I promised Jim Koepke I'd put up pictures of the Stanley low-angle block plane, my first plane purchased to try to help use with a shooting board to get truer miters for frame making. I have been having problems with the way the iron won't stay locked, it has lots of wiggle.

I purchased this a year ago when I didn't know anything (and really still don't know) about how to make picture frame miters that are accurate. I had learned about using a shooting board and a low-angle plane to try to trim the end grain cut to fit.

These are the pictures of the plane I purchased. This is NOT a Stanley 60-1/2, but just a cheap low-angle block plane. It's not even marked anywhere, as if Stanley is ashamed of producing this thing.

The lever cap screw is not movable/adjustable and the lateral adjustment lever easily wiggles and you just can't get the iron to lock firmly. It moves when making a shaving.

I did sharpen the iron by hand with a wet stone and a tool purchased at rockler to help with that process. The iron is sharp. The problem is the plane won't hold the iron in place. And, when the blade sticks down out of the throat (using the depth adjuster, one side of the iron is lower than the other. So it's not just that the blade is not just square to the throat, one part of the cutting edge justs down lower first. And when you take a shaving, it only really grabs / cuts on one side. And the lateral adjustment lever will not allow the iron to be moved enough to square up so that the cutting edge is even across the throat. It just doesn't twist enough laterally to allow the blade to be square to the bottom of the block. So one side cuts, where the other side doesn't even touch wood. And if I push the depth adjuster further, to the point where all edge of the iron bite into the wood, one side of the shaving is thick, the other side, barely touching, is like tissue paper.

So that's the main problem, I can't get the cutting edge of the iron to be equi-distant from the bottom of the plane...one side sticks down farther than the other, and it moves/wiggles all too easily. (I think the angle changes because it doesn't tighten, and when using, it's all to easy to put pressure on the lateral adjuster which sticks out on one side and is easily pressed by my grip.

After watching a video today about how to fettle a Stanley 60-1/2, I learned to check the bottom of the body (that rides on the wood) for flatness with a square. There is easily .1mm or .2mm+ gaps everywhere in both directions.

Honestly, in trying to make this post, I looked up Stanley low-angle plans and learned that this is just an inexpensive low-angle plane, 12-960....$35 bucks from Home Depot.

I don't think this plane is worth any time or tinkering. Maybe a littile time. It may be fine for reducing / bevel and edge here or there, who knows. I just remember how frustrated I was with this because the iron just wiggled so much and easily changed angles, and one side bit deep while the other side wasn't on the wood . The cutting depth adjuster seemed to do it's thing, with the exception that the iron would have lots of wiggle and wouldn't really lock in place. I think that has more to do with the lateral adjuster design. But there's something wrong in that I cannot get the blade edge to be equi-distant in depth: One edge is far lower than the other. I just can't get the blade even (not just square to the throat, but even depth sticking past the bottom of the block. It makes left-side heavy shavings, and the right side of the cutter doesn't even touch wood.

Perhaps Instead, I think I'm going to look for a Stanley #60-1/2 and then try to see if, after fettling, that it works better with the shooting board I made to trim the miter cuts I'm making by hand. But after buying this Stanley, I'm loathe to give them any more money with the exception perhaps of hunting for a version of a #60-1/2 that was pre-cheap chinese manufacturing days.

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