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  1. #1
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    Oct 2013
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    Perth, Australia
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    Default Struggling with Norris adjusters

    Some of the recent discussions around hand planes has reminded me I wanted to ask for some help with Norris adjusters. I only have a small number of planes that utilise them but I feel like I always struggle setting the blade depth without knocking the lateral adjust. I feel like I wind up spending more time adjusting them than I do actually putting them to work so I reach for other planes instead when the LAJ or HNT Gordon might be perfect for the job.

    Does anyone have any tips for dealing with this?

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  3. #2
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    Jun 2010
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    Bundaberg
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    I only have one plane with the Norris adjuster; a Luban 62 LAJ. Love the plane; intensely dislike the adjuster! In my case the blade likes to peek out on the starboard side a little too much and sometimes just won’t centralise without dismantling the whole shebang, giving everything a damn fine clean and carefully reassembling it with the blade a only a hair away from the final depth setting. Sometimes I just reach for a screwdriver and use that to push the blade edge where I want it to go!
    Nothing succeeds like a budgie without a beak.

  4. #3
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    Oct 2013
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Chief Tiff View Post
    sometimes just won’t centralise without dismantling the whole shebang, giving everything a damn fine clean and carefully reassembling it with the blade a only a hair away from the final depth setting.
    Yep had to do the same thing quite a few times. I especially struggle with the HNT Gordon which is frustrating because it works GREAT when I can actually get it set properly. It's just rare that I can get it there.

  5. #4
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    Mar 2010
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    This is a problem that started with norris, and has never really been solved.

    My suggestion is to ignore the advice about loosening the lever cap much and do your vertical adjustment with it only loosened a little bit so as not to lose the lateral. tap lateral adjustment with a hammer and completely ignore the ability to do it with the end of the lever. lateral adjust was already bad on the norris plane when the adjuster was long and lateral adjust was easier. With a small lever like on the BU planes, it's really intolerable unless you set depth once and never change anything between sharpening.

    Using a hammer for small adjustments is tolerable.

    If you come across a bevel down plane where the norris adjuster setup also leads to a tendency for a plane to cut more deeply the tighter the lever cap is screwed down, then adjust the plane at the outset to not take a cut, just barely be set too shallow for it - like when you see tiny bits scraping into the plane escapement, and then use the lever cap tightness is sort of a fine adjuster. As in, screw it tighter to adjust shaving thickness instead of using the adjuster.

    This huge flaw in the norris adjuster may actually be an unintentional asset given how big of a they are to adjust lateral. using the lever cap tightness to adjust smoothing cut depth keeps the lateral set from being lost when adjusting cut depth.

    There may be some ability to also tap depth on the bevel up planes (just a little), but mine are all long gone.

    one of my late irks from when I was a beginner was being told often how great the norris adjuster is because it doesn't have backlash like the stanley adjuster.

    ....only to learn that instead, it just does every single other thing more poorly, so you trade one tolerable bad habit for a bunch of intolerables.

  6. #5
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    Default

    Thanks DW for the informative post! Given me some things to try next time I'm behind the planes again.

    At least I'm not alone in this frustration hahaha

  7. #6
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    Feb 2007
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    blue mountains
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    Default

    Even on a Norris the adjuster is only so so. Not as good as the Bailey adjustment. I cant for the life of me get good results with the lateral so out comes the hammer. On the other hand It does look good.
    Regards
    John

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Perth
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    Default

    I agree with David. I keep a small jeweller's hammer to adjust the blades laterally by tapping the sides of the Norris adjuster on Veritas planes. This is for fine adjustments. I can do this while pushing a plane forward to take a test shaving.





    (an aside: the screwdriver thing is a hex driver for the chipbreaker on the Custom planes)


    The lever cap is loosened slightly ... it is a balancing act between enough to keep the blade from moving sideways on its own, and enough to permit the winding action to move the blade forward and back.


    I much prefer the Bailey set up, but I do get the Veritas Norris-style adjuster working pretty well.


    Dan, if you need a tutorial, come around.


    Regards from Perth


    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  9. #8
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    Thanks Derek, I'll take you up on that! Will be nice to talk wood again in person. Probably off tools for another week after surgery and I'll give you a shout.

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
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    I had a small rant abut the Norris-type adjuster this morning (post #37), so I won't bore you by repeating myself other than to say I also think the Bailey adjuster is by far the better system.

    And plus one for a small (preferably brass) hammer as a 'lateral adjuster'. If any of you were at one of the demos Vic Tesolin gave on his tour of Oz talking up Veritas products a year or two back, you will have seen him adjust all of his Veritas planes with Norris-style adjusters with a small hammer. I think that says it all.

    DW, we've had this discussion before, and I still maintain that the tendency for Norrises to increase (or decrease) set has nothing to do with the adjuster, it occurs on infills with no adjusters as well. In every case I've encountered (4 or 5, which is a small sample-size, I'll grant), it has always been due to a very slight hump or depression in the bed under the area where the lever-cap bears down on the blade assembly, so that as the LC is tightened, it flexes the blade a fraction. If there is a slight hump proximal to the area udder the end of the lever cap, the distal end of the blade will be forced down sightly, increasing set. If the hump is on the other (distal) side, the end of the blade will tend to rise up, decreasing set. This is a feature peculiar to infills in my experience, I've never encountered it with the full-metal beds of block planes, etc. I doubt Mathieson or Norris ever let a plane with this problem go out of their factory that way, but wood is wood and it doesn't always behave as we wish. It my well be that over-enthusiastic tightening of lever-caps is enough to cause a small depression in the wood in the crucial spot.

    The tendency to increase set can be a right pita, or, as you say, you can use it creatively for fine-tuning the depth adjustment. Lord knows, they need a fine-adjustment system, even the 'improved' (finer thread) adjuster on my late-model A5 is coarser than any Bailey adjuster. Personally, I'd rather just have the blade stay where I put it as I tighten the LC - there is already enough unpredictability in this world..

    If you wish to cure the problem, it's sometimes easy, sometimes not, but you start by making sure the blade sits flat from the point under the end of the LC, to the back of the blade bevel. It only takes a very small deviation from flat, because it gets amplified due to the distance from the deviation to the end of the blade, so it will almost certainly be far too small to see. The only way to reliably detect it that I know is to put the blade in & very lightly clamp it, then see if a very fine feeler-gauge blade will go in between the blade-back & bed. If you can get a 1 or 2 thou blade in past the bevel with the blade lightly clamped, but not when fully tensioned, you have your diagnosis.

    The cure may involve some careful work on the infill, or on the blade-block, & neither is a job for the faint-hearted! Most folks just put up with it - once you know the idiosyncrasies of your planes you tend to compensate unconsciously. So, bueller, my friend, the only consolation I can offer is, "you'll get used to it". I'm sure most of us have a plane or two with their own little personality quirks - I've got several, including at least one of my own manufacture. At least I don't have to go far to make a complaint, do I?

    Cheers,
    IW

  11. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Posts
    383

    Default

    Another "do lateral adjustments by tapping with a small hammer" advocate here.
    I use an ancient small Thor hammer with a head that has a copper knob on one end and a leather knob on the other end so it works across both steel and wooden-bodied planes.
    I even noticed that Chris Schwarz does the same for his Stanley planes - can't recall the video I saw it on.
    New Zealand

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