Thread: Lie Nielsen 112 Scraper Plane

Interesting results - I had a similar experience with a HNT Gordon smoother last night. The HNTG's are all high angle bevel down, in this case it would plane hard spotted gum without issue but was leaving a rough surface on the much softer Surian cedar inlay (I think it's Surian). I would hazard a guess that it has something to do with the strength and elasticity of the wood fibres that determines what angle works best. But I could just be a newbie talking out my pooter

Some interesting & useful observations, Dom. I have LV's interpretation of the 112 which I bought about the time they started offering the thick blades, but decided to go with the 'thin' one. The Veritas has an extra bit that the original & the LN don't have, a 'bowing' screw to put a bow in the blade. There is one on the 80, so it puzzles me why they didn't bother on the 112. Anyway, the point to be made is that having a blade that can be bowed makes it quite a different animal to use, because it allows you to easily vary the depth of cut. I suspect any observations pertaining to my '112' wouldn't be all that relevant to your version, but for the record, I use about an 80 degree hook, probably a bit more forward lean than it looks like you're using, and more or less bow depending on how aggressively I want it to cut.

I'm impressed by your shavings, they look to be at least a couple of thou. thick. I would struggle to get such thick shavings from the hard woods I usually use my scraper on, something less than a thou would be typical of what I'd get. I mostly use mine on really nasty, hard, no-two-fibres-going-in-the-same-direction woods that defeat my planes no matter how I set them up. I can usually persuade softer woods like Blackwood & Walnut to finish satisfactorily with either a standard angle, or one of my high-angle planes, but have had to resort to a scraper for a few softer woods like some very wild-grained N.G. Rosewood that tore out even with my very best smoother. I concur that you have to muck about a bit with different woods to find the sweet spots for amount of hook and attack angles. It's very satisfying when it all comes together and wide gossamer spew out, while the surface of the wood grows smoother & smoother.

They sure save on sandpaper.......
Cheers,

I make my own scrapers for what little that I need to do with carvings in hardwoods.
Yours looks set to take an almighty bite, by the shavings. Just kiss off the top.

Sandpapers always shred wood. They can do nothing else.
Scrapers cut the surface. When you mess with them to cut thin with no tear-out,
they sure do a fine finishing job.

Thanks for all your process pictures. Much appreciated.

I picked up a Sweetheart era Stanley 112 a few years ago and I love it, I used it on my massive redgum kitchen benchtop after the initial flattening and smoothing with handplanes.

I did a lot of research on the plane before touching the blade, and I also found it was the LN video on youtube on sharpening and setting up the LN112 that gave me the best advice for me.