Thanks for point me over here, this was super helpful! Definitely answered a lot of questions and gave me the info I needed to start thinking about what would be best for me to start my collection with.
i dig the bevel up planes. i have all styles, from bailey to bedrock, new veritas smoother wood river, stanley...but my two favorite planes, and the ones that work the best with the least effort for me are my two liw angle planes. veritas becel up jointer and lie nielson vecel up jack. these two planes can do luterally EVERYTHING. my 62 low angle takes such gine to heavy shavings it blows me away.
Thanks for the excellent video! I ordered a Veritas Low Angle Jack Plane to level a workbench I'm going to make, but when I'll have to smooth wood, I'll probably keep an eye peeled for a Stanley #4 and set it up for smoothing, like in that other video of yours.
Thanks for the info James! I don't know if you intended it, but when you said "so, which one is better?... well, to be honest, they both have their ups and downs" I chuckled a bit because this whole video was about ups and downs (bevel up/bevel down)
i finally decided to part with the money for the stanley low angle a couple months ago. love it, comes in very handy on the walnut slabs for the headboard.
I’ve seen elsewhere that you can put a 10° second bevel on the back of a bevel down plane to create a plane that will do the same work as bevel up plane, or more accurately a 50° frog. I have tried it with a very cheap plane and it does work for my standard of woodworking. I use a block plane for end grain, which is a bevel up plane so why not use that in difficult areas? I must admit the cabinet scraper you advised me about is always close to hand for difficult areas as well. An amazing tool, and for many of my age or above a lot less wearing on arthritic fingers than a card scraper. Thank you for that. Except with my long paring chisel I now work with my bevel down again following your advice. It is easier to keep your work accurate as you see the tip of the blade more, it also cuts smoother, (or that might be down to improvements in my sharpening). I sing your praises everywhere for all the help you have given me, which is heck of a lot of help. I know from personal experience you answer all questions you are asked, which is incredible for someone with two channels and over 80k subscribers on your other channel. Please don't ever think it isn’t appreciated. Another great video, thank you.
Thanks man! That means a lot. yes you can change the angle and you can buy different irons with the angle ready to go, but you can not put a chip-breaker on it.
Thanks for the information. I splurged and bought two Lie Neilson planes, a rabbeting block plane and a low angel jack plane. You are right about being a beginner and learning to set the planes correctly. I am not having fun right now, but your information was helpful. Take care.
Excellent overview of the pros and cons of bevel-up vs bevel-down planes. Thanks for taking the time. By the way... It's bevel-down for me every time as I buy second-hand and recondition most of my tools and the bevel-up options always seem a little pricier but don't offer much (if any) benefit.
Good no nonsense video. You have shown what each does well and what they fail at. Certainly clears up a lot of prejudicial baloney being put out for the past few years.
Man, I've been watching yours and Paul Sellars vids for a bit now and I've bought three planes in that time and there is just something about hand tools that is extremely addicting. It changes things and the way you look at doing your work. It's much more fun although I still love my power tools but planing is an absolute blast and I just can't believe how little you need to sand afterwards if any....so thanks man for the vids. Anyways low angle Jack plane is next on the list along with making a scrub plane.
Old video, I know…this is a great summary, IMHO. Suggestion: a fairly deep dive on use and applications for the different bevel angle irons sold by LN and LV for their low angle bevel up planes could be a great resource. I don’t remember seeing anything like that on RU-vid (or elsewhere). I agree with your overall assessment of this situation. I have seen so many people recommending LABU planes on the basis that “they’re easier to understand because there are many fewer things you need to learn about setting them up.” Well, yeah, maybe, but IMHO you’ll never really learn what hand planes can do, or how to use them, if you start with a LABU plane, and for those reasons you’ll probably decide that using hand planes doesn’t offer your work anything you can’t do easier and better with a sander. That’s obviously a personal opinion rather than a proven fact. 😊
I know this is sort of over the top, but I eventually decided that if I was going to be serious, I needed a jointer, a jack and a smoother. I had a couple of older No. 4s, a 60 1/2 and a 65, but decided to buy a #7 jointer, #5 1/2 jack, and #4 1/2 smoother, partly because I can swap irons among all three. Most people aren’t going to want to dive in that deeply. I could probably have learned, and do, 75% of the value with just a #5 1/2 or #5, but using the #7 can really teach you a lot about wood and planes.
