Smoothing Plane Shoot Out - Veritas, Classic Stanley, & Harbor Freight | Hand Tool Shootout

welcome to woodwork life I'm Rick today we're gonna have a shootout between three of the most popular number four hand planes the very top number four a restored stanley number four and then Harbor Freight snack-off bedrock number four we're gonna go through how to set these up how long that takes and the results that you get out of each of these the veritas number four is a hefty plane comes pre lapped from the factory has an adjustable throat and also a lot larger grip for guys like me with bigger hands it also has a screw action lever cap as opposed to the traditional flip stop and it has a different type of adjustment mechanism the stainle number four is the one most people are most familiar with I believe this one would be called a bedrock because it has the adjustable screw in the back the blade adjustment is done with this brass screw here then you have the traditional lever flip stop real easy to set up and get a good positive action on the Harbor Freight number four is very similar to the Stanley although not nearly as thick of Steel the sole from the factory probably wouldn't have been nearly as flat I've been using this one for quite a while so and it's still kind of a work in progress to get it really perfectly set up but the bottom is flat the Frog is flat and I've actually upgraded the blade to a classic blade from an old Stanley Stu could come boxing in the veritas number four smoothing plane here looks like the cardboard is basically back impact on it's really well packed in here and the factory comes the piece of plastic in there instead of a blade it's really hefty that the bottoms already lapped and sides are lapped to see the adjustable throat they're like all the brass details here's the PM v 11 blade it's nice and sharp from the box not hair popping shop sharp just needs a lap [Music] got it all homes been about four minutes I like to get about 1/32 of an inch maybe a 64th just as tight as it'll go based on how square the blade is little adjustments screw here is a little bit of a bugger but went together pretty quick I like the way the flip stop is a brass screw instead of a flip stop a couple adjustments off-camera and here's the first pass perfect shavings everytime now onto this Stanley I got a 1950s era it's not a sweetheart I don't think that the corrugated soul I had trouble finding one locally so I went online and found for 38 bucks it's in pretty good shape but uh needs a lot of recovery throw them to a bucket and put it in some vinegar lettuce overnight I'm just taking all the parts here and putting them in a bucket I'm going to a perfect restore on these but at least gonna make them you know look a little nicer and function the way they should screw back here was a son of a I should have taken the handle off first the handles had a little bit of specular paint on them so I'm gonna take them off and get them sanded down a little bit put another coat of boiled linseed oil on them and some wax just to give them a nice finish it was in pretty good shape I'm not sure how flat but look to be all right this is five percent food grade vinegar just pour it in there let it soak overnight and then hit it with brillo pads sandpaper and what-have-you tomorrow [Music] sand didn't help a lot has had a lot of finish on it but got through a little bit quicker the back toed I hit with a rasp to break up the finish and all the hand oil that was over it from all those years of use after a lot of time and sandpaper I was able to put on a quote of boiled linseed oil to turn a little darker than I would have liked them to but they look great [Music] I taped off the sole and gave it a couple coats of lacquer spray paint it's not an automotive finish but it's enough to stop the rust from spreading after that I flatten the sole and the blade on a flat stone tile I got from Home Depot for free and some 220 grit wet and dry sandpaper it took a little bit of time and elbow grease but got a nice and flat after everything was flat and cleaned up it was time for the moment of truth to put everything back together I even cleaned up some of the screws and polished up all the brass went together really easily I really like this plane alright so let's take a look now that they're all restored at which one can take the finished shaving I know this is just kind of nice for getting that sandpaper better than the sandpaper level finish and some people like from hand planes so let's start with the Veritas and see how thin of a shaving and get with this guy pretty good translucent so we get the Stanley you need to get a little bit thicker with this one [Music] that's a really nice shaving actually chew a little bit thicker probably about a thousand maybe two thousand sticker not quite translucent but nice full-length shaving let's look at what the thicker than Stanley but kind of choked up on the not full width it's pretty thick it's about twice as thick as what the Veritas was doing but