Over the past month or so, I have been working on a Benchcrafted Split Top Roubo workbench (more on that in later posts). At this point, I’m in the home stretch flattening the top and I had bought this plane in anticipation of using it for flattening the top of the bench once it was ready. I have built other projects in the past where I could have used this but used my Bevel-up smoother for the task instead (I know, not technically for the purpose but it worked fine). I spent a few hours last night working with the plane and I am so impressed with it that I wanted to post my first review. I’ll review the plane itself and the PM-V11 blade I purchased with it.
As far as using the plane goes, the mass it has makes it great to work with. My bench is hard maple and the plane had no problem taking shavings that were 2 to 3 feet long once I had the initial flattening completed. The mouth adjustment was easy to use as were the set screws to keep the blade aligned. The adjust worked well for setting the blade angle although I find using a bit difficult with the blade tight in the plane body. I’ve seen different posts about the uncomfortable totes and I don’t find the plane uncomfortable to use at all but that is a personal thing.
When I went to purchase the plane, I was ready to go with A1 as usual but decided to give the PM-V11 a try as it was new and was not much more of an upgrade. I decided to go with the 38 degree bevel instead of the 25 degree that it normally comes with as I won’t be doing much end-grain and like the higher angles. I will get a 50 degree blade when I need this for a large smoothing project in the future. The blade was sharp and flat out of the box and I touched it up with my 10,000 grit waterstone before using it. I really like the combination of edge durability and ease of sharpening that this steel brings and feel it is easier to sharpen and lasts longer than my A1 blades. The blade on this thing is absolutely massive at over 2 inches wide and almost a quarter of an inch thick!
All in all, this plane is a great addition to my workshop and think it is a great product produced by a great company. Thanks Lee Valley and Veritas!
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen