Hi all.

Does anyone know about these Italian-made Stanley-style Groz planes?

http://www.tools-for-woodworking.com...S&Category=485

They are described thus:
"Groz, an established Indian precision toolmaker, now gives woodworkers another affordable choice for planes based on classic Stanley designs. Castings are hefty: the #4 smoother weighs a full quarter pound more than our 1930's-vintage Stanley original. Finish and refinement are superior to current production Bailey pattern planes, with all adjustments fluid and precise. Smooth and Jack planes have nicely mated surfaces on frog bottom and sole. The lever caps for these block planes put positive pressure closer to the cutting edge than some other block planes, which prevents the iron from chattering. Both block planes have beds machined back far enough to prevent blade flex, a perennial problem for these designs. These planes are easily tuned to give solid, competent performance. The #4 Smooth and the #5 Jack come with wooden handles."

I'm guessing that even with shipping and exchange rates, these are cheap planes! -- if they're any good. Does anyone know about them?

Cheers,
GW

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Where you see a tree, I see 3 cubic metres of timber, milled and dressed.

Did you mean Indian made? I dont think it is any good.

I have heard they are not great out of the box, but with tuning they can work quite well.

I have heard...

I wouldn't spend my money to find out if what I hear is true or not. What I have usually seen is :India + precision = horse manure.

The plane is hearsay, the rest is my limited experience. If it doesn't work, you just don't buy it anymore.

In the Fine Woodworking tool test (FWW 177) the #4 Groz smoother was found to have a concave frog bed. It chattered and jammed, and even fitting it with a Hock blade and a Cliffton chip breaker did not help.

IMO, if you are willing to go into the trouble of lapping the sole and frog bed, and fitting a new blade, you would be much better off getting an old Stanley from eBay. It will be cheaper, and mst likely better.

Thanks for your replies. Yes, my eyes confused 'Indian' with 'Italian'. Apologies to all of you out there with family in Sicily. I will watch for a horse's head in the post.

I wasn't looking too hard at purchasing; I already have several smoothers which are decent quality. I was just 'plane curious'.

Regards from a pokey little town called Sydney,
GW

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Where you see a tree, I see 3 cubic metres of timber, milled and dressed.

Okay, class. Please open your 2008 Carba-Tec catalogues and turn to page 123. In the bottom left corner of the page you will see a listing for Groz No. 4 and No. 5 bench planes. I was on holiday recently and made an annual pilgrimage to the Sydney Carba-Tec store. I have a block plane but have never owned a bench plane so I thought that one of these Groz planes might be a good place to start. I noticed that the No. 5 cost $75 whereas the corresponding Veritas plane cost $395. When the guy behind the counter asked if I needed help, I bent down and pointed through the glass at the Groz No. 5. He looked at me with a totally bewildered expression that I only now realise meant "I have been working here for five years and this is the first time that someone dumb enough to buy one of these things has walked into the place." Ignorance is bliss, and I left the store truly happy with my new purchase.

I spent about the next week "tuning" the plane. I wanted to learn about bench planes and I guess this was as good a way as any. Since I am no doubt the only person who ever has or ever will buy one of these planes, I don't think I will have a very big audience for this review but anyway... The whole process was basically an exercise in problem solving, in the sense of "This thing does not work. How come?"

I did my best to flatten the back of the blade and to lap the sole a bit but these were not the real issues, as far as I could tell. The chipbreaker, blade and frog are the real problems. I had already decided not to buy a replacement blade because it would cost more than the entire plane and would defeat the purpose of buying and tuning a cheap (I mean inexpensive) plane.

The first thing that I noticed was that I could not withdraw the blade into the plane so that it did not cut. The depth of cut is set by the chipbreaker and the chipbreaker, which was curved somewhat like a pretzel, was so long that you could not back it out of the mouth of the plane. Also, the slot in the blade was not centred so you could only screw the blade and chipbreaker together by offsetting their widths by a mm or two. After a day or two I realised that I had to shorted the chipbreaker, so I filed a few mm off of the front end and then reground the face that sits against the tip of the blade. After that I was able to withdraw the blade and use the depth adjustment knob properly.

I was having a lot of trouble getting the blade to sit properly on the frog and again, after a few days, I realised that the frog was not sitting on the bed of the plane at all. The frog is held to the bed by two vertical screws in the front and then there is a horizontal adjustment screw at the back that sits into a notch in the bed of the plane. That screw is threaded into the frog to move it forward and backward. On my plane, anyway, the size of the ridge that sits in the notch and the placement of the screw hole actually held the back of the frog about a mm off of the bed of the plane. At first I assumed that Groz knew what they were doing and this was how it was designed to work but then I changed my mind. I removed the adjustment screw altogether and secured and adjusted the frog on the bed using the two vertical screws. It sat much better and as far as I can tell has not moved.

My last major problem was that I could not get the blade to come straight out of the mouth of the plane. In other words, I could not get it to cut at the same thickness on the left and right sides of the blade. Again, I assume that the frog is not sitting parallel to the sole of the plane. I have overcome this by skewing the blade to one side as much as possible when I clamp it down, and then by pushing the sideways adjustment lever as far as possible to the same side. That way I can get what looks like an even thickness shaving.

After all of that I can get some pretty nice shavings, not that I have anything to compare them to, but they are translucent, let's put it that way.

Okay, everyone, you can wake up now. Please proceed to your next class, Lie-Nielsen 101.

Great post Editor! Compelling reason to not buy a Groz...

Editor,

Please, pretty please, send your post to the Groz guys.

Feedback from the punters

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Bodgy
"Is it not enough simply to be able to appreciate the beauty of the garden without it being necessary to believe that there are faeries at the bottom of it? " Douglas Adams

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BrettC

Thanks for the replies. I did not mention that I bought a Groz bench vise a few years ago for my workbench. I have not had any problems with it so that is probably why I took a punt on the plane.

Hi editor and ors,

What date did you purchase your Groz #5....

I must be the second person to buy one...

I was in Carbatec last saturday to purchase one.

As a complete amateur I found I could get decent but thick shavings in no time flat.

I have since learnt that I need to move the frog to try for thinner shaving. (this week ends project).

I am using the Groz as a test to see if I can tune a plane and get some results before I go up the the $2-300 level....

I did notice that the blade did have several chips that will require some work on the wet grinder (scheppach tiger?)

Oh well, we all learn by other peoples mistakes, then make our own....
PS I have seen the Groz advertised on some US sites as well....

Maybe we got the lemons. as I doubt Carbatec would stock them if they were all that bad..

James

Editor and James,
Good on you for having a go. A good way to get experience and you will have a plane for knock about work. Perhaps even a reasonable worker. I have not tried one myself but suspect that a new stanley out of the box would not be a whole lot better. Has anyone got a new stanley that can comment.
Regards
John

Orraloon,

Any one want to sell me land on Russell island, Qld?///// ( older folks will know the reason for the comment)

Yes, I also bought a journeyman Stanley #4 at the WWW show in Sydney.($66).

I agree, both planes require some tuning and adjustment to get reasonable results but I see that as practice on this woodworking journey. but with both, I can get shavings not chips..

We all can't have a workshop like Norm (NYW)

As I am an amateur with little spare time I will be able to whittle and plane to suit my purpose.

James

Yes, one word to descibe it before fettling : Terrible!

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Pat
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided. Mark Twain

I just bought a Groz low angle block plane from Carbatec. The blade is made of poor quality steel and took quite a while to tune up. Once I was reasonably happy with the blade I placed it back in the plane to test it out. I quickly found that I could not get the blade to come out of the mouth straight - no matter how I set it up or used the lateral adjuster. Upon closer inspection I found that the sloped part of the plane that supports the blade (not sure if this is called the frog in a block plane) is not flat! It slopes slightly to one side which means that the blade will always come out uneven. It is no good for planing anything flat. The only thing it will be semi useful for will be doing rough chamfering.

So on summary the plane is extremly poor quality. I took a risk with the Groz plane and not too surprisingly got burnt. Although I was expecting a better quality product from Carbatec.