not bad at all now for a little fun take out the soft pine why should this is Douglas fir and try to get a shaving off of some end grain hard maple burl the torture test I guess [Music] start will go in reverse order we'll start with the heart rate that is not fun shaving things even touching it really just kind of shattering over the top these are all really sharp just it's flexing too much when I'm pushing on it try the Stanley chipping it off that's pretty cool all right let's see what this Veritas will do now [Music] that one not quite full length but full width shaving of hard maple burl that's insane that's a true torture test but I only ever seen that that's endgrain hard maple burl you can see it's chipping apart my fingers are so hard all right so after putting all three of these through their paces restoring the Stanley and just seeing what we can get out of all of them I think it's clear there's a couple winners one winner depending on how you want to look at it so like I said in the beginning I want to cover this a little bit differently than your average shootout when it comes to value so I wanted to factor in what your time is worth when you're putting together one of these planes so something like the Veritas takes 5 10 minutes to set up let's value our time and say 15 dollars an hour that's a dollar 25 if you're doing 5 minutes to get this thing set up and producing perfect shavings with something like the stanley it costs us $38 from ebay you could find one adhiraj silver cheaper you could find one almost fully restored for more but just going at this one $38 I chose the corrugated plane to give myself a leg up when it came to flattening and took about six and a half hours still to get this thing fully restored and ready to use so six and a half hours at $15 an hour that's a ninety seven dollars on this one to get it fully set up now if people get the Harbor Freight this is where the value really comes in when you factor in your time this is $15 and I can get okay results out of this not a bail repeatable but I've got more than twenty hours into this thing it took six hours alone just flattening the sole from the way it was in the factory and I've replaced the blade and gone through countless iterations trying to get this thing to really deliver good results like what I'm getting from these guys so let's say 20-plus hours at $15 an hour you're talking three hundred dollars of your own time but you're giving up just to get a cheaper tool this thing's getting retired for me I'm gonna to a friend's and he'll be able to play with it and I'm sure he'll like it because he's newer in the woodworking world and hadn't put his own 20 hours into it between these two when you factor in the amount of time to set them up the price gets a lot closer it's gonna be a toss-up for some people because some people really enjoy putting their time into restoring a tool I'm not gonna be a project in itself if you're a hobbyist for me I appreciate the modern features that they've added into the Veritas with the adjustment mechanisms and the the brass screw for instead of a flip stuff is a little more repeatable I just really like this thing I also just like the fact that I know from the factories machine within tolerances it comes with you know letters of certification from their quality control from the factory so I know this is gonna give me great results for out of the box would I recommend the Stan Lee absolutely it's a fun project I'm still gonna use this thing it was fun I like old Stan Lee's I probably will end up collecting them over time but uh they do take a lot of time that some people don't have is a tradesman I think it's a no-brainer the Veritas is the way to go when you need to get those accurate cuts you know clean up clean up a cut line you know clear up some saw marks the the Veritas is the way to go for a hobbyist it's a toss-up the Veritas is better looking I guess but they're both pretty beautiful and they both have sentimental value that's really all I got on these guys thanks for joining me today at woodwork life please check out our website and like and subscribe below if you like what you saw and please in the comments let us know what you think and if there's any other tools you want to see me do a shootout with I'll try to get hold of them and put it on here for you again thanks for joining me with woodwork life you [Music]

Channel: Wood.Work.LIFE.

Views: 151,612

Rating: 4.3371 out of 5

Keywords: hand plane, veritas, stanley, harbor freight, shootout, plane, hand tool, smoothing plane, hand plane shootout, veritas plane, bench plane, hand planes, hand tools, tools, review, tool, hand tool woodworking, cheap vs. expensive, woodworking, harbor freight plane, shoot out, tool review, tool reviews, handtool woodworking, woodworker, woodworking tools, stanley hand plane, veritas hand plane, smoothing plane shootout, best hand tools, no. 4 plane, veritas smoothing plane no. 4

Id: 7_g6zxgfDso

Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 15 2016