Low Angle Plane Shootout! What's the best value?

for years now internet woodworkers have been obsessed with low-angle Jack plants and recently I've kind of caught the bug myself I started off by building my own there's a whole video on it that you can check out the build process was really interesting and I'm happy with the final product but as soon as it was done I wanted to try it out against a real commercial plane so I got this this is the Stanley sweetheart low angle Jack plant it's the most economical plane in this style and it gets excellent reviews I did a head-to-head comparison with mine I've got a video on that too but I'll save you the trouble the Stanley destroyed mine in every way and I want to recommend it to my viewers but before I do that I have to see not only is this plane good but how does it stack up against the competition so I grabbed this this is the Tay Tools low angle bevel up Jack plane it looks a lot like the Stanley and they're in the same price range so this is exactly the plane I want to be comparing and these planes are all well and good but I can't help but wonder could we kick it up one more notch you bet we can thanks to the generosity of one of my incredible patrons we are also gonna test out the low angle Jack made by the premium plane maker Veritas [Music] that was weird we'll start with the Stanley low-angle Jack now I did a complete rundown at this plane just a couple weeks ago so I'm only gonna hit the highlights here this plane makes an excellent jointer plane a decent Jack plane and an outstanding shooting plane it really just powers through those tough end grain cuts and in addition to the planes functionality I also just think it's designed and manufactured really well it's got a pleasing shape it's very comfortable and easy to grip it feel solid nothing rattles there's no obvious tool marks and the finish on everything is excellent in addition to all of this stuff it's also got a couple of really thoughtful features for instance the adjuster is a norris style and that combines depth and lateral into a single piece of hardware it's pretty easy to use and it keeps things simple keeps costs down this plane also has an adjustable mouth that's really important in a tool that's supposed to do so many different things a fine mouth helps you fight tear out and take fine cuts and a wider mouth helps you take medium and rough cuts for stock preparation I really did not want to like this plane when I first got it and I don't like it I love it I think it's gonna become part of my day to day kit and I want to recommend it to my viewers but before I do that I need to compare it to other plants especially other planes in this price range luckily there is only one other low angle jack in the same price range and it's the one made by teh tools and I was super excited when this thing showed up in the mail not only is it a hundred and fifty dollars which is a competitive price it's also made by sobha industries that's the same company that makes the Grizzly smoothing plane that you've been seeing in a lot of my woodwork for humans videos recently that little smoother is an outstanding value and I expected a lot from this plane and I was completely disappointed because this thing is a catastrophe let's start right away at the handle most of these low angle tools have a longer and straighter handle you need a forefinger grip your standard three finger grip won't work because there's nowhere to rest your index finger you need to be able to put all four fingers around the tote this tote was clearly just taken off of their standard number five plane it's not meant for four fingers and it's uncomfortable to hold it's also supposed to be some sort of hand rubbed finish on some tropical wood it's supposed to be very high-quality but honestly it feels cheap and chin see another big problem is the lever cap they've made it much too narrow and it doesn't match up with the size of the plane very well at all that means you have to align it super carefully every time you set the plane up and it's really easy to leave the lever cap cocked at some stupid angle this is something they easily could have fixed in a design fits now I'm not trying to nitpick this thing because the problems with it are really big for instance the adjuster is just a disaster it is a very different design than the planes I've looked at so far this is more like a block plane adjuster it's got a brass screw with a wide lip and it engages in a slot milled at the bottom of the blade and this is a long-standing design that's been used successfully on lots of plants I have no problems with it the trouble is on this model it just literally doesn't work when you turn it the iron doesn't advance and there's a terrible grinding sensation when you disassemble the thing you find all sorts of metal flakes inside the plant at first I thought oh it's just leftover from the factory I'll clean those out Lube it up and try it again well I did all that stuff with the same results and then I found more metal flakes inside the plane when I figured out it was this slot milled in the bottom of the iron well it wasn't machined correctly there's a sharp lip on that thing and it is just grinding away at that soft brass screw it's gonna chew it to dust in no time at all and you can't move the iron this problem is already a deal breaker but on top of that the mouth of the plane also doesn't open far enough this right here is the maximum opening about a sixteenth of an inch take a look at the Stanley at maximum opening it's got more than twice the space potatoes this is another thing that should have been fixed in the design finally I don't really like the fit and finish the plane very much it's decent overall and it's more traditional looking that's gonna appeal to some people who are turned off by the high-tech look of the Stanley or the Veritas but unfortunately the powdercoat they're using is already flaking off this plane in several spots and I can see where they had to touch it up at the factory it's really clear that it's just not gonna hold up long-term but what I find really frustrating about this plan is it for all the faults I just outlined this thing's like 85% good they got all the really difficult parts correct they cast and designed the body really well they picked a decent adjuster most of the things I'm talking about could be corrected without a ton of effort but they didn't test it enough I think this plane is essentially their beta version of the tool it's not ready for primetime and I do not recommend you buy it ok there's nothing left to do now but look at the Veritas oh I know what the problem is hold on just a second yep I've got an infestation of tulle fairies they nest up in the rafters and they sing every time you bring a premium tool into your shop when I first got my saw stop it wouldn't shut up for weeks and if you leave a block plane down into your workbench they'll swipe it and leave a dime in its place they're a real nuisance but I'm gonna spray everything down with wd-40 that'll get rid of all okay where was I ah the Veritas well what am I gonna say it costs the most because it's the best I ran this plane through all of the other tasks that I tried with the Stanley and with my homemade plane and this was really better at all of them it was excellent at jointing an edge shooting endgrain and preparing the