Low Angle Smoother - am I doing something wrong?

[Philipp Hawlitschek]

I recently purchased the Veritas low angle smoother. The first impression was very positive, build quality is certainly top notch. It's very easy to set the iron and the mouth adjuster works a charm. General feel and usability is pretty good.
But, so far, I really struggle to get the same glassy smooth finish I can achieve with my cheapo 80's Stanley with tightly set chipbreaker. This is on softer woods, douglas fir, pine and also some maple.
I also tried a 40° microbevel (52° cutting angle) but the result was pretty much the same as with a 25° blade. I thought a lower cutting angle was better for softwoods anyway. I tried setting the mouth as close as I could. I sharpen with the veritas guide, I don't use a camber but round the corners slightly.
So, do I basically need a chipbreaker for the finest finish? Or does the LAS only shine with a really high cutting angle for really nasty woods?

Looking forward to your experiences,
Philipp

[Rob Luter]

I had the Low Angle Jack, but used it as a jointer/smoother and a shooting plane. As a smoother it worked very well. The 38* iron worked for most things and the 50* iron tackled tough grain without tear out. I usually had the mouth set very tight. On pine it would take shavings that reminded me of facial tissue. Surface quality afterwards was usually excellent. Are you sure you’re not planing against the grain?

[Jim Koepke]

Hi Phillipp and welcome to the Creek.

You do not mention how thick of a shaving you are taking. In my experience it requires the very thinnest of shavings to leave a 'shiny' surface.

It is also my experience that a bevel down plane with a chip breaker is more likely to leave the smoothest surface.

The bevel up plane works better with a high angle bevel in gnarly woods.

jtk

[Jim Matthews]

I owned and sold the Lie Nielsen version of the #62.

I had multiple blades, like Chris Becksvort's FWW article. It was great, in Cherry and local White Oak.

I had similar difficulties to yours in Poplar (kiln dried) and local White pine.

A couple passes on the back of the Iron (Charlesworth's ruler trick) improved things some.
My finest stone at the time was a Shapton 8000.

I suppose you can get a shimmering surface but the blade will require some fiddling until you get the combination of front and back bevels right.

FYI - If you have the PV11 blade - that steel is capable of holding a MUCH finer edge than my O1 version did.

I recommend contacting Veritas directly for further guidance. My guess is that you're close, already.

[Philipp Hawlitschek]

Thanks for your responses. This is the first I hear about a backbevel on bevel-up blades.
The shavings I get are very fine, the finest I ever got from any plane. But the surface is still not as smooth as from my Stanley. I sometimes get close, but not quite.
If I get some shoptime next week, I'll have a go at some harder woods. Maybe softwoods just really like a bevel-down+chipbreaker.

[Eric Danstrom]

Cutting angle is cutting angle. If you're getting good results with a 45* Bailey frog on typical American softwood then that's the correct cutting angle. Correct cutting angle is independent of bevel up or bevel down. I have BU planes and for American softwoods I use a 38* blade bevel up on a 12* bed replicating a 50* bevel down plane. For hardwoods such as cocabolo and Chechen I use a 50* blade for a 62* cutting angle. That eliminates most tearout. I can rip half thou shavings in American softwoods with a 45* Bailey and a LV/LN bu planes (using a 38* bu blade). Its all about the cutting angle, not bu/bd.

Back bevels are not without controversy but aren't normally used with bevel up planes. Back bevels are intended to allow the user to change the cutting angle on bevel down planes without changing the frog. The point of bevel up planes is that three blades, 25/38/50 allow all types of wood to be planed successfully with one plane. Using a back bevel on a BU plane seems silly but to each their own.

[J. Greg Jones]

Well, there are back bevels and there is the Charlesworth ruler trick, which only introduces a bevel that is less than 1*. On my bevel-up planes I consider the ruler trick to be an absolute necessity to remove the wear bevel. On bevel-down planes, the wear bevel is honed away when the blade is sharpened, but that’s not the case on a bevel-up plane. Unless one is willing to flatten the back of a bevel-up plane every time it is sharpened, the ruler trick is a nice alternative.

[Eric Danstrom]

This is a cutting angle thread not a sharpening thread. What you are doing is removing the wire not making a back bevel for the purpose of changing cutting angle.

