High Angle LV BU Blade vs Scraper Plane

[Bob Opsitos]

I'm trying to decide the relative value between the high angle blade for my LV BU smoother and LV's scraper plane.

I recently got to try out my boss's LN scraping plane, and I quite liked the action and results, but wondered if the high angle blade for the BU smoother would come close to the action and results on the scraper plane.

So can anyone comment on the action & results of the high angle blade vs the scraper plane?

Thanks
Bob

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Bob

I have a Stanley #112 with LN blade and two Stanley #80s. They rarely get used. I work predominantly with hard wood, and much of this has interlinked grain. My preferred tools are high angled BU and BD planes. Where needed, I will use a card scraper.

Note that a scraper cannot be used on soft woods, and that a smoother (high or low angled) will produce a finer finish than a scraper.

As my planes have improved in quality, so my need for a scraper has diminished.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Mark Singer]

It is better to slice the grain rather than scrape it when possible. Many woods that I use are extremely difficult to plane without tearout. So I have both scraper planes and smoothers , both BU and Bd... Pften a card scraper is the best choice. There is not a single plane that will work well on all woods.....so the never ending search is on going

[Tim Sproul]

So can anyone comment on the action & results of the high angle blade vs the scraper plane?



This is largely just reiterating previous comments. I have the Veritas scraping plane and the stable of Veritas bevel up planes.

Any can be used successfully on more difficult grain. The scraper plane has an easier learning curve, IME/IMO compared to the bevel up planes.

Scraper plane iron (or scraper) is easier to sharpen compared to the bevel up iron.

Setting up the scraper plane to get wisper thin shavings is easier than the bevel up.

Once you can set up the bevel-up, it does, IMO perform better than the scraper plane.

It isn't as if the bevel up planes are difficult....just that the scraper plane is very easy to set up while the bevel up bench planes require a bit of moderate skill to set up and use. The ability to bow the scraper iron on the Veritas scraper plane makes fine depth adjustments impossibly easy.

[David Marcus Brown]

I've got a nice 4.5 smoother w/ a york pitch frog and I've got a bevel up smoother that I've tried w/ a super high bevel. There is some grain in hardwoods that the 4.5 can't handle. The bevel up with a bevel steep enough to handle the same grain leaves a surface only a bit better than a scraper plane. As a few have said, the scraper plane is pretty easy to set up. I gave up trying to tackle difficult grain with a high angle bevel up and just use my bevel downs coupled w/ the scraper plane. A scraper plane will handle any hardwood while a 60* bevel that works on one wood might need to be upped to 70* on really nasty wood. Changing that bevel takes time and trial & error. The scraper plane just does it.

That change in philosophy for me is fairly recent. I tried the bevel up thing for over a year -- and it is promising. But, swapping blades & changing bevel angles to suit different woods & circumstances took more and more time away from completing my projects. I found that I liked the feel of bevel downs, having the adjuster at my fingertips and keeping different planes for different purposes. I kept my bevel up planes for shooting endgrain & miters because they truly excel there. But, for crazy grain that stumps even my tight-mouthed, york-pitched smoother, I just pull out my 212 or 112 because I know they'll get'er done. I follow the scraper plane with some :eek: 320 grit sandpaper wrapped around a cork block to blend in w/ the surrounding planed wood and call it good.

As always, different strokes for different folks.

[Alice Frampton]

Interesting that both Tim and Dave apparently find the scraper planes easier to set up - generally it seems to be a pretty recurring theme that they're more difficult to get to grips with. From my own experience while I got lucky and didn't find the scraper plane too difficult, the bevel ups were 1000 times easier still. Not for nothing is it said that when asking 15 woodworkers for an opinion you'd better be ready for at least 15 different answers. :)

Cheers, Alf

[Tim Sproul]

Interesting that both Tim and Dave apparently find the scraper planes easier to set up - generally it seems to be a pretty recurring theme that they're more difficult to get to grips with.


For the record, I think that setting up the Veritas scraping plane is extremely easy....this may not hold true for other scraping planes. The ability to bow the scraper on the Veritas version is the key difference, IMO. IIRC, the Veritas scraping plane is the only scraping plane that allows you to bow the scraping iron. The Lie Nielsen/Stanley/Kunz only give you control over tilting the scraping iron......so depth setting on these is much more difficult.

The ability to bow the blade allows me to set depth in very fine increments...albeit at the cost of more or less flat cuts....but I've never noticed the ever so slight concavity in the tracks left by the scraping plane or any other finishing plane, for that matter. Tracks from scrubs and other heavily cambered irons are a different story.