surfaces of boards now the low angle of this plane does have a tendency to tear out especially if the grain is rising against you so when I tried it on the surface of this walnut board the Veritas flattened the piece excellently but it left a rough and uneven finish on the board once I flipped the board around and planed it again it came out beautifully I also tried it on this piece of oak and this is a straight grained mild-mannered chunk of wood but I still got this one spot of pronounced tear out even though I was using an extremely fine setting and a very tight mouth I couldn't get this one little area to go away until I broke out in my little Stanley and just did that one spot I had to flip the plane around and go from a couple different directions but that's why you own a little smoother none of these things is a knock on the Vera cos it just goes to show you that one plane isn't gonna handle every single task in your shop if you do hand work you're going to need a handful of plans even if this one is the centerpiece of your collection I do have to give it credit for handling an incredibly figured piece of maple that I have that's challenging for most of my planes this thing left a shimmery and beautiful surface better than I get with most of my vintage planes so again I've got to hand it to the Veritas for function I also think this plane is really surprising for all the little refinements that Veritas built in the overall feel is outstanding it's heavy but it never feels clunky in the hand when you see me handling the Stanley and it's not on the wood I'm often wobbling around like this because the center of gravity on that plane is kind of difficult to get your arm around this Veritas just feels like an extension of my hand it's never wobbling around it's always steady and then the front knob is really great too it has this really wide flat design which means you're not gonna grab it in some stupid grip I often grab my planes in a dumb way because I'm not thinking the way this is designed you pretty much have to grab it with your three strongest fingers in a really strong and ergonomic grip that's a good refinement this is also the heart of opening and closing the mouth on the other low angle planes you twist the knob but then there's also a lever and yoke arrangement that actually moves the throat plate the Veritas has gotten rid of all of that all you do is unscrew the knob move the plate forward or back and screw the knob again and then they built in this tiny little set screw right in here which limits how far back that throat plate can travel so I have it set so that I can just push the throat plate back and it stops at its minimum setting but won't knock into the blade that means that throat plate can't go crashing into your freshly honed edge and ruin it and with that little screw you can set that opening to be whatever you want it's really a fantastic refinement now when I first got the plane I looked at this lever cap this sort of t-shaped thing here and I was like oh god these people at Veritas it's got to be so modern and fancy can't they just make a normal look lever cap like everybody else I didn't think it had any function then I'm running the plane through all of its different tests and I'm getting up to using the shooting book it's obvious to me that this depression right here in the side that's where my thumb goes so I like to shoot a piece of wood I put my thumb there and then my finger oh my goodness look at that the lever cap is t-shaped because your finger is just naturally curl under there and it gives you a beautiful solid grip when you put it on the shooting board it is an extremely smooth and ergonomic experience they sell an auxilary handle for this like a wooden hot dog thing that you stick on there but I don't see why it's good to go the way it is so bottom line time do I recommend this plane well I mean shoot yeah if you've got the cash buy the Cadillac why not for me personally it's just hard for me to justify throwing down that much money on a single hand tool and then once I have thrown down money it makes me nervous this plane is on loan to me from my patron Ethan thanks Ethan you're a very generous fellow but the fact that it's not mine and the fact that it costs so much money means that I have been tiptoeing around this thing for the last two weeks I am terrified that I'm gonna knock it off the bench or ding it or snap the handle all these things have happened to my other plans I've got concrete floors down here this is not an environment that's easy on tools I'm just saying this is a caution if you have the money for this you might get it and then find that you're a little bit scared to use it and really if you're scared to use your tool what's the point so at this point I have been all over the low angle Jack thing I've done everything from try out the ultra high-end premium all the way to making my own from scratch what's the conclusion from all of this well if you're gonna buy one of these and you're on a budget get the Stanley for sure there's no question that the Veritas is the best of all of these plans but the Stanley has about 80% of the functionality of the Veritas for half price it's a durable well-thought-out tool I've been using it for weeks and I can't find very many things to complain about if you'd like to grab one of these I have links to several different retailers down in the description as well as links to the rest of these plants except for the Tay I hate the Tay don't buy it no I know some people are gonna watch this video and say well this isn't the most complete sheet out you could have done there are other low-angle jacks out there you should have got them too and listen I can't do that because I am out of money the Veritas was loaned to me by a very generous patron but the rest of the planes on this table i shelled out my own money for there is a lot of cash sitting here and the only reason that's possible is because I have patrons they're the ones who give me the budget to do stuff like this so when companies get in touch with me I'd offer to send me free tools and that happens a fair bit I can always say no thanks if I want to try one of your tools I'm just gonna suck it up and buy it I can do that because of my patrons they're a community of craft people that support me in making these videos and maybe you'd like to be one of them if you're interested go on over to patreon comm / Rex Kruger and check out all the early access rewards and benefits that I have just for my patients it's a great community and it's a lot of fun to be a part of another community that I super appreciate are my viewers on YouTube without viewers none of this would be possible either thank you guys so much for watching I'll see you next week

Channel: Rex Krueger

Views: 90,154

Rating: 4.922904 out of 5

Keywords: hand plane, low angle jack plane, block plane, low angle plane, jack plane, low angle jack, plane, bench plane, _ low angle plane, smoothing plane, hand planes, low angle, woodworking, low angle block plane, low angle jack planes, low angle jack plane review, veritas low angle jack plane, lie nielsen low angle jack plane, hand plane review, high angle plane, hand tools, plane (product category), tool review, review, budget, shootout, comparison, premium, stanley, veritas

Id: uPNSR-XpOdk

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 13 2019