Great job giving great information on these 2 planes. Being new to hand tools I went with the traditional jack plane and love it yes there is definitely a learning curve but this really helps you how to use a plane properly and this is a user friendly plane that gets you into how great hand planing is and the results you can get are incredible. Thank you for all your information
Thank you for that information. I have been doing woodworking for many years now but never quite figured out why I should want a low angle plane despite having a quite extensive selection of planes. I started with my dads old Stanley No5 that he had not looked after and he had never learned how to sharpen the blade! It was far from flat so back in the 1970s I phoned Stanley to ask if they offered a re-grind service. The man said not, but then he said "oh wait a minute, that would make a good exercise for the apprentice so post it to us". They flattened it and posted it back for free!! Oh for the days when service ruled. It remains my go-to plane along with a Stanley 9 1/2 fully adjustable (and low angle) block plane that I cannot recommend highly enough (forget the over-priced Lie-Nielsen etc). I think that maybe when I have a job that needs a lot of end grain work and I need far more weight than my 9 1/2 then I will justify a Stanley 62.
@@WoodByWright 'Mane' isn't that what hoses have? I'm a Brit so maybe that is the way you guys spell it. We spell it 'main'. Incidentally, a lot of the stuff we think of as Americanisms - words like 'fall' for autumn and 'sidewalk' for pavement are in fact the old English expressions. You guys didn't change, we did.
Hi, I love watching your videos, I learn so much from you. I'm little bit embarrassed beause I only got shaving from bevel up planes. Whenever I try a bevel down iron and a chipbreaker nothing but cloging in front of the blade.I try and try on and on the traditionnal way but nothing. I have 2 N°4 Fischer Darex plane with thin walls weight almost nothing. One is a smoother and the other a scrub and 2 block planes bevel down. I've made lastweek a low angle bevel up and shaving came in seconds.I had never trouble using bevel up iron and the result is really smooth. I usualy use pine, beech, birch, mapple, and oak. I don't understand why I can't manage to use beveldown and chipbreaker.
It's usually one of two problems if you're clogging in the mouth. Either the mouth is too tight which is the less common problem. Or the chip breaker is not fit well to the iron. Most of the time that's the problem. I have a video on mating the chip breaker to the iron if you want to see more on that.
@@WoodByWright thanks for answering so quick :) I'll watch it. It's 3 or 4 years I'm fighting with it watching lots of videos, trying right away with all the double irons planes but get tired and I only keep my N°5 . Hope the struggle will end soon :D
Here is the video. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cQzLdMsGCqk.html if that does not work feel free to send me an email with some pictures and I would be glad to look it over with you. jameswright@woodbywright.com
I really, really like this guy, he explains things so I can understand it fully. now I have three guys I can learn from, #1 is paul sellers,#2 mitch peacock, and now mr. wright. . for instance I never knew Stanley ade deferent angle frogs for nthe stanle planes. thank you mr wright I'm going to watch every vedio you make
For what it is worth having used a new low angle jack plane and an older Stanley #5, there is a large difference in the thickness of the blades and I think this might add a few points for the low angle but if you are buying a new #5 it is not a consideration. The low angle sure cuts easier in my opinion, so much so that I will buy one. Thanks for the video! Love the channel.
Ok I think I'll go bevel down I like the function of the chip breaker assisting the cut. Awesome work and I concur as a power tool guy dipping my toes into hand tools I go bevel up every time !
With a bevel down plane the main thing is that there should be no (or very minimal) contact between the beveled surface and surface being planed. I have found that every plane that ever gave me trouble with chatter has a lack of support under the blade. The fix for one was to file some high spots on the bed - the fix was about 15 seconds of filling. Another after determining the bed was flat, I checked the blade and cap iron. They were both bowed upward slightly, away from bed. It left an interesting, high frequency series of little waves across the width of the board that looked like a tiny power jointer had surfaced the board. The blade is already raised about 1/64th above the bed. As the plane moves foward, the blade and chip breaker flex a very small amount and then push forward scooping a very short, shallow divot. You can hear the action even though the surface seems pretty good until the light hits it just right.
