Soba Shoulder plane review £37.80 new from eBay
Cheep Chinese plane, the one that turn up was marked Rider well packed and covered in grease.
The first thing I noticed when cleaning was all the shape edges had been removed and it felt nice to handle, the casting was clean with no visible imperfections.
Checking for square,
I have a 75mm engineering square BS939 grade B. Good on all sides, The front of the mouth is out by 0.5 millimeter, The sole is nice and flat apart from the back right hand corner about 3mm from the end you can see some light coming under the square, could not find my Feeler gauges to measure.
Screw and threads,
as you would expect on such a cheep plane all a bit ruff. So a quick clean with a wire brush and some light grease and all is well. The backlash on the blade adjust is very slight, 1/4 turn.
The blade,
this is were it goes wrong. Nearly 2mm out of square, rounded on the back and 3mm wider than the body. It took me 1/2 hour to sort the blade out all done by hand, not knowing the quality of the steel I didn't won't to risk over heating it on the grinder. As it turns out it was quite hard. Took an edge well, I hand sharpen on 1000 grit diamond plate then finish on a Welsh slate, "usual rubbish you can cut the hair off a fleas *** it's so sharp."
Conclusion.
Well for 45min of work £37.80 posted, I have a very usable plane that seem to hold an edge, Takes lovely clean shaving in both soft and hard wood end grain and long grain leaving a nice clean finish with very little effort.
The reel test will come next week. I have a staircase to fit, no more paring shoulder with a chisel. hopefully
This is the first time I have written a review, I hope it's helpful.
Many thanks Steve.
