Luban plane with Lie Nielsen frog - will it work?

**alo** · 2nd September 2019, 01:34 PM

I am planning to buy a plane sometime in the future and looking at affordable options.

The price is right for the Luban planes, but it seems they are the poor cousin/brother to the Woodriver, and Quangsheng (from workshopheaven) planes in that they have some lower end parts and I have read rumours on this site that the Luban may be an earlier version.

One part I noticed that is lower end on the Luban is the one piece lateral adjustment lever. I don't know what effect that would have on performance but I assume the better multipart lever was made for a reason.

I have also seen in comparison videos that the Woodriver adjustments have more slop/backlash in them than the Lie Nielsen adjustments.

Anyway I was thinking that while the Lie Nielsen planes are very expensive in Australia (particularly the one I am interested in - the 5 1/2 bedrock style), the Lie Nielsen frogs are not that bad - and the frog is where most of the adjustments happen.

So I am thinking, a Luban plane body used with a 45 degree Lie Nielsen frog could potentially provide all the performance benefits of the Lie Nielsen plane, at about 55% to 65% of the cost. (for the 5 1/2 anyway - depending on parts needed).

So my questions are: will it work? Is the frog on the Lie Nielsen a perfect fit for the Luban plane with all adjustments working perfectly and the frog positioned correctly in the bed, with the blade in the correct place in the mouth? If it fits on the bed, will other Lie Nielsen parts be needed to make it work properly, eg chip breaker?

I suspect the answer is that it won't work perfectly.

Is there anyone with both brands of plane with compatible blade size that would care to try this out and let us know the results?

**China** · 2nd September 2019, 01:51 PM

If you are that concerned, just save your money and buy a decent plane to start with

**Colin62** · 4th September 2019, 09:28 PM

Originally Posted by China

If you are that concerned, just save your money and buy a decent plane to start with

An added advantage of that approach is that you’ll be able to get almost all of your money back if you sell a decent plane, whereas a mix of different things is going to be difficult to shift if you decide to upgrade later.

**Vann** · 6th September 2019, 05:39 AM

Originally Posted by Colin62

...whereas a mix of different things is going to be difficult to shift if you decide to upgrade later.

China and Colin are right - a frankenplane will have greatly reduced resale value.

Nevertheless it would be an interesting exercise. If rumours are true and Luban, Woodriver and Quangsheng planes are Lie-Nielsen clones, then it should work.

However, I have a both a Clifton and a Lie-Nielsen No.5½ (the L-N has a higher pitch frog). Just for fun I tried swapping the frogs. It didn't work as the spacing of the screws/studs that hold down the frog are different. Similarly I borrowed a Lie-Nielsen No.5¼ and tried swapping frogs with my Clifton No.3. The difference in screw/stud pitch was less, but still enough that it didn't work. I don't have a Stanley Bedrock to compare with my Lie-Nielsen and Cliftons (except a No.608 - but there's no way I'm going to afford a Lie-Nielsen No.8 to compare frogs

).

Cheers, Vann.

**IanW** · 6th September 2019, 07:06 AM

Vann, I think you've demonstrated exactly what I feared, that though the parts might look identical in isolation, there are sufficient minor differences that they are not interchangeable.

Alo, I commend you for thinking laterally, but your idea had a couple of flaws. Both machined surfaces have to be done to the same level of precision for a good match - if you put a "superior" frog on "lesser" ways, you may end up with a worse situation than you started with. You would be better off, I think, just getting the Luban or whatever and fettling it. I have one of their planes (a low angle jack) and it's a perfectly good plane - at least as good as my L.A. Veritas. The machining is of good quality & everything fits as it should. I have also bought numerous Mf replacement blades and they have all been as good as the equivalent alloy blades from the 'recognised' manufacturers, in fact the backs have all come with a slight hollow on them, like Japanese blades, making them particularly easy to polish behind the cutting edge. P'raps I've been lucky, but I think I've had very good bang for buck so far....

Cheers,

**alo** · 6th September 2019, 02:17 PM

Originally Posted by Vann

China and Colin are right - a frankenplane will have greatly reduced resale value.

Nevertheless it would be an interesting exercise. If rumours are true and Luban, Woodriver and Quangsheng planes are Lie-Nielsen clones, then it should work.

However, I have a both a Clifton and a Lie-Nielsen No.5½ (the L-N has a higher pitch frog). Just for fun I tried swapping the frogs. It didn't work as the spacing of the screws/studs that hold down the frog are different. Similarly I borrowed a Lie-Nielsen No.5¼ and tried swapping frogs with my Clifton No.3. The difference in screw/stud pitch was less, but still enough that it didn't work. I don't have a Stanley Bedrock to compare with my Lie-Nielsen and Cliftons (except a No.608 - but there's no way I'm going to afford a Lie-Nielsen No.8 to compare frogs

).

Cheers, Vann.

Hi Vann.

Thank you so much for trying this with your Clifton planes. Good to know that it won't work with those.

Hopefully someone will be able to try this experiment with a Lie Nielsen frog and suitable Luban plane to try and answer my questions.

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