Thread: The Veritas Bevel Up Smoothing Plane

Chook - glad to hear it. I have one sitting in a box waiting for me when I return to Oz. Can't wait to get into it.

Trav

Originally Posted by chook

I even expressed my surprise to the Carbatec staff that anybody would spend between $250 and $300 on a hand plane.

People spend a LOT more than that on planes. Check this out: "Holtey Classic Handplanes Homepage - The finest quality Dovetailed Infill planes and Hand planes."

Chook, wait till you try the Veritas BU jack!

Good evening Chook,

My times with planes are nothing compared to yours. But for the last 12 months, I have been using an Amazon-Stanley block plane, adjustable mouth. I did not pay a lot for this plane, but it is a bit hard to adjust the blade depth.

Last week, I got the Veritas skew block plane. The blade control is heap better than the Amazon-Stanley, and is similar to the Veritas medium shoulder plane's.

I do not have any plan to get a bevel up smoother, but the bevel-up jack is next on my list. I have no prior experiences with planes, but I have found the Veritas planes (at least the three that I have) are very easy to use, and most importantly blade adjustment is very predictable.

Enjoy your plane

Regards,

...behai.

I lust after any Veritas plane but the only ones I could even remotely justify buying were the regular and low-angle blocks. Very happy with both of them. I likely will eventually get a bevel-up jack. I am lucky to live a 10 minute drive from Lee Valley so I can go over and drool anytime I want.

I have seen that you can buy planes for a whole lot more than I paid. But given that the most I have ever paid for a plane before was $2 spending more than $250 was quite a step up in the world. I saw some really beautiful Australian wooden planes at the wood show. The ones at the Holtey site are as much works of art as tools.

I was going to buy a drum sander instead, when I went to the wood show. But there is not much skill involved in that. I want to be able to get nicely finishd panels for kitchen cupboard doors and I decided that I would plane then flat by hand rather than use a machine. I hope that the Veritas plane will do the job.

I have some real sympathy for men who look at tool catalogues and who cannot justify the expense. I have raised a large family on a single income. Now they are all grown up and moved out. For years I looked at these sorts of tools and wondered what they might be like. But there were always school fees and clothes to buy. The kids thought they deserved to be given at least 3 meals a day and the food bill for a large family is not cheap. But they are all adults now with their own lives and families so in recent years I have been spending previously unimaginable sums of money on my hobby. I believe Carbatec are in the process of setting up a permanent under cover reserved parking space for me.

Good evening Chook,

I sincerely apologise if I have been seen as a show off. I did not mean it like that at all. This is a new world for me, and I am very enthusiastic about it.

(My father was imprisoned by the communists for a long time after 1975, my mother was left alone with three kids. I completely understand what you wrote. I did not mean to be such a brat.)

My very best regards,

...behai.

Originally Posted by chook

I have seen that you can buy planes for a whole lot more than I paid. But given that the most I have ever paid for a plane before was $2 spending more than $250 was quite a step up in the world. I saw some really beautiful Australian wooden planes at the wood show. The ones at the Holtey site are as much works of art as tools.

I was going to buy a drum sander instead, when I went to the wood show. But there is not much skill involved in that. I want to be able to get nicely finishd panels for kitchen cupboard doors and I decided that I would plane then flat by hand rather than use a machine. I hope that the Veritas plane will do the job.

I have some real sympathy for men who look at tool catalogues and who cannot justify the expense. I have raised a large family on a single income. Now they are all grown up and moved out. For years I looked at these sorts of tools and wondered what they might be like. But there were always school fees and clothes to buy. The kids thought they deserved to be given at least 3 meals a day and the food bill for a large family is not cheap. But they are all adults now with their own lives and families so in recent years I have been spending previously unimaginable sums of money on my hobby. I believe Carbatec are in the process of setting up a permanent under cover reserved parking space for me.

Originally Posted by behai

Good evening Chook,

I sincerely apologise if I have been seen as a show off. I did not mean it like that at all. This is a new world for me, and I am very enthusiastic about it.

(My father was imprisoned by the communists for a long time after 1975, my mother was left alone with three kids. I completely understand what you wrote. I did not mean to be such a brat.)

