Thanks for the review Walden. These plane are intriguing to me.

I can see in your pic that the chipbreaker screw is not traditional like this:

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So your saying that the simple flathead screw was replaced by a couple tiny hex screws? What were they thinking with that?

 

Thanks Red. If you look close at the third pic, you'll see there is an indention in what is their version of the chip breaker screw. That indention fits into the Norris adjuster (You can see the male end on the Norris adjuster in the same pic). My guess is that because of that indention, they couldn't use the traditional screw method. With that said, they need to go back to the drawing board to figure out a better solution. The good thing about Lee Valley is that they listen to customer feedback. So I'm hopeful they will do something about it.

If I were LV, I would fill in the two hex screw holes, "resaw" the main piece in half with one half having female treads and the other having male threads. Then the top could have a groove cut into it to accept a flat head screw driver. This would eliminate the hex screw problem, making it much faster to remove (while letting the woodworker use a screw driver he/she already owns) with less parts to lose. It also wouldn't interfere with the indention.

 

Good review, thanks.
I still don't understand how the chipbreaker works, do you have a picture of the blade and breaker diassembled?

 

Hi Jap: Sorry about that. The site would only let me add three photos to the review.

Here is what it looks like from the front side. You can see the two hex crews.

Here I took out one hex screw to get the chip breaker free. You could stop here, but it would be hard to lap the blade with the other hex screw in the way. Or to use a sharpening jig for that matter.

In order to lap the blade, both screws must come out leaving all of these parts to lose. (I already lost the hex key and spent 10 minutes searching the shop before I found it for this shot.)

 

Good review Walden, thanks.

 

Well that is kinda different. I hope it doesn't spoil your experience.

Is that really a a"traditional" tote? It doesn't look much different than the usual Veritas tote.

Good review - thanks.

 

Thanks for the great review, I've been waiting to hear about one of these from a non-commercial source. The chipbreaker setup is really unusual, I wish they had just gone for the traditional single-screw setup with a hole in the center for the adjuster.

 

lysdexic - The tote has much more of a lean to it than the normal Veritas tote. The normal tote they sell hurts my hand, but this one feels good and is similar in feel to an old Stanley. It doesn't have the exact same angles as an old Stanley tote though.

 

bobasaurus - My guess is that Veritas will have to change it in order to get mass appeal for the new line of planes. It is the only way I see the planes becoming successful.

From what I understand, the #5 (and the #5 1/2) are the only jack planes on the market that allow you to open the mouth this far and change the mouth settings so easily. For an all hand tool shop like mine, that is a must as I can use this plane as a true fore plane just like woodworkers would have done before power tools. This plane replaces my old Stanley #5 and my Lie-Nielsen scrub plane.

If you have a power jointer and planer, the Lie-Nielsen line would work just as well without the weird chip breaker screw.

 

My high-angle #7 showed up on Thurs and I have to second pretty much the entire review.

I've got a lot of Veritas planes (which I like very much) and the instant I opened the box and picked this one up it somehow felt like a big leap in quality. I had the same concern about the chip-breaker, but for me the ease of the adjustable nose is a fair trade (be nice to have both though).

I've just started flattening some big curly walnut slabs and have been very glad these custom planes came out when they did.

 

descolada - Great to hear. I agree, it's not a deal breaker for me either, but it would be nice to have both. Enjoy.

 

My general impression with Lee Valley tools is that they are very high quality, but the tend to over engineer some aspects. The chip breaker is a good example.

If I can pester you once more Walden, many people are curious of the new veritas totes and knobs work on old stanley planes. Let us know if you ever try.

 

Red - No worries. To answer your question, no. The screw on the Veritas tote stands up straighter than a Stanley. It's not that the handles are that different in forward slant. It's that the nut sits at and angle in the Veritas tote, where as the nut is at the same angle as the top of the tote in the Stanley.

Also, the Veritas has a second shorter rod that keeps the handle from twisting. The Stanley has a longer base with a screw to solve this problem. (I like the Veritas solution better.) The two handles look different side-by-side, but they feel the same in the hand to me. I grabbed a Lie-Nielsen bench plane and used it (which has a very similar handle to the Stanley), then immediately used the Veritas plane and didn't notice a difference. There might be one, but it's close in how it feels.