[J. Greg Jones]

I agree that it’s a cutting thread, not a sharpening thread. But no, the ruler trick is not just removing the wire, it removes the wear bevel. To suggest that it is a silly step when sharpening a bevel-up blade is not accurate.

[Eric Danstrom]

Back bevel came up because it was claimed that to make a BU plane work correctly one must fine tune the back bevel and the primary cutting angle to make a BU plane work correctly based on the wood species. Then you redirected to sharpening.....

[J. Greg Jones]

Seriously? I’m not the one that brought up the ruler trick or back bevels at all, but once you stated that they are silly on a bevel-up blade, then I was compelled to offer a different perspective...

[Derek Cohen]

I recently purchased the Veritas low angle smoother. The first impression was very positive, build quality is certainly top notch. It's very easy to set the iron and the mouth adjuster works a charm. General feel and usability is pretty good.
But, so far, I really struggle to get the same glassy smooth finish I can achieve with my cheapo 80's Stanley with tightly set chipbreaker. This is on softer woods, douglas fir, pine and also some maple.
I also tried a 40° microbevel (52° cutting angle) but the result was pretty much the same as with a 25° blade. I thought a lower cutting angle was better for softwoods anyway. I tried setting the mouth as close as I could. I sharpen with the veritas guide, I don't use a camber but round the corners slightly.
So, do I basically need a chipbreaker for the finest finish? Or does the LAS only shine with a really high cutting angle for really nasty woods?

Looking forward to your experiences,
Philipp

Philipp, assuming your blade is as sharp as the Stanley, the issue may be the higher cutting angle. Straight-grained, soft woods are perfect for lower cutting angles. The lower a cutting angle that you can get away with, the clearer the surface should be.

By contrast, the higher cutting angles move towards a different chip reaction, at the expense of the ultimate surface quality. I say “ultimate” as it should still be possible to create a reflective surface on suitable hard woods.

Personally, I reserve BU planes for woods with interlocked grain by using a 50 degree bevel (62 degree cutting angle). I have the best of both worlds with a Veritas Custom #4 with a (bevel down) bed of 42 degrees, and use this with a closed down chip breaker. Your Stanley is capable of performing better as it has a lower cutting angle than the LAS, assuming no issues with the plane and its set up.

Play to the strengths of these planes. Use the LAS for interlocked grain or hard woods, and keep the Stanley for the softer woods. The Stanley has a wider range of use once the chip breaker comes into play, while the LAS is easier to set up and use.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Koepke]

Back bevel came up because it was claimed that to make a BU plane work correctly one must fine tune the back bevel and the primary cutting angle to make a BU plane work correctly based on the wood species. Then you redirected to sharpening.....

None of my BU planes have a problem without a back bevel, ruler trick or whatever it is called. Keeping the blade honed has taken care of the wear bevel without having to continuously flatten the back. Perhaps if the wear bevel has grown too large to remove by honing the blade it has gone too long without sharpening.

A chip breaker set properly for the task at hand will prevent the shaving from being lifted ahead of the cutting edge on a bevel down plane. A bevel up plane only has the angle of the bevel to prevent the shaving from lifting ahead of the blade.

If someone will explain how a back bevel on a bevel down plane affects the cut, many of us would appreciate knowing.

jtk

[Warren Mickley]

Cutting angle is cutting angle. If you're getting good results with a 45* Bailey frog on typical American softwood then that's the correct cutting angle.

What in the world is typical American softwood? Red spruce? Hemlock? Tamarack? Pitch pine? Baldcyprus? Port Orford cedar? Balsam fir? Redwood?

[James Pallas]

I believe there is little difference in the finish between BU or BD planes. The BU leaves a finish that looks a little dull meaning not burnished. Its appearance is similar to that of a card scraper or a BD plane with a back bevel. I have also heard but have no direct experience with high angle BD planes leaving a slightly duller in appearance finish. This is just a theory on my part. As you plane with a BD plane with a close set chip breaker it jams the wood down just before it is cut almost like filling the wood. As you plane more that “filled” surface is burnished by the planing action and looks shinier. The reason I believe this is when you use slow drying sealer like alkyd base sanding sealer it seems to raise the grain more than on a surface planed without the chip breaker used on a BD plane or a BU plane or a card scraper.