I'm going to lose my mind if some else tells me they got a great Stanley plane for pocket change. Hell, i had a few I bought as a teenager, and never thought much of them, unitl some one borrowed my planes, and I tried to replace them. It's one of those you have when you don't need'em, and need them, when you don't have them. Thanks, good video.
No reason to say sorry. It's more, what've done. When I was a teenager, I hit every garage sale, and flea market. I had a wealth hand tools, but believed need all these power equipment, and two car garage to keep them in. When I was eighteen, I left my tools with my parents. If you leave something with someone for a decade or two, who actually owns them? I tried to repeat what I did as a teenager, and can't. So, it's not you, but me. What's the MWTCA?
@@Kikilang60 z Midwest tool collectors association. It is a club that is dedicated to the history of hand tools and their meats have the largest hand tool sales in the world. I have a few videos showing some of the sales if you want to see that just search for what is the mwtca.
I use that exact stanley low angle plane in conjunction with my shooting board. Was thinking of making some kind of handle to get the grip vertical when using it like that lol.
I'm thinking of buying three planes. No. 60-1/2 Rabbet Block Plane, No. 4 Smooth Plane, and No.5 Jack Plane or Low angle Jack Plane. So, if you have a No. 60-1/2 Rabbit Block Plane and No. 4 Smooth Plane, which Jack Plane would you like?
I would probably go with the low angle Jack. The only thing it doesn't do well is smoothing out difficult grain. But for that you have the number four. But it is fantastic for doing end grain.
All the tools I restore for my personal use get painted Metallic Blue. I like the way it looks in the shop. I have a few Records as well but that blue is a bit lighter.
Very good video showing the + and - of each type of planes. I have one more consideration and it is sharpening. I free hand sharpen in a couple of minutes but with a low angle plane, if I want to get 25 degree, it's just too low for my hand who are wrapped around the blade. So, in my case, it's a standard plane free hand sharpen. I've sold my low angles planes.
I am new to woodworking but how do you know which is bevel up/down? I got one from a store and it looks like your high angle plane but the blade came bevel up. is it wrong from the factory please let me know as I am enjoying woodworking.
You just have to know the plane, but rule of thumb is if the bed of the plane is higher then 20 degrees then it is intended to be bevel down. 90%+ of all planes are bevel down. it sounds like yours was put in upside down. but feel free to email me some pictures if you want me to take a look. email is int he about tab on the channel page.
If you have an ultra low angle frog, you have to grind a really delicate edge to your iron to get the geometry to work, meaning for all intents and purposes you need a dedicated blade (although you can beef up the edge with a microbevel). Great breakdown, James.
Kinda defeats the purpose then IMO. Actually I don't really buy the whole low angle logic. To me all a low angle jack plane amounts to is a long low angle block plane which I've found unnecessary. Haven't used mine in ages.
8 лет назад
I get by pretty well with bevel ups. I have had issues but 38 degree blade helps quite a bit in most situations. They are really simpler and I love that. I have a jack and a small bevel up plane from veritas. And for now I cant find a justification for buying another one. I think this is a fair review.
Second time watching this James and I enjoyed it just as much as the first time. Do you still use the Stanley No. 62 and do you still like it? I considering getting either the Stanley or the Wood River low angle jack. Thanks.
I do still own this one. It works well though it doesn't feel as good in the hand and there's a few things about it I just find to be a little bit cheaper. That being said it's a good plane and if you treat it right it will do you well. Since that video Tay Tools has started offering one that I find to be a little bit better bang for the buck. Slightly higher quality materials and a little better fit and finish. lddy.no/gt2p
At your Suggestion I watched the H&T Gordon explanations, and being a student of Paul Sellers, I think I will stick with the Traditional Bevel Down. :D ( I can't afford a Lee Valley)
No. If you flipped over a bevel down iron it would make it a very high angle. Also it would chatter as nothing is supporting the iron. So no it does not work like that.