The front knob on the Veritas plane has a long screw, longer than the Stanley. Also, I couldn't get it to thread into the Stanley plane. It looks to be slightly larger in diameter.

 

Great review. I've been drooling over the shiny new Veritas planes; they certainly look a lot nicer than the old design…however the chipbreaker system seems ridiculous. Hope Veritas gets enough flack that it does a redesign…

 

It will be interesting to hear what the engineers at Lee Valley have to say about the cap screws. There has to be a reason behind it. One that they thought was sufficient to break with something craftsmen have been using for over a century. An innovation I like is the set screws on my original Veritas LA jack. It helps to keep my setup when I use it for shooting. Such innovations make me open to hearing about the cap screws. Though I don't like the idea of the tiny screws, hex wrenches and such.

 

You do not have to remove the second hex screw to sharpen the blade. The blade carrier does not need to removed, I'm baffled why you would want to remove it. I'm using the standard Elipse style jig and the carrier does not interfere. I also am not using the chipbreaker, so I don't have to remove any screws at all to sharpen.

 

Walden, great review. Its a beautiful looking plane. I like the side profile and the mouth features are top shelf. I looked at the LV site and they did not address the screws. Hopefully with a their quality blane you won't have to sharpen it that often. I would loose those screw in a second. It might not be a bad idea to buy some extra along with a wrench.

 

The chipbreaker is odd. So many screws.

 

To Amos1's point, the directions for the plane state that it can be used without a chip breaker for softwoods with straight grain. If you only work with softwoods with tame grain patterns, you might be fine without it. (You would still need to have the weird assembly attached to the blade so the Norris adjuster will work.) It does say to use the chip breaker for smoothing operations or for working hardwoods or woods with reverse grain prone to tear out.

Some sharpening jigs may work with the weird assembly still attached as Amos1 has found. But there might also be jigs where it doesn't. I'm no expert of sharpening jigs, so there is a possibility it may need to come out.

I personally work with hardwoods, so the chip breaker will be used in my shop.

Also, I realized I have the hex screws reversed in the first picture of post #4. The bigger looking hex screw should be in the bottom position so that it doesn't interfere with the lever cap.

Cambering the blade: I plan to camber the blade on this plane as I have mentioned before. I did a quick test this morning for spacing to make sure the Norris adjuster had enough travel to set the chip breaker high on the blade. It does! So this plane should work fine for those wanting to use it as an initial roughing plane. (This would essentially be the same type of set up Chris Shwarz uses.) I hope this helps.

 

Depending on how one sharpens, the blade carrier may or may not have to be removed. It does appear the "cap screw" which holds the carrier to the blade is used only to hold the carrier in position to maintain the blade projection when re-inserted in the plane.

The "cap screw" could be left out. The button head screw, holding the carrier and blade to the cap iron, would then function about the same as the Stanley cap iron screw. It could be loosened, not removed, then the carrier and cap iron slid down the blade slot to the hole and the carrier slipped out. Reverse for reassembly. Set the cap iron gap to blade edge and tighten the button head screw. The flats on the blade carrier prevent rotation within the slot. If one does not like an internal hex (allen) head, it can be replaced with a Phillips or flat head screw.

I'm not sure why the allen head type screws are used, since these screws don't need a lot of torque, but other than being a break from tradition, I don't see anything wrong with them, as in being a design flaw. I guess LV could add screw head type to the list of options. It will be interesting to see if they add the option of leaving out the blade to carrier cap screw to the instructions.

Perhaps it was mentioned somewhere and I missed it - what angle frog did you get?

 

OSU55 - I got the 45 degree frog. It seems like it would be much easier to switch frogs on this style of plane than a traditional plane. Something worth noting for those that want to switch frogs for different applications. Lee Valley has a great video on their site regarding how to do this.

 

Brad - This plane also has the set screws in the body to hold the blade side-to-side. I nice option for those that use it.

 

Nice Review Walden. I plan to get one of these next year.

 

An analytical and thorough vetting. Thank you Walden.

 

Thanks guys.

I cambered the blade tonight and tried the plane on some rough cherry. It works great! So nice to be able to adjust the mouth on the fly. This cherry has reversing grain and I'm having no problems.