My very best regards,

...behai.

Relax my friend. Relax. I have read carefully over what you wrote and for the life of me I cannot see what you mean! I doubt that anybody thought you were showing off. But if you ever do feel like showing off then these forums are just the place to do it! In fact if you do not show of every so often you might be kicked off the forum! The best thing about this forum is that almost everybody on it feels the same as you do and completely understands the excitement of using, collecting and playing with tools. I for one, look forward to reading a lot more about your tools, what you own, how you got them and how much pleasure or pain they give you.

I suppose that most of us are on some sort of budget. We look through the tool catalogues and dream a bit. Then we save and wait and buy. The working towards the goal of ownership is a large part of the pleasure and you must feel free to share that pleasure with us all.

Hi Chook

Enjoy the plane - it is one of the very best smoothers money can buy at any price!

What angle is the bevel of the blade? The BUS is a dedicated smoother, and as such - on Australian interlocked hardwoods - it pays to use a 50 degree bevel for a 62 degree cutting angle. That combination will fear no wood!

Yell out if you need information on preparing your BUS this way.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Hi Chook

Enjoy the plane - it is one of the very best smoothers money can buy at any price!

What angle is the bevel of the blade? The BUS is a dedicated smoother, and as such - on Australian interlocked hardwoods - it pays to use a 50 degree bevel for a 62 degree cutting angle. That combination will fear no wood!

Yell out if you need information on preparing your BUS this way.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Dear Derek
In fact that was just what I was wondering. So while I have your ear I do have a few questions. I don't know what angle the thing came sharpened to from the factory but I did wonder what angle I should use. I have a Veritas honing jig that I just bought. It has a little knob that raises the bevel angle ever so slightly once you have ground the primary bevel-a degree or so. Is it necessary to do this on the BU smoother or will a straight 50 degrees be okay? Indeed what is the point of grinding a secondary bevel at all? Until I got the honing jig I sharpened everything by hand and never put a secondary bevel on anything. Also with regard to sharpening in general, I use a 6000 grit king water stone. Is there any real advantage to going any finer? As it is the planes and chisels I have seem to work nicely. And lastly I read your review of the Veritas 20 TPI dovetail saw. Is there any point in paying a whole lot more for a Pax saw or something from LN. Thank you for your help. Your tool reviews are far and away the best on the Internet.

I have taken to using the smoother to finish boards and panels. I was going to get a drum sander for large panels but the smoother leaves a glassy surface, makes very little dust, no noise and is a heap more fun to use.

Hi Chook

I suspect that the BUS blade comes with a 38 degree blade. This would create a 50 degree cutting angle, which is good for most things except interlocked grain.

The "little knob" on the honing guide creates a secondary micro bevel. This is very handy when you just want to add a fresh bevel without regrinding. Of course, you do not "need" to do so. It is an option.

The point of honing a secondary bevel is to reduce the amount of steel to a minimum. Less steel to hone = less time and less effort.

Less steel also allows you to hone a fine camber across the blade, and this prevents track lines.

I always recommend getting blades with a 25 degree primary bevel, and then adding the desired secondary bevel angle in after this. It makes it possible to use a camber. It is extremely difficult to add a camber to a 50 degree primary bevel - too much steel. Of course, it you only want to use a straight bevel, then stay with the way your blade is prepared. Sooner or later, however, you will want to change.

Here is an article I wrote on this topic: The secret to cambering Bevel Up plane blades

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by chook

I believe Carbatec are in the process of setting up a permanent under cover reserved parking space for me.

A timely honour, and well-deserved

Originally Posted by derekcohen

The BUS is a dedicated smoother, and as such - on Australian interlocked hardwoods - it pays to use a 50 degree bevel for a 62 degree cutting angle. That combination will fear no wood!

Derek, I think you and/or Ian and/or someone-else () have said that a higher (bed) angle means more resistance to the planing effort. Does that take some of the fun out of it? For example, if you had a BUS and two blades - 38o and 50o - and the higher angle wasn't required for a given largish piece of work, would you change back to the 38o blade?

Thanks,
Paul