That's good informations for me. i Have both of them (5 and 62) and i wonder why i cant plane widthout tearouts on the expensive 62. Now i know. I have to try to set up my 4/5/7 correctly :) Thank's
Great. So i need more planes :/ Are there bevel up wooden planes? Can you show how one is made? Is bevel up only for jacks and block planes? Or others also?
LOL you can never have enough planes! I have never seen a wooden bevel up plane like this just because the bed would be so thin. I have seen under mounted chisel planes with a bed angle of 0 degrees, but that is something else all together. traditionally Bevel up was mostly just for the Jack and low angle block planes. but now several companies are offering them in the #4 through the #8. I find it most useful int he #5 (great length for a shooting board, cutting boards)
Wonderful explanation of the different planes. I've been looking at the bevel up planes recently and was unclear as to how well it would work on straight grain, as I'd seen some conflicting opinions online. Do you find the bevel up plane has an issue with track marks, due to not being able to put a camber on the blade?
No more problem then a normal bevel down. You can camber a bevel up plane I have an iron for that. But track marks are more about how deep you are cutting.
So I didn't know what I was doing and wanted to get into hand tools. I bought that exact same Stanley Bevel Up plane that you show in the video. What angle do you sharpen yours to? I know you said they come standard at 25 degrees.
You could do it. But you're going to have to sharpen it every 50 or 60 strokes maybe even less than that. It would push even easier through end grain wood.
For you young guys: a “garage sale” was a sale of odds and ends out of someone’s house, often before moving or as a last-ditch effort to raise a little money. “Bucks” refers to dollars, the old US currency. You may have burned some to start a fire.
I've put a back bevel on my Bailey pattern plane blade. My problem is when I need to re-sharpen. It seems to me that I have to get rid of the original edge and hence the back bevel first before I start to re-sharpen. Am I doing something wrong? Also, I have just bought a low-angle jack plane, the blade of which is ground to 30 degrees. Will it work to just put a sharpening angle of 40 degrees or do I need to regrind the entire blade?
first I would ask why you put a back bevel on the iron and with which method. that is one of the reasons I do not use them it is just another step that is not needed in my book. you can regrind the LAJP but that will make it a very high angle plane. Usually, if you like to flip blades in and out I like to have one at 25 degrees and one at 40. that way you can choose what angle you want for the wood.
Thanks for replying. I work almost exclusively with birch faced multiply - where I live, it's cheap and available. Other woods are more expensive and harder for me to get. I don't drive. My problem, when cleaning up is tear out. Another youtube video suggested two ways to tackle this. The first is to put a back bevel on your Baily pattern blade. The other is to use a LAJP
i see. well to be completely honest neither of those will help you that much. there are three keys to fighting tear out. 1. High hangle 45+ (My smoother is 60 degrees) 2. chip breaker really close to the tip ( i put mine about 2-4 thousands away from the tip.) 3. tight mouth. tear out will never be bigger then your mouth is open.( I keep mine about twice the thickness of the shaving I want to take.) that is all to say that the blade is not just paper cutting sharp, but full shave sharp. With a bevel up plane, you can get the higher angle with a 40-degree iron (52.5-degree cutting angle), you can also easily tighten up the mouth, but you can not put a chip breaker on it. for some people that is enough. with a traditional Bevel down the angle is determined by the frog (normally 45 degrees) you can also close the mouth by moving the frog forward. last you can easily adjust the chip breaker to be VERY close to the tip. Here is a video on setting up a smoothing plane for that. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vG-DULSw6Zk.html and here is one on how I tackle tough grain without tearout. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iIBPj02UuNI.html and here is one on a cabinet scraper. they do not cost that much but they do amazing things. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YmknRm4-RCU.html Here is the cheap one I recommend. amzn.to/2xJ2qcG I hope that was not too much Information. If there is anything else I can do let me know.
