Hand planer, Block Hand Plane Planer Perfect for Woodworking, Trimming, Wood Planing, Surface Smoothing

Impressed! I was intrigued by this plane. I like Japanese style tools and I was looking for a replacement for my #4 size plane. I like wooden planes and adjusting them is a cinch (with a little practice for beginners). The price was good so I took a chance. I was prepared for a lot of tuning to get this plane up and running. *Reality - No planes are ready to go out of the box. The "It was not sharp" review makes me groan. Of course it's not sharp out of the box, that's your job.* So when I got it I was all prepared for a full days work of fattening, shaping, sharpening, and honing. On examination I was immediate surprised. The wood is solid, the finishing is nice, the parts fit well, and the iron is crazy thick. I started off flattening the bottom. Flattening was quick, because it was mostly flat, and it's... wood. After giving it a good wax and polish on the sole, I realized that my new set of sharpening stones hadn't come yet so I had to wait to work on the iron. Out of complete curiosity I set it up for planing, cleaned and adjusted the iron and decided to have a laugh and test it out. I was ready for this thing to destroy some wood....... but it didn't! Smooth like butter. Beautiful ribbons of shavings came drifting out. WTF! This is better than the Stanley I am replacing and I haven't even tuned it yet. This is now one of my favorite planes. I am embarrassed to say that I have still not done ANY sharpening or honing to it. I am using it every day and loving it. I have never had a plane come out of the box with little to no tuning necessary. I am still scratching my head over this one, but very happy. Cuts cross grain like a champ. Fully recommend.

Can't say that I'm surprised. It's pretty good for the price, but you will need to do some tweaking with the blade, and the body of the plane, also the wooden dowel that doubles as a pull handle. The iron was a lot smaller than I was expecting but nothing that can't be honed to perfection and put to good use. Overall I think its worth the money, any plane you get for under a 100 bucks is going to need some refining because the added manufacturing process of honing materials and refining makes the whole process much more costly than the value of the plane would be worth creating in the first place. Just keep that in mind when purchasing things that are cheaper than normal, and you won't be disappointed. I like the plane, it's got a really nice, heavy wood body that is one solid piece. That in and of itself is worth the price, the blade is laminated but it's a good 3/4 of high carbon tip on the cutting edge, 5he frog is something else entirely- doesn't really feel like steel but what do I know.

Not just "good for the money" this is genuinely GOOD.You're getting what you pay for on the initial fit/finish, and like any plane that doesn't cost $600, out of the box it will need some setup.What blew my mind was that the sole of mine is dead flat. Out of the box. NOTHING COMES OUT OF THE BOX THAT FLAT. I put it to a surface plate with some 120 grit just to make sure I'm not insane and sure enough, dead flat. I would not expect all of them to come flat, but it's a wooden plane, so a $2 granite floor tile from the hardware store, some spray glue and a sheet of 80, 120, and 220 grit (up to 400 if you're feeling fancy) will get it set up right. You want the edge of the front, edge of the rear, and both sides of the mouth of the plane to be flat. everything in between doesn't matter. If yours does need flattening, make sure you do it with the iron and wedge in the plane, just retracted, because wood body planes have a habit of twisting a smidge once the iron and wedge are inserted, so you want it under the tension it's gonna be used at while you flatten.The handle can be removed or left in, just tap it in or out with a hammer, and it goes from a nice push plane to a nice pull plane. this is called a "hong kong" style chinese plane and it works amazingly well.The body is a nice hardwood, not rosewood or ebony hard, but seems very solid. They even put a thick brass insert at the mouth, which is a super premium touch. Mouth is fixed (like all wood body planes) but the shape and size is perfect for a jack plane. Think of this like an asian feeling Stanley #4. You lose some of the ease of adjustment of the bailey style iron plane, but you gain control and precision, and this thing is LIGHT (that's a good thing for the kind of work this plane does)The only rough parts on mine were the wedge, which just needed sanding smooth, and the iron/chip breaker were ground crazy rough. It did take a rather excessive amount of time on 40, 80, 120, 220, 320, 800, 1500 and then green jeweler's compounded leather stropping to get right. The back of the blade was pretty flat but it looked like it was ground with a broken tuna can, deeeeeply gouged so that it needed a lot of metal removed to properly flatten the back. Once I did (it took like 25 minutes) It seems to hold a superb edge.The chip breaker was nowhere near as bad and took five minutes to put a knife edge on.Adjusting is very easy, all you need is a soft hammer for retracting the blade, tap on the back to pull the blade back, tap the back of the iron to advance it, and tap on the sides to shift the iron side to side. It seems scary at first, but you'll figure it out fast and be a pro within an hour of just playing with this thing.Once you set it up, this thing is unbelievably good and versatile, and very comfortable. The light weight makes it usable all darn day (and seriously, there is no plane on earth that's under $400 that doesn't need ALL of these steps done, for some reason no manufacturer makes a "ready to use" hand plane. So this needs very little setup, particularly since it's a wood body. Sanding a cast iron plane flat is agony.)As long as your expectations are reasonable and you don't plan to have this thing out of the box and cutting wood in five minutes, this might be the most outrageous deal on woodworking that there is.

It's a wood plane; it's a shop project all of its own: it's two products in one. When you pay 10% of what a premium plane costs, you can't expect fit and finish to be comparable. So to get it into good condition, it is a project. The wood block had corners that needed to be smoothed and tears that needed chisel work and surfaces that benefited from serious sanding. The wood itself is unknown to me, and a bit of a treat. The iron, or blade, needed an hour of sanding and grinding to remove the coarse milling marks to make it comfortable to handle. There there's the cutting edge, which needed even more work (It's A Project!) to grind out the tool marks. Once it was lapped and polished and fitted to the frame—and the sloppy-fit handle in place—I learned how to tap-tap-tap adjust it, I ran it over a piece of pine and pulled a long beautiful shaving. Bottom line, I'm glad I bought it.

Picked this up as a smoother plane to complement a high-end Veritas jack plane. I wanted something with a steeper bevel to avoid tearout.This plane looked and felt really out of the box, once I cleaned off the protective oil. The iron was just a tiny bit bowed on the flat side, Paul Sellers will tell you that doesn't hurt (saves grinding time and softens the profile of the blade). The body was square, with a bit of relief on the sole.Setting up the blade took a few tries, but this was my first wooden plane so your experience may vary. The wedge is the only part of this plane that feels less luxurious, it's crosscut to increase friction but it would have been nicer if the top was sanded so that it looked finished. Everything fit well though and it was kind of fun tapping the plane body everywhere to align the blade.I learned a quick lesson in setting the wedge firmly (blade fell right out and took a chunk of skin on its way) but this plane was taking gorgeous shavings off of a piece of maple in no time - just gave the blade a quick kiss on a 1200 grit stone, a polish, and set it up. For $40 I have a lighter hand planer that's going to serve me very nicely in my home projects. Would buy again and am looking for other sizes to build out my collection!

Like every other plane I expected to need to flatten the sole and reshape and hone the blade and chip breaker. I had to use the power hone to get close before the water stones as the blade was pretty far off. At the end the blade was razor sharp. The set back chip breaker is problematic when you are used to english planes and the spacer plate was very rough steel and a little bent. I reworked both. The sole however was dead flat. It works fine now for the light duty work I bought it for but it took some work. Don't expect it to work out of the box. I used up a couple of hours to get it working as it should.