wizer
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- 3 Mar 2005
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Sorry for the delay on this on folks. Health issues galore atm, I won't bore you with the details.
MarkW and I reviewed this together and I will let Mark give a technical point ov view. I'll just give my overall opinion of the plane.
As said in the other thread. It comes well packaged in solid wooden box and, inside, the plane is sealed in a bag with the usual machine protecting goo. After a clean up, first impressions is that it's as close as you can possibly get to the LN version. I've not got the LN, but looking at the diagrams on their site, it's (meant as) an exact copy.
On taking the plane apart, I found it tricky getting the iron itself out. I'm not sure if it's the same with the LN version, but you seem to have to remove the screw and then skew the blade in a certain way to get it out. Had me stumped for a few mins.
As also discussed elsewhere, Mark and I only gave the blade a moments attention on our first inspection. We managed to get it working fairly well but Mark was sure he could do the blade more justice with his own setup. He took it away and returned a couple of days later.
Mark and I both got to have a play with it and agreed on a couple of points. This plane is quite specialist. It's function really only relates to a couple of tasks and we wondered if a woodworker that had reached a level where he felt the need for one, he might go for the top end product. Also, the adjusting mechanism is quite course. You get a kind of 'all or nothing' situation where you can miss the 'sweet spot' and it'll just dive into the wood. With care you can get it cutting nicely, but I couldn't get very thin shavings.
In my own test, I used a piece of Ash from my scraps bin that already had a routed rebate. Using holdfasts, I fixed it to the bench and set about cleaning up the router marks. I found it rather difficult to hold at such a low profile. But after a while I got used to it. Again, the setting took quite a bit of fiddling to get spot on and even then, it didn't handle slight changes in grain direction too well. The mouth is rather wide and I think this might contribute to the problems. The iron edge seemed to hold up well, but obviously it's hard to tell in a short review like this.
Not having much experience with specialist planes I'm probably not fully qualified to comment, but my feelings are that I'd buy a shoulder plane(s) first. If anyone is considering buying this to do a dual duty task as a block plane, I don't think that's wise. The wide, non adjustable mouth and sharp iron edges, really don't make for a good block.
My opinion of Quengsheng planes on the whole is still positive and I intend to have a look at the block plane. I'm also very happy with the spoke shave (review soon).
MarkW and I reviewed this together and I will let Mark give a technical point ov view. I'll just give my overall opinion of the plane.
As said in the other thread. It comes well packaged in solid wooden box and, inside, the plane is sealed in a bag with the usual machine protecting goo. After a clean up, first impressions is that it's as close as you can possibly get to the LN version. I've not got the LN, but looking at the diagrams on their site, it's (meant as) an exact copy.
On taking the plane apart, I found it tricky getting the iron itself out. I'm not sure if it's the same with the LN version, but you seem to have to remove the screw and then skew the blade in a certain way to get it out. Had me stumped for a few mins.
As also discussed elsewhere, Mark and I only gave the blade a moments attention on our first inspection. We managed to get it working fairly well but Mark was sure he could do the blade more justice with his own setup. He took it away and returned a couple of days later.
Mark and I both got to have a play with it and agreed on a couple of points. This plane is quite specialist. It's function really only relates to a couple of tasks and we wondered if a woodworker that had reached a level where he felt the need for one, he might go for the top end product. Also, the adjusting mechanism is quite course. You get a kind of 'all or nothing' situation where you can miss the 'sweet spot' and it'll just dive into the wood. With care you can get it cutting nicely, but I couldn't get very thin shavings.
In my own test, I used a piece of Ash from my scraps bin that already had a routed rebate. Using holdfasts, I fixed it to the bench and set about cleaning up the router marks. I found it rather difficult to hold at such a low profile. But after a while I got used to it. Again, the setting took quite a bit of fiddling to get spot on and even then, it didn't handle slight changes in grain direction too well. The mouth is rather wide and I think this might contribute to the problems. The iron edge seemed to hold up well, but obviously it's hard to tell in a short review like this.
Not having much experience with specialist planes I'm probably not fully qualified to comment, but my feelings are that I'd buy a shoulder plane(s) first. If anyone is considering buying this to do a dual duty task as a block plane, I don't think that's wise. The wide, non adjustable mouth and sharp iron edges, really don't make for a good block.
My opinion of Quengsheng planes on the whole is still positive and I intend to have a look at the block plane. I'm also very happy with the spoke shave (review soon).
