matt_southward
Established Member
I recently took part in the WoodRiver 5½ plane passaround which Peter kindly organised and I thought there might be some interest in my experience - so I thought I'd post my findings here.
As I've said elsewhere, I became interested in the WoodRiver planes after watching one of the Rob Cosman youtube videos where he demonstrated some of the improvements that Woodcraft had made for there V3 line of planes. What particularly interested me about this presentation was some of the attention to detail that was demonstrated - particularly with regard to y-lever shape and selector wheel size. This interested me because it got me thinking about some of the problems that I'd had with my Clifton 5 which I bought just over a year ago.
Out of the box the Clifton is pretty good - it ought to be for the price - but I had a couple of niggling issues which I never got to the bottom of a year ago (I started a furniture course but had to stop due to loss of work, my tools have been boxed up until recently). My main issue was that advancing and retracting the iron was quite hard due to the resistance in the mechanism, and if I slackened off the cap iron screw to make it easier, then it became too loose and the iron had a tendency to slip. This was made worse by the iron being ground out of square at the factory (by quite a bit) - so all in all, the adjustment wasn't as smooth and accurate as I would have expected. But as I'm fairly new to all this I didn't investigate it further until I saw that Cosman video, which got me looking into it in more depth. As others have gone over their experience before, I'll try and limit my comparison to the areas I think relevant.
Both planes are well finished, but the Clifton - as one might expect - is at first glance the better finished out of the box. The WoodRiver is definitely finished in a more utilitarian way and lacks the high polish of the Clifton - but I'm not particularly interested in how it looks and I'm more bothered in performance and for me the WoodRiver is finished well enough.
One thing that I did run into with it though after I started using it was that I found the handle uncomfortable. I don't have particularly large hands, but I found that my hand was slightly compressed. I checked it against the Clifton and my old Stanley and WS and the handle does seem slightly smaller than the old Stanley (which is the closest match for shape) and it's obviously a different profile to the more upright Clifton handle.
Whether or not there's a great difference in size and whether that's to do with the plane being made in China, I don't know. But this was the single biggest problem I had with the WoodRiver, and I would probably be taking a rasp to that Rosewood if it were mine.
I'll post a few pics of some of the finishing of both planes before getting to the problem area for me (the frog).
Now to the frog. This is the area in which I personally think that Clifton QC let me down. When I looked more closely at my plane I discovered that the frog of the Clifton was not well finished and that this was likely the cause of my issues. Next to the WoodRiver, the differences are quite stark, and the question of which is the high end plane becomes a lot less obvious. I'll show what I mean from a few angles.
I've now run out of attachment space, so no more pics.
In short, I think that the poorly finished frog is what was causing my issues with the Clifton. The rough filing on the y-lever adjustment and the rough surface finish to the frog, I think, are increasing the resistance to making smooth adjustments. The difference in adjusting the WR was really noticeable - it was possible to set it so that iron advancement was buttery smooth and barely noticeable. Much better than the Clifton which I'll need to fettle. Which is the high end plane again?
When I received the plane from David C, it was obvious that he'd spent the bulk of his time on the IBC blade - which was nice and sharp! Though it was gratifying for me to note that my hand-sharpening on oilstones was comparable (no sharpening wars please) as my Clifton was producing comparable shavings. So I took to sharpening up the WR iron. On flattening the back it became obvious after a few passes on a fine India that it was hollow along it's length - nothing drastic, but it did take a bit of work and the ruler trick to get it ready. Once done the main bevel sharpened readily to decent edge, but will likely take a few honings before it holds it's edge for a lengthier period. I tested it on the trickiest wood I have which is some inter-locked Idigbo and it worked well - I'd definitely rate the standard iron as comparable to the Clifton forged iron (though I really do like the StaySet).
To sum up: The WoodRiver compares very favourably with the Clifton, both in levels of finish and in performance. There is an attention to detail which I really loved about it and I only sent it back to Peter because I couldn't afford to buy it right now!
There are a few issues, mainly with handle comfort, but that varies a lot between individuals and for the purchase price, can always be rectified by the end user. You don't get some of the fine tuning that you get with the Clifton (softened edges, iron ready to work etc), but it comes pretty close out of the box and if anybody is looking for a quality modern, heavy bench plane I definitely recommend the WoodRiver.