I have a dilema, I'm completely new to woodworking and i've heard from multiple sources to get a bevel up jack plane because they're pretty versatile. Where in the hell do you find these things? I wanted to get a quality used one that I could clean up so I wouldn't have to spend as much but they are impossible to find, even on ebay 99% are bevel down. Anyone know where to get one??
finding an old 62 is extremely difficult. originally they were only used for end grain cutting boards. And if money is an issue I would counsel you to skip it. you can do anything you want with a Bevel down traditional plane you can find those for a lot cheaper. if you really want a bevel up plane the cheapest route is normally getting the new Stanley. that is what I use in my shop. here amzn.to/2pcslc4 but a Bevel up is not a necessary tool. I went a year or more before getting one.
actualy the lower the angle the more chance of tear out. that is why most smoothing planes are bevel down. the higher angle will usually provide a smoother cut easier.
Multiple Planes Multiple uses ...........We always have a traditional Jack on the bench, But not every task needs the Jack etc........ The Nature of what we do ......
Sigh - I truly hate pressing "enter" and submitting the comment. Seems like the difference is that with Bevel Up you can set your cutting angle to be the bedding angle + whatever you grind the bevel too. Bevel Down has a chip breaker, changing the cutting angle requires a new frog. Both allow you to set the throat size, blade projection and blade skew angle. I wonder if anyone could design a chip breaker for a bevel up.
right on I do that all the time. Correct, I think most people think they need to change the angle of the cut more often then they do but some people change it all the time. that is a new thing to hand tools.
@@WoodByWright Its all a matter of: how much do we want to spend on irons/planes, how convenient is it to change, how big a difference the angle makes to us personally and the eternal quest for the perfect shaving.
I don't get it... I have a Wood River low angle, my only plane, and have no problems planing curly maple for a coffee table I'm doing. I do need to close the mouth and take a small depth of cut, but I'm making tissue-paper-thin curls and getting a fantastically smooth finish. Edit: this is with a sharp, 25 degree bevel, no secondary.
ya, curly maple is not that much of a problem. It is comparatively homologous. As long as you take a low enough shaving it can do that. you should try curly oak or some of the south american switching rotational grains. those are FUN!!
Great video but i’m going to have to disagree. The low angle jack plane is a MUCH more versatile plane. If someone is only going to have one plane they should definitely go with the low angle. In the case of dealing with figured woods the low angle has a much easier solution then a traditional planes, all you need is a second 25 degree iron and put a steeper 43 degree micro bevel on it, bam figured woods covered with a quick blade change. A second blade is much cheaper than a second plane, plus you dont have to worry about frog adjustments and then re-adjustments at all. Low angle wins for sure on being able to do anything and everything with simple blade changes.
there are several companies that make them this one was made by Stanley but it is their newer cheaper version. not the best on the market but works well.
@@WoodByWright Yeah, I thought as much, I am looking at the Veritas version, bit more expensive but made in Canada, think I will stick with this one, or there is the Luban, made in China but from all reports the quality is fantastic..
LOL they are getting harder, but I still find them every few months. Most of the time at estate sales. I usually do not buy standard planes if they are over $12-$15, but it depends on where you are.
Has anyone tried a chip breaker on a bevel up. It’s just a matter of bevelling the edge. If it helps a bevel down there’s no reason it wouldn’t help a bevel up.
a few have tried, but it is incredibly difficult to maintain a good fit when you are regularly sharpening and micro changing the surface that the chip breaker sits on.
I’ve just made a couple of rebate planes, low angle bevel up and normal bevel down. That and your video prompted me, as they both are difficult to adjust. I might copy Bearcat as in your challenge and get a Veritas adjuster. I reckon a sharp edged chip breaker might work with the bevel up. I find it a bit of a mystery that some planes work really well and others not so.
So many people never think about it. A low angel plane is closer to a scraping plane than a normal plane. Look at Asian planes, they get it. I’ve experimented with some wild options, even past 90° good shavings can be had. Grinding a blade on 60grit sandpaper is like a home made toothed blade. The options are not limited.
Two months ago I got a No. 4 Handyman and a Stanley 110 for $15 (for the pair) at an estate sale. They both need cleaning up, and the 110 has a chipped blade, but...$15.
5 to 10 bucks on a flea market or a garage sale? Seriously? My cheapest used Stanley 4 1/2 in fairly good condition cost me $ 20. Ever since Ebay made its entrance years ago, prices of second hand stuff have been rising like crazy year after year. People seem to be very well aware about the value of things.