type of low angle smoother plane

[john mclane]

I know this group loves giving advice to relatively new WW. I am looking for a versatile good smoothing plane to work with some harder and more difficult wood. I currently have a #4 Groz with a Hock blade, an older # 7 Stanley jointer, a Lie Nielson low angle block plane (#102) and a odd assessments of other "edge or dado planes. I have them tuned and good, sharp blades but when recently flattening some nice figured cherry with either the # 7 or the # 4 I get some mild tear-out on some spots. I don't have a "tailed jointer" so I have to do the squaring and flattening by hand. I do most of my work now in either oak, maple or cherry and smaller pieces like bed-side or side tables.

I have been looking at the Veritas and L-N smoothing planes and like the Low angle jack planes the best but want to know if the V Low angle smoother or the bevel up smoother would give me more options now and in the future. I don't have a big budget and just starting to collect the hand tools slowly (this would be last purchase for this year) and really starting to see things improve in my skills in the last year. I've read a few of the reviews but almost all say that each of these planes is great and a "must have or can do the job you want."

[Eddie Darby]

Try a small back bevel on your #4 blade of 5 to 10 degrees.
Around 1/32" or less should do the trick with wild grain.

Trying 5 degrees will give you an overall pitch of 50 degrees ( York Pitch ), and 10 degrees will give you 55 degrees.

[Jameel Abraham]

I've had the Lie Nielsen Low-Angle smoother (164) for about 7 years now. It's a fantastically versatile tool. I have an extra iron for it. One I keep at 20 degrees for low angle work like end grain, softwoods, shooting miters (its hefty so it works great with a shooting board), the other I keep and a high angle (45 degrees) for smoothing figured wood. I recently did a whole table top of curly cherry with this. The higher angle (57 total) will yield a Type II chip (see Leonard Lee's sharpening book), and a tearout free surface ready for very fine sanding or scraping. I think the low-angle jack is pretty nice too, but the shorter smoother I think is more useful as a smoothing plane. I think the LN 164 is your most economical way to get into high-performance smoothing (super-thick blade, very tight mouth, no chatter,) akin to Norris type planes at a fraction of the cost. I wouldn't be without mine.

[Tim Sproul]

I have the 3 Veritas planes you're contemplating - low angle smoother, bevel up smoother and low angle jack.

Which of the three you should get? In your situation, I'd say get the low angle jack. It is long enough to provide accuracy in most situations and short enough to use to smooth many surfaces too. The low angle smoother is quite small and not a good choice for planing furniture sized surfaces. I'd compare it size wize to a standard #3 bench plane. It does have nice square cheeks to facilitate use in shooting and it's relatively small size makes it a good plane for fitting drawers, IME.

The bevel up smoother is also a nice plane but really is a smoother. It is long enough to provide some accuracy on smaller work but on larger surfaces, you can quickly distort true and flat boards without a hiccup - epecially in the quest to remove a spot of tear out here and there. Both the bevel up smoother and low angle jack use the same irons.......which can work out well once you get both planes.

I'd try and get 2 irons, if your budget allows. You can leave one at low angle or typical angle to get 40 or 45 degree bed equivalent and have the other iron give you 50 or 55 degree.

RE the back bevel. The idea of a back bevel is sound but when I had refurbed Stanley bench planes, back bevels caused more headache than the standard pitch. I was using regular Stanley irons so the thin iron may not have been up to the task of being used with a back bevel.

The other thing to keep in mind is that figured woods are much happier and more docile when cut with a very sharp cutter rather than a typical sharp cutter. This is regardless of the bed or effective bed angle.