Faithfull No 4 smoothing plane review

[dynax]

This one unfortunately does have issues, the sole is pretty flat both along the length and across the width, but the sides are not square to the sole and are about 2mm out, so no good on a shooting board unless you need a 2mm angle,
then the frog adjuster does not fit into the slot on the frog, looks like the angle is too shallow on the screw and does not engage, will have to think of a solution for this, maybe a couple of shims would do it,
next onto the chip breaker, the hole is slightly out and the blade protrudes out of the mouth far too much, and cannot be retracted enough to give fine shavings, i will probably have to grind down the chip breaker a couple of mm's to sort it, so not a big problem but it is there, up to now this is the worst, and although it can be fettled it should not need this much attention, i do like it though, it has a good weight and is nicely balanced, and it does feel good in the hand,
but for this i will only give it a 4/10.

will add to this as and when the modifications have been done.

 

[Bod]

Return as not fit for use.
Try another.

Bod

 

[dynax]

Hi Bod, this one came as the combo with the 60 1/2 block plane which is fine, but i will give them a ring tomorrow and see what they say, no harm in asking,

 

[G S Haydon]

Thanks for the honest feedback, dynax. It as I expected, a bit of put luck. Half decent plane or a kit of parts. All good as long as you know how to correct issues.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

You wouldn't usually use a No.4 on a shooting board anyway, you'd use something longer. 2mm is exceptional, though.

 

[dynax]

did a bit of fettling, for starters i dug out my small engineering square and one side is spot on and the other is about 0.5mm out so my cheapo combination square is out lol, anyway down to the chip breaker issue, i took the adjusting lever off that sits on the knob, and gave it a bit of a flatten few gentle taps with a hammer and replaced it, it now lifts the blade back far enough not to take any shavings, but i will take a bit off the chip breaker aswel, i haven't honed the blade yet but the shavings are fairly fine, with regards to the frog adjustment it's very rare that i use this anyway so it's not a major issue manually adjusting it if needs be, so with that said i will keep it as it will do for the stuff i do, cheers.

 

[ED65]

Shame about the issues on this, especially with your no. 5 being so good. My no. 4 and the other I've used were both pretty much bang on out of the box. I can't recall how long my friend's one took to fettle but looking back someone who'd commissioned a plane before could have gotten mine up and running in under 10 minutes more than likely.

next onto the chip breaker, the hole is slightly out and the blade protrudes out of the mouth far too much, and cannot be retracted enough to give fine shavings, i will probably have to grind down the chip breaker a couple of mm's to sort it,

You've already fixed this but just going into this here for the sake of completeness for future purchasers with a similar issue.

You shouldn't have to modify a plane's own cap iron to fix this sort of problem. Because they're stamped they should all be identical in terms of the placement of the slot so the issue is likely with the Y-shaped yoke and it's easier and more reversible to modify those.

Generally you don't hammer a cast one as some are very brittle as many have found to their cost when attempting to bend them they can readily snap! Much safer to modify the projecting tab, which can be filed down or built up as needed. (Filed to provide greater projection, built up [glue on a shim or build up with strong epoxy putty] to allow an iron to withdraw further.)