Thread: low angle jack plane knob problems

Never had one of those but my feeling is its held by friction rather than glue. I would hold off on the glue until someone with experience of them says something. Wood plane handles and knobs shrink in periods of low humidity. A washer under the top screw or between brass and the knob may be the answer. Fiber tap washer perhaps.
Regards
John

Yep, I've got the same plane. I'm not sure if there is any glue used on the original, but the knob is meant to be locked on the stud by compression between the top barrel nut & that skinny little threaded bush under the brass washer. The whole shebang has to be locked together so it acts as a single unit like a thumbscrew to lock the moveable toe.

My original knob didn't give me any bother, but I don't like those skinny little "modern" knobs (well 1920 is sorta "modern"!) and much prefer the old low hot-air balloon shape that preceded the "high knob". I like to hold a planes like this, so a flat-topped knob is far more comfy:
LAJ5.jpg

I didn't want to mess with the original knob 'cos at that stage I wasn't sure about the plane, whether it was going to be a keeper, or be sent to new lodgings if I didn't like it, so I made a complete replacement and left the original intact (all of the threads are standard metric, which made things easier):
LAJ2.jpg

And promptly ran into a problem, my new knob wasn't locking securely & kept coming undone. That threaded bush at the base is hard to hang onto to get things sufficiently tight, and you don't want to mark it with pliers because it needs to fit snugly in the slot of the large washer that moves the toe piece:
LAJ3.jpg

So I applied two "fixes". I drilled two small holes in the brass washer, and put two small brass pins through it into the knob. I also put a very small dab of Loctite on the shaft where the bush screws up, then tightened it all down. You can see the holes here, before the pins were driven in:
LAJ4.jpg

Problem solved.
Oh yeah, and the plane turned out to be a keeper. I hate the depth adjuster, it's fiddly & a bear of a thing to get a fine set with, but once set, it all works very nicely indeed. The edge-holding of the blade is excellent. In fact I prefer this plane to my Veritas LA smoother, which at the time, cost almost twice as much....

Cheers,
Ian

Thanks Ian - so the whole stud is meant to come off... I will have another look at it another time.

Do you have experience with O1/A2/PMV-11? How would you compare steel from this Luban LAJ plane?

Originally Posted by qwertyu

.... - so the whole stud is meant to come off...

Yep, just think of the knob as a monster thumbscrew.

Originally Posted by qwertyu

......Do you have experience with O1/A2/PMV-11? How would you compare steel from this Luban LAJ plane?

Hmmm - this gets us into very subjective territory, I'm afraid. I'm not sure what alloy Luban blades are, I've read somewhere that they use A2 or an equivalent. I have used a lot of Luban blades in my plane-making and they do seem to behave similarly to the couple of known (Veritas) A2 blades I have. All of the blades I've had I would rate "very good", they have all come nicely-ground, took little effort to polish to my satisfaction, and have good edge-holding.

This is my current view on plane blade steels, for what it's worth - you'll get many opinions that will vary widely, so take mine with the usual grain or two of salt. The usual caveat applies, of course, so much depends on what you do & what woods you choose to work with. There was a time in my life when I spent time & $$ chasing the hardest blades I could find. It started back in the late 70s/early 80s when I got hold of one of the HSS "Stanley" blades that were around for a while. I don't know what alloy they used (there are many high-speed steels) but it took a good edge easily on oilstones and kept it at least 75% longer than the "regular" blades I'd been using for decades. I was convinced that the answer to all problems to do with planing was harder blades!

Later, I got a couple of A2 blades. These held their edge as well as or even better than the HSS blade, but were harder to sharpen as well on oilstones. A few Hocks (O1) came along at about the same time & they had the virtue of being so easy to put a really good edge on, which lasted almost as well as that original HSS blade.

But curiosity never dies & when PM-V11 became the flavour of the month, I just had to try one after reading the effusive reviews they were getting. At first I was disappointed, I could not get an edge on it like the Hocks without an extraordinary amount of effort. I had a whine about this & someone suggested I ditch my long-serving oilstones & use waterstones. I'd tried waterstones back in the 70s when they first became a fad, & quickly went back to my oilstones (carborundum & soft & hard white Arkansas) because I spent more time flattening the damn things than actually sharpening - they were so soft! But I was assured the newer stones are much better, and they are, though still far softer than oilstones of course. But they certainly turned things around for me - finishing with an 8,000 grit waterstone gave me as good an edge as I'd ever had with far less effort.

So I've got a hodge-podge of blade types now, all of which do a good job within their limitations. The PM-V11 blades really shine when I'm working with woods like gidgee or she-oak that take the edge off most other blades in a few swipes. When working with more "sensible" woods it's much of a muchness, though I tend to favour the Hocks here. Because they are so easy to touch up, I am more likely to touch them up as soon as they start to lose their keen edge, with the happy result I spend a greater proportion of time working with a really sharp blade.

I also have a super-hard "Academy" blade that I bought about 20 years ago before they stopped making them. This is the blade that changed my thinking on super-hard blades. I don't know what alloy it is (M2??), but it was cryogenically treated and this blade is the hardest I've ever struck. It takes a ridiculous effort to sharpen properly on oilstones & even with the waterstones it takes much more time than a PM-V11. It lives in the first plane I made, which has a high-angle blade. I don't use it as often as my standard-pitch planes, that way, I don't have to face sharpening it very often!

Cheers,
Ian

Thanks for the summary of the steels Ian its always interesting to hear peoples opinions, even if they differ from others. As a relative newbie to woodworking I can either learn from others or figure it out myself - I would much rather learn from others