Hi All
As I have banned my use of all power tools until my hearing gets back to normal I thought I would get around to the jobs that keep getting put off.
Number one amongst these was to get ALL my various plane blades and cutters on the top line and establish some sense of uniformity, ie marking the blades with the bevel angle and whether they have a micro bevel and so on. The idea being that once this was done properly once it would be the work of a minute or two to keep them sharp.
This gave me the perfect opportunity to give my new Veritas MKII guide a good workout.
I have to say that after using it for nearly 4 hours I think that is is quite simply superb. Very easy to set up and has great repeatability of settings.
It is comfortable in the hand and can be used easily either way round.
The only slight niggle that I have is when using it for narrow irons from plough planes and presumably for chisels.
When setting up and tightening the fixing screw on the extension guage I used only moderate force, just enough to hold it in position.
When the iron is placed in the unit and aligned with the fence, then held while the two clamp screws are tightened it is necessary to tighten these firmly but not hard.
What happen is that the clamping bar bends very slightly as with a narrow iron there is a lot of off-centre leverage. This has the effect of distorting the slide that the guage runs on and makes it very hard to undo and remove the guage. This makes it easier to accidentally move the iron and then start all over again.
I found that if the brass securing nut on the guage were the same diameter or larger as the clamp brass knobs this would not be a problem.
I am not having a go here, I think it is a wonderful bit of kit but maybe a modified knob could be made available?
Regards
Martin (trying hard not to shout at people!
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