Stanley 62 Low Angle Sweetheart, anyone bought one recently

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Nimbly dodging between the volleys and broadsides.

Ed - the reason for the steeper blades is to avoid the issues described by Paul Sellers (via Derek) which are caused by using a low effective pitch on tearout prone wood. The adverse effects are minimised if your blade is kept really really sharp, which is probably how you have got on OK with just the 25, but by using the appropriate blade and having it really sharp, there's another whole level of performance available to you.

Matthew, that's the point! If one sets up a BU plane with a low bevel - say the 25 degree bevelled blade - and then tries it on face grain, especially with interlocking, it will produce a poor result. That is not a reflection of the plane, but poor set up. Incorrect conclusions follow. Set correctly with the appropriate situation, these are excellent and reliable planes.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

Jacob, I do not claim to have 50 years experience (Sellers makes a point in reminding us in this article), but I have done a decent amount of planing furniture parts with a wide range of BU ad BD planes over the course of a couple of decades. In that time I have never experienced what he describes with a BU plane. I wonder what parameters he uses in setting up his planes to claim what he does? After all, that is what sets apart a BU plane from a BD plane.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Most likely he doesn't view every single plane as a smoother, with the thinnest possible shaving both the goal and the standard by which it is judged against other planes.

In other words, he took a greedy shaving with a bevel up plane that resulted in a bunch of tearout that likely wouldn't have happened with a bevel down plane.

 

[matthewwh]

Or indeed a bevel up plane with a steeper or toothed iron...!

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Most likely he doesn't view every single plane as a smoother, with the thinnest possible shaving both the goal and the standard by which it is judged against other planes.

In other words, he took a greedy shaving with a bevel up plane that resulted in a bunch of tearout that likely wouldn't have happened with a bevel down plane.

Charles, even you know that your comments are ridiculous :lol: :lol: :lol:

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

The Paul Sellers thing is a bit of a straw man in that it appears he's a lone voice in the wilderness when bevel up planes have had a bit of a reputation for tearing out face grain.

Most people these days tend to view their bench plane lineup as a series of different length smoothers. This is understandable in that planes typically don't touch a board until after the heavy work has been done by machines. One often sees photographs of how fine a shaving a jack plane, of all things, is able to take. People own a stable of planes but in a somewhat out-of-context sense in that a power planer and jointer eliminate the need for at least two planes in what would have been the standard line up in pre-machine days.

I personally don't see much of a role for a bevel up bench plane in the stable of a woodworker who dresses a lot of his lumber by hand. And in thinking about it, don't see much of a role for one in a shop where the lumber is four-squared with machines. And along these lines I don't think they've been all that popular over the years, some do swear by them and that's all well and good, but you don't see a lot of mention of these in the old woodworking classics.

Setting one up for use in a variety of circumstances would seem to require spare cutters ground and honed at different angles or sessions at the grinder changing angles. Not sure how to reconcile this with having done the bulk of the work with machines in the first place, other than to say that the BU plane in that scenario is simply functioning as a smoothing plane (what else is it being called on to do?) If one already owns a capable smoother then one or the other plane seems superfluous though this is a quaint concept for the woodworker who has multiple copies of planes expected to perform what a the end of the day is the same work/function.

I think the vast majority of woodworkers who regularly need a plane that can remove a lot of bulk fast will have treated themselves to an old wooden jack if not a scrub plane to go with. If a bevel up jack can do the same work that's great but doesn't seem to have been the impression of woodworkers over the years.







.

 

[Jacob]

If BD plane had the same blade and same effective cutting angle (by virtue of a steeper frog) as an AOTBE BU plane, would it cut the same? If not why not?

 

[Trafalgar]

Yes, if you set one up as a smoother it will probably cut like a smoother.

I can set my Marples jack (with a yawning mouth) for a very light cut and it will work as a smoother if push comes to shove. Any plane, practically regardless of the geometry, can be a smoother if set for a very light cut. The question is how many smoothing planes does one need?

 

[JimB]

Love these heretical threads. :twisted:

 

[goldspanner]

not used any of the sweetheart range, but read about in general them having some pretty serious flaws, such as handle shape, and more serious things like accuracy of castings/machinings.

I have a couple of Quangsheng planes, and while they'll definitely need a bit of work to get the best out of them, they're definitely the best option if on a budget (and yes they do make a 62 - available from Workshop Heaven amongst others).

Alex