

Mark on resharpening I check it with a square, The LN I have got are very good when shippeed. If you use a guide lay a machinest square when the blade is installed.. Free hand honong just check it

[Mike Henderson]

It's not normal for an LN blade. I've bought several LN planes and all the blades were "perfect" - that is, the edge was square with the sides and the back was polished.

Contact them and they'll make it right. If you want to use the plane, ask them to send you a new blade and you can send the old one back in the same box. When I had a problem with an LN plane, they even paid for my return shipping.

I am surprised at the number of reports of defects in new LN planes that I've heard (and experienced) recently. Maybe it's just that they're shipping a lot more planes and the defect rate hasn't changed.

Mike

[Mark Rios]

I ended up sending my blade back to LN, as was suggested by some of you, on December 29. This morning I called LN to see if they had received it yet. They had and the new blade was already being prepared for shipment!!!

I happened to have had the good fortune of Patrick taking my call. Apparently, he is the exact person that deals with this issue of making sure that unsquare blades (and other such things) don't get shipped out. As expected, he was very kind and helpful and, of course, apologozed for the defective blade getting sent to me. He had read my posting of this issue already and said that he had planned a meeting of the folks involved to see what needed to be done so that this type of thing is minimized even further.

In the past 6 or 8 months I have read in different forums some people mentioning that LN's QC must be starting to slip and that they must not be caring as much. My opinion is that those folks don't know what the bleepity bleep they're talking about. When the number of items that are shipped out increases, the percentage of oops and errors that get shipped will also increase. However, LN seems to have the best QC of any manufacturer that I have dealt with AND when something does happen, I don't know of any manufacturer that deals with the problem any better than LN, from what I"ve experienced and from what I've read in other posts.


Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, all is well in Lie-Nielsen land and I expect to have my blade back and in my plane shortly.

Many and large thanks to Lie-Nielsen ToolWorks INC.

[nic obie]

I'm glad sending it back worked for you.

:D