Using the thing

I rummaged through the fire wood bin / offcut bin / bin of shame, and came out with a piece of fir, perfect candidate for the first shavings. I arbitrarily set the fence and went to town. Beautiful, curly angel hair shavings!

I had to adjust the scoring wheel. There are two set screws for that: one in the front that locks the scoring wheel and one hidden inside the hole for the fence rod, that controls the lateral adjustment of the wheel. Loosen the front screw, then adjust the lateral position. Tighten the front screw to lock everything down.

To adjust the dept of cut, or to raise the wheel out of the way, loosen the front screw and rotate the wheel as desired using a flat head screw driver. The wheel rotates in a cam-action like fashion. When you are satisfied, lock the setting by tightening the front screw.

An easy to use system, really.

I used a combination square to align the blade and the wheel. The blade sticks out a gnat’s nadger from the plane body, and the wheel must be adjusted accordingly. And when I say a gnat’s nadger, I really mean a gnat’s nadger! Ideally, the blade and wheel should be dead flush with the side of the plane, but it is hard to do correctly. The risk is that you will end up with a “staircase” in your rebate, where successive strokes moves outwards because the blade cuts “inside” the body of the plane. We want the side of the blade to ride against the shoulder of the rebate.

Here’s a few images of my hand. And the plane.

Detail image of the planing action, mid-stroke.

I then adjusted the wheel and tried some end grain action. Smooth as buttah! The skewed blade really shines here; it slices end grain beautifully!

The surface quality is silky smooth, even on end grain! Making this rebate took me about a minute or two, including setup. Show me a machine that can compete with that!

The trained eye might notice that I planed against the grain on the side of the piece, but the surface quality is still perfect.

Time for some serious work, and to do what was the biggest reason for getting this plane: making a smal rebate on the inside of dovetail joints in order to guarantee accuracy and a tight joint.

The scoring wheel really shines here – slicing the cherry grain so that no tearout occurs.

A quick user tip: set the wheel in the marking gauge line, then adjust the fence. This ensures dead accuracy and no guesswork!

Small, curly shavings…

The fence is tight against the end grain. This ensures a square rebate. I tested it afterwards by running a router plane – could not get a shaving no matter where I registered the cutting iron, which told me that my rebate was dead perfect.

Later I used the plane to trim the panel for a chisel tray (the cherry parts were for that project). The fence ensured a dead square edge, which was nice – no need to stop and check for square.

My arm trying to blend with the work bench while holding the plane for a fotoshoot.

The indent and the size of the lever cap makes holding the plane very nice. Although this is a small plane, it weighs in at a kilogram (2.2 lbs). The weight feels “correct” for the plane, and it feels like a quality tool somehow. Not that weight indicates quality in any way, but it is a “feel” thing.

On the last page, we’ll look into one of the great features of this plane; a feature that comes in handy in a lot of ways one might not think about at first!