Thanks to Peter for organising the pass-a-round, it's been very useful.
I hope this review is of interest to folks on here.
Matt
As I've said elsewhere, I became interested in the WoodRiver planes after watching one of the Rob Cosman youtube videos where he demonstrated some of the improvements that Woodcraft had made for there V3 line of planes. What particularly interested me about this presentation was some of the attention to detail that was demonstrated - particularly with regard to y-lever shape and selector wheel size. This interested me because it got me thinking about some of the problems that I'd had with my Clifton 5 which I bought just over a year ago.
Out of the box the Clifton is pretty good - it ought to be for the price - but I had a couple of niggling issues which I never got to the bottom of a year ago (I started a furniture course but had to stop due to loss of work, my tools have been boxed up until recently). My main issue was that advancing and retracting the iron was quite hard due to the resistance in the mechanism, and if I slackened off the cap iron screw to make it easier, then it became too loose and the iron had a tendency to slip. This was made worse by the iron being ground out of square at the factory (by quite a bit) - so all in all, the adjustment wasn't as smooth and accurate as I would have expected. But as I'm fairly new to all this I didn't investigate it further until I saw that Cosman video, which got me looking into it in more depth. As others have gone over their experience before, I'll try and limit my comparison to the areas I think relevant.
Both planes are well finished, but the Clifton - as one might expect - is at first glance the better finished out of the box. The WoodRiver is definitely finished in a more utilitarian way and lacks the high polish of the Clifton - but I'm not particularly interested in how it looks and I'm more bothered in performance and for me the WoodRiver is finished well enough.
One thing that I did run into with it though after I started using it was that I found the handle uncomfortable. I don't have particularly large hands, but I found that my hand was slightly compressed. I checked it against the Clifton and my old Stanley and WS and the handle does seem slightly smaller than the old Stanley (which is the closest match for shape) and it's obviously a different profile to the more upright Clifton handle.
Whether or not there's a great difference in size and whether that's to do with the plane being made in China, I don't know. But this was the single biggest problem I had with the WoodRiver, and I would probably be taking a rasp to that Rosewood if it were mine.
I'll post a few pics of some of the finishing of both planes before getting to the problem area for me (the frog).
Now to the frog. This is the area in which I personally think that Clifton QC let me down. When I looked more closely at my plane I discovered that the frog of the Clifton was not well finished and that this was likely the cause of my issues. Next to the WoodRiver, the differences are quite stark, and the question of which is the high end plane becomes a lot less obvious. I'll show what I mean from a few angles.
I've now run out of attachment space, so no more pics.
In short, I think that the poorly finished frog is what was causing my issues with the Clifton. The rough filing on the y-lever adjustment and the rough surface finish to the frog, I think, are increasing the resistance to making smooth adjustments. The difference in adjusting the WR was really noticeable - it was possible to set it so that iron advancement was buttery smooth and barely noticeable. Much better than the Clifton which I'll need to fettle. Which is the high end plane again?
When I received the plane from David C, it was obvious that he'd spent the bulk of his time on the IBC blade - which was nice and sharp! Though it was gratifying for me to note that my hand-sharpening on oilstones was comparable (no sharpening wars please) as my Clifton was producing comparable shavings. So I took to sharpening up the WR iron. On flattening the back it became obvious after a few passes on a fine India that it was hollow along it's length - nothing drastic, but it did take a bit of work and the ruler trick to get it ready. Once done the main bevel sharpened readily to decent edge, but will likely take a few honings before it holds it's edge for a lengthier period. I tested it on the trickiest wood I have which is some inter-locked Idigbo and it worked well - I'd definitely rate the standard iron as comparable to the Clifton forged iron (though I really do like the StaySet).
To sum up: The WoodRiver compares very favourably with the Clifton, both in levels of finish and in performance. There is an attention to detail which I really loved about it and I only sent it back to Peter because I couldn't afford to buy it right now!
There are a few issues, mainly with handle comfort, but that varies a lot between individuals and for the purchase price, can always be rectified by the end user. You don't get some of the fine tuning that you get with the Clifton (softened edges, iron ready to work etc), but it comes pretty close out of the box and if anybody is looking for a quality modern, heavy bench plane I definitely recommend the WoodRiver.
Thanks to Peter for organising the pass-a-round, it's been very useful.
I hope this review is of interest to folks on here.
Matt
