Any users - Bridge City HP-6v2 Mulit-Plane

[Will Blick]

Quite a clever plane....

http://www.bridgecitytools.com/images/products/114/zoom_1101-284.jpg

seems to fit a nice niche, many profiles are hard for a router... to delicate and small.... any users?

http://www.bridgecitytools.com/images/products/375/zoom_Beading_1.jpg

[David Tiell]

I'd love to hear from owners also. I love BCTW tools and have often been tempted to buy it, but it's price has deterred me so far.

[Mike Henderson]

Too expensive for me, also. I look at the pictures but that's about it.

Mike

[George Springer]

I finally pulled the trigger on one when the beading sole showed up. Since then I've added the 1/4" and 1/16" dado soles. It is indeed a most capable plane. The dado nicker, blade and sole does a nice job cross grain, with the grain and diagonally across the grain without tear out. It is amazing to use. The beading sole and blade result in incredibly smooth cuts. It's is nice to have the double ended irons so you don't have to stop and hone while working, simply swap ends. That doesn't work with the dado blades but then they are easy to hone. I do have one regret about the combination and that is I didn't buy it sooner. I will also be very quick to point out that my kids are grown, through school and out of the house so I have disposible income I didn't have for many years. I will continue to add soles as I need them and use the plane as often as I can. If you can find a way to own one, you will be pleased with the tool.

George Springer

[Will Blick]

Well, I had ordered the plane and 3 soles....did not realize it had arrived, was sitting in my garage...so I spent a few hours with them today.... my initital comments...

Build quality is excellent. Packaging is Superb! Plane is quite small, a bit more mass would be helpful when chomp'in on hardwoods. Alignment between the blade and the soles is excellent, I feared this... its important the grooves on the sole align perfectly with the grooves being cut, as its still a plane, so you must make many strokes. The soles guides begin to track in the cuts you make in the early process..

The Multi-Bead blade is the crown jewel of the bunch, IMO. The cuts are exactly as advertised, so no need to post additional pictures as my results mimic 'd those above. The smallest beading pattern with 1/16th radius (listed as 1/8th Diam.) can't be done with a router bit, so it surely earns its wings. Produces a nice fine bead, great for edge detailing.

The round-over blade and the V-groove blade performed as expected, but I was not overly excited with these. I did not buy the Dado as the previous poster did, as I did not see a need to cut a dado that my TS was not capable of. Of course, you can cut some thinner dados with this plane, but I did see any application for such.

I am hoping they add many more soles, ones which are unique like the multi-bead. It's an expensive endeavor, the plane, 3 soles, honing guides (very nice btw, use with diamond paste) and the required fences will cost about $1k to get started. Also, I like hand tools, but I am not in love with them. And although this is a well engineered tool, it still requires a lot of patience and practice. You need to utilize the fences well to get good results. So, this plane is not for the person in a rush all the time.

My only small complaints are.... the plane would use a bit more heft, some chatter can occur on hardwoods. The fence hardware is a no-tool assembly - nice design. But they should have used higher thread counts on the finger nutz, as it's essential to make everything very tight, so it can be rough on your fingers. Same true with the top lead screw to raise/lower the blade as well as the screw that holds the blade tight... a higher thread count would have made the precision settings easier to achieve. But it's not a deal breaker.....but I was surprised they did not think of this.

The washer that holds the blade taught (between the blade flat surface and screw that keeps blade tight, arrrr....forgot its official name.... anyway, it's free floating, so when you change the blade it comes free... I would have liked to have seen this captive or at least magnetic. They are easy to loose when they hit the floor and roll under the cabinets :-)

As mentioned by the above poster, its nice to have dual sided blades, it's like 2 blades in one.

With min. mass and some hard cutting when in dense wood, the KEY is, you must constantly sharpen, as the plane can't rely on mass. So be prepared to sharpen often to be assured nice clean cuts. And they are surprisingly clean, no sanding required. So with time, diligence and practice, the plane delivers as advertised. Since most all of the cuts can be done with power tools, you really must like the "hand" component of wood working to justify the purchase. But this may change, with the new soles they may produce in the near future. I am really curious what new profiles they plan to release in the near future...does anyone know?

[Narayan Nayar]

I've got one and about 5 different profiles. I'd agree with everything Will said, though I haven't had the problem with

A couple things I'd like to verify/add:

The "loose" brass cap mentioned by Will is indeed a pain. I live in fear of dropping that thing and having it roll itself into oblivion.
Most of the profiles don't make sense without their honing plates, which work well but add to the expense.
Keep in mind that they are still selling profiles for the V1. So the fact that they mention a profile is available doesn't necessarily mean it takes advantage of the V2's huge feature--quick release. The V1 locks down soles via 4 allen set screws. My roundover profiles are V1. They'll upgrade these to V2 eventually, but not until they exhaust their inventory. That said, if you don't mind the set screw method, you can get a really good deal on a V1 plane (I'm considering it). As soon as they come out with a V-groove sole in V2 version, I'm clicking "order".
You can use thin dados for shadow lines, inlays, or for moulding profiles made up of compound cuts. This is where this plane really excels, in my opinion, and which is why I'm considering having another (in the same way many people have 2 or more routers--keep them setup for the cuts they have to make on a compound profile).
I'd much rather use this plane than a router, period. No sanding, and no noise and complicated setup. This isn't the "pull out of the drawer ready-to-use" plane--some setup is required (as Will mentioned the fence is necessary on many profiles)--but I'd still consider it more enjoyable setup than anything on my routers.

[Will Blick]

> As soon as they come out with a V-groove sole in V2 version, I'm clicking "order".

My V-Groove is QR, so go click "order!" I did not see any V1 planes for sale on the web site, as you mention, if the deal is good enough, it can pay to keep a second one around to reduce set up time, but then, more fences too....

Agreed with the honing plates, a mandatory expense. I also agree with cutting small dados cross grain as being appealing, as even with a router this will often not give a clean cut. What other profiles do you think they will release?

[Narayan Nayar]

re: V2 version-- Will, you're not helping... :)

My immediate hope is transition of their existing profiles to V2 versions...their roundovers, namely. As to other potential profiles--I think the sky's the limit here. The plane has a very flexible design, so I can potentially see all sorts of mouldings make their way to the HP-6. But as I mentioned above, the ability to stack cuts with various profiles suggests that the basic shapes for the profiles should be kept simple--more of a "toolbox" approach than a three-trick pony (is there such a thing as a three-trick pony? All the ponies I know only know one trick... ;).

One profile I can see being useful is a wider multibead. Something like a 3 or 4-flute beading profile.

[Will Blick]

Narayan, your point is a good one, I had not thought of this.... a mix of simple profiles to provide a number of variable finished profiles. Very interesting....

I think the key to success of this product line is to provide shapes which can not be performed easily on routers.... this will proivde unique looking profiles....the very tight multi-bead pictured above is an excellent example, and a perfect application for a plane blade...

Oh, and sorry for brining the V-groovin QR availability to surface.... :-)

[Will Blick]

Oh sorry Narayan..... but you mentioned....

> One profile I can see being useful is a wider multi-bead. Something like a 3 or 4-flute beading profile.

Well, get out the credit card :-) All your wishes are coming true ;-)

http://www.bridgecitytools.com/email/0804/cb2_a.jpg

[Narayan Nayar]

Yeah, I got that email too.

Argh. :)

[Will Blick]

Just doin my job ;-)