Thread: Advice" Luban Low Angle Plane

Originally Posted by aldav

There is no lateral adjuster on this plane. The only adjustment that is available is by tilting the blade on the blade bed.

It actually has a Norris style combined blade and lateral adjuster:
867144DF-71F8-45BB-ADF8-D3C236302B13.jpeg

I have the same plane; bought back in January. I also purchased the 50 degree blade for it and so far it’s the only blade I’ve used in it. The regular blade hasn’t yet been touched; that one will be dedicated for use in my new shooting board.

To prove if the blade, bed and mouth are all square and can be aligned together assemble the plane with only the very lightest amount of pressure on the cap and the mouth wide open. Then grab the back of the blade with a couple of fingers and the other hand on the adjuster and physically drag the back of the blade from side to side as far as it will go while checking that the business end of the blade is either staying in the centre of the mouth or swinging in the opposite direction. What you are trying to achieve is proof that it is physically possible at some point to get the blade edge square to the mouth.

The Norris style adjuster is a bit of a pig to get used to; I find that you have to have a very light set on the lever cap while making any adjustments. What I suspect may be happening is that the front of the blade is moving laterally as well as the back; essentially pivoting somewhere in the middle. Many Veritas planes avoid this by engineering in a couple of grub screws that bear on either side of the blade edge right at the very front thus preventing any lateral movement. In your 2nd & 3rd photos you can clearly see that the blade is skewed across the plane bed with the opposite corners jammed into the sides of the body; you need to manually centre the blade. This may involve having to lever the front of the blade away from the plane side by inserting a thin screwdriver blade into the gap between them. Once the blade is central you should only need minute lateral adjustments; but also bear in mind that due to the fundamental design of the Norris system as you adjust the blade depth you are also moving it laterally. The more depth you dial on the bigger the angle of skew. As I said earlier; a bit of a pig! Have a read up on Ian Wilkie’s (forum name IanW) plane build threads where he describes the design and shortcomings of the Norris system much clearer than I am trying to here.

BTW; the 50 degree blade gives a tearout-free finish on cranky redgum! Only my Stanley 112 scraper plane can match it.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

the mouth opening in the third photo looks anything but parallel. It looks wider on the right hand side in the photo.

Possibly; but I’m tempted to think that it the camera wasn’t square on to the sole. Can’t really explain it but it just looks that way to me. A quick test would be to check it with an engineers square; although pulling the blade out and closing the mouth up with the adjustable toe should also highlight if it’s burgered.

This web site shows the anatomy of a low angle jack:

1. while you said The photo shows the adjuster fully to the right to obtain that central scroll. What I saw was the lateral adjuster is still in a neutral position. Did you move the adjuster from side to side?
2. I don't have a Luban but a Veritas. The Veritas has two grub screws to adjust how tight the iron is seated on the frog. If you have these grub screws that have screwed too far into the body, the iron will not sit properly.
3. The mouth might actually be square but rather the iron is not seated properly after looking at the 1st photo from the right again.

Whoops, I didn't realise that these planes have lateral adjustment available through the blade advancement mechanism. Regardless, it's fairly obvious from the OP's posts and pictures that there is something seriously amiss with his plane, something that he has no prospect of fixing himself. These planes are pretty simple beasts, any adjustments available are basic and they are not hard to set up. It seems pointless mucking around with the thing.

I think you've got a poorly-machined blade bed that isn't parallel with the sole. Having made quite a few low-angle beds, I can assure you it only needs to be a fraction off parallel to the sole and it will skew the mouth enough to require very large corrections to get even edge protrusion. So if it is visibly off, as it seems, that's far enough that the amount of lateral adjustment will be insufficient to correct the uneven blade protrusion, which is what you have described. You could 'fix' the problem by simply re-grinding the blade with a slight angle so you get even protrusion with it in the 'neutral' position, and pretend you have a skewed plane...

But I reckon the wiser course would be to send it back - it's a QC issue that they need to be aware of. It would be hard to fix properly, correcting a canted bed is not a job for the faint-hearted, and requires some filing skills you may not be prepared to acquire. It's really not worth the bother.

I also have one of these planes, which had a couple of minor issues 'out of the box', as I recall, like the lever-cap screw hole being too tight, making it very difficult to slip the LC on & off, but they were easily corrected and it now performs at least as well as my Veritas LA smoother. It certainly had no lateral-adjustment problems, thank goodness..

Cheers,

Is the hole in the blade for the peg on the adjuster on centre? If it's not dead on the centreline of the blade, the adjuster will need to be off to one side to compensate.

If the centring hole was off centre then it would only result in the lateral adjuster having to be to one side for the blade to be straight and get a full shaving setting. This plane requires the adjuster to be fully to one side to get a partial shaving and the blade is highly scewed. It's not that.

Originally Posted by 62woollybugger

Is the hole in the blade for the peg on the adjuster on centre? If it's not dead on the centreline of the blade, the adjuster will need to be off to one side to compensate.

Can you confirm whether or not the MOUTH is square across the sole? In one of your photos the mouth looks to be skewed or tapered; I’m erring towards the cause being camera angle but if I’m wrong then the plane is more screwed than skewed and needs returning.

I’ll support Woolybuggers post on the importance of the peg hole in the blade needing to be central. The Norris system absolutely relies on the peg hole and the adjuster being dead central in the body and the blade being square across the end.

Mouth is square. Blade is square.

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

Can you confirm whether or not the MOUTH is square across the sole? In one of your photos the mouth looks to be skewed or tapered; I’m erring towards the cause being camera angle but if I’m wrong then the plane is more screwed than skewed and needs returning.

I’ll support Woolybuggers post on the importance of the peg hole in the blade needing to be central. The Norris system absolutely relies on the peg hole and the adjuster being dead central in the body and the blade being square across the end.

Thank you for your input to this issue. I have taken up Timbercon's offer to swap it out.

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

I’ll support Woolybuggers post on the importance of the peg hole in the blade needing to be central. The Norris system absolutely relies on the peg hole and the adjuster being dead central in the body and the blade being square across the end.

I'd qualify that just a little, Chief. There is about the same amount of lateral adjustment available on my Norris A5 as on my Stanley #4, so you can handle the same degree of "off square" of the edge, which isn't very much, of course, in either case.

As to the necessity of the peg or spigot holes being dead centre, that also depends. For argument's sake, lets say the hole is a couple mm off-centre (that would be pretty extreme & pretty obvious), you still have the same amount of lateral adjustment either way provided there is nothing to obstruct the shaft or the banjo/'spigot' at the business end. In the case of my Norris, there is some extra room in the channel in the woodwork for the banjo to slew a little more, but the channel in the top of the handle for the outer part of the shaft is pretty tight, so I suspect I would have some trouble with a blade that had the spigot holes more than a little bit off. OTH, on my 62 clone, which I'm assuming will be similar to the one under discussion, there is room for the outer end of the shaft to slew a bit extra to left or right, & quite a bit of room at the spigot end too, so it would cope with holes that were a bit off-centre, though not sure how much it could manage.

For the bed, it takes very little deviation from parallel to have an effect, & that effect increases exponentially as the bed gets lower. Somewhere, quite a few years ago & I can't remember where (might have been in a LV newsletter), I saw something by Rob Lee where he was talking about machining the beds for their low-angle planes & how it had caused them some anxious times getting them accurate & consistent.

If the bed is machined to a sharp edge, the back of the mouth should be a smidgin off-square to support my theory. In practice, most makers take a bit off the edge so it isn't sharp & fragile, so it doesn't surprise me if the back of the mouth appears to be square - you need to hold it up to the light so you can see the end of the bed, & if it is rectangular or slightly wedge-shaped. All else seems to have checked-out ok, so if that isn't the cause, I'm beat....

Cheers,

For the bed, it takes very little deviation from parallel to have an effect, & that effect increases exponentially as the bed gets lower. Somewhere, quite a few years ago & I can't remember where (might have been in a LV newsletter), I saw something by Rob Lee where he was talking about machining the beds for their low-angle planes & how it had caused them some anxious times getting them accurate & consistent.

This is quite true, Ian. The angles involved on BU planes magnify the smallest of errors. It is really good reason to be dealing with a maker with a strong emphasis on QC. There is a reason why some of the cheaper planes are just that.Not that you cannot get a good 'un, but that the probability for doing so strongly favours the more expensive model from the companies that had reputations for excellent quality control and backup service.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

backup service.

It would appear that the OP is getting that from Timbecon and, based on my own experience of quality Chinese manufacturers, I would be very surprised if Quangsheng will not be offering the same service to Timbecon.

Originally Posted by aldav

It would appear that the OP is getting that from Timbecon and, based on my own experience of quality Chinese manufacturers, I would be very surprised if Quangsheng will not be offering the same service to Timbecon.

Actually, no, that is not what I meant. Going back to Timbecon is an extra step. The fact that Timbecon is supportive is a feather in their cap. Wonderful! (I can think of another "company" that sells Luban and they need to be avoided like the plague - you would be bugger all support from them).

What I was not clear in stating is that the chances of having to return a tool to the representative for that tool (Timbecon in this case) is less likely if the tool was manufactured by a company with better QC. That is part of why you pay the higher price ... not having to return the tool in the first place.

Regards from Perth

Derek