Lateral Thinking !

One of the minor points levelled against bevel up planes is that their capacity for lateral adjustment is limited because the cutting iron is nestled down between the side wings.

Here's a quick and easy way to give your bevel up plane as much lateral adjustment as a bevel down one.

First mark up the sides of the iron with a permanent marker so that you can monitor your progress.

Next carefully hold the blade over a linisher (a well secured upturned belt sander will do if you don't have one). Allow the shoulder of the blade to make contact first and then gently lower the blade until the sparks start just behind your thumb. You are aiming for this:

A nice even taper running from about halfway up the iron to the shoulder, taking about 1.5mm to 2mm out of the width on each side at the shoulder.

The result:

About twice as much adjustment as you had with the parallel sided iron, and the front end remains parallel so it will still fit into a side clamping honing guide.

The Quangsheng iron I am using here is differentially hardened carbon steel (only hardened from the slot down so that the soft upper part dampens vibration). Air hardening steels are all or nothing, so if you try this with an A2 blade the whole thing will be hard and it may take a little longer to grind back.

First photos of the new Quangsheng No. 62 Low Angle Jack Plane

The first shipment of the new Quangsheng Low Angle Jack Planes arrived this afternoon. I'm still unpacking the pallets but curiosity got the better of me so I stopped to have a play. Like all blokes the first thing I did was have a beaker under the bonnet - or in this case brushed stainless steel lever cap.

The lever cap has a countersunk keyhole so you can wind off anything up to three full rotations on the top knob, turn the whole plane upside down and shake it without any of the gubbins falling out - nice touch guys!

Lifting the cutting iron out we see the double threaded Norris type adjuster, This has a coarse thread running through the big dowel pin that seats into the casting and a finer thread through the small dowel that engages the cutting iron. The overall effect one minus the other, so you get roughly a 2:1 mechanical advantage and a fine, silky smooth adjustment. The one thing I'm not overly keen on about the Norris is that it combines lateral and projection adjustment in one, but as Norris adjusters go this is certainly a well engineered example.

Enough engineering, let's plane some wood!!! First up, a small piece of rippled sycamore yielded gossamer shavings with the 25 degree iron. I tried cutting with the left and right sides of the iron as well as the centre and couldn't make the blade shift position at all.

Time for something a little more exotic - this is a piece of Corrugatta or Rib Fruited Mallee, (RFM for short mate!) that I hit up with the 50 degree iron. If I had sharpened it first I dare say I could probably have got more continuous shavings, but in a sudden fit of pandering to the 'yebbut how does it work 'out of the box?' crowd' I was still able to take the top of this piece from bandsawn to this, with only the factory ground edge on the iron.

Since versatility is the whole point of low angle jack planes we are bundling a free 38 and 50 degree iron in with each plane as well as the standard 25 degree one that comes with it. After all, a Swiss army knife with only one blade is just another penknife!

Overall impression: This one's mine! Yours is here: Quangsheng No. 62 Low Angle Jack Plane at Workshop Heaven.

Oh, nearly forgot the price. £129.50 including VAT (and delivery if you are in UK, Eire, France, Germany or Benelux)

New Quangsheng Adjustable Spokeshave

I managed to find a few moments today to try out the new Quangsheng adjustable spokeshave. As usual the quality of the casting and overall finish are very good. At 484grams (1lb) it's a touch heavier than I was expecting but has a reassuringly solid feel in the hand.

The cutting iron was sharp enough to work with straight out of the box and with the capscrew slackened off by half a turn the adjusters give a sufficiently fine degree of control over the blade projection. The only thing I did need to do was tighten up the adjuster screws into the body, a dab of threadlock may be useful here although so far just nipping them up finger tight seems to have done the trick.

The sole is flat and nicely finished. It did occur to me that there is plenty of meat there if you wanted to file it convex, if this proves a popular idea we may even get some made that way at a later date.

Sneak Previews

Our New Continental Hand Stitched Rasps will be available shortly, there has been a minor delay as we altered the handle design slightly at the last minute. That said the results will be beautiful and it's better to get them absolutely spot on from the outset than rush them through and have to make changes later.

The new range of Narex Cabinetmakers Chisels are in production and will be available shortly. The edges are finer than the originals and the backs are correctly hollowed by around 6 thou in the length so they are very quick to prepare using 100 micron film and rapidly come into tolerance for fine work. The steel is the same bainitic chrome manganese steel used on the originals, austempered to RC59 for a deep even hardness and very high strength. The handles will be hornbeam, stained black with gold lettering and brassed ferrules.

Coming soon - the new Quangsheng Low Angle Jack Plane! This is the first photo we have of this new addition to the Quangsheng range and although it's unlikely to be here in time for Christmas, I'm sure it will prove to be a very popular tool.

The mouth is adjustable by means of a movable front sole, and depth of cut adjustment comes courtesy of a smooth and precise V2 mechanism similar to that found on the new Quangsheng block planes.

New Quangsheng Bench Planes

The new Quangsheng bench planes are now available and will completely replace the original versions once existing stocks run out. The pressed steel lateral adjuster has been replaced with a fabricted one made from steel and brass with a guide bearing. The yoke that advances the iron is a little more meaty and we have switched from grasstree handles to Chinese rosewood. The lever cap is cast stainless with a fine brushed finish. We have stuck with the original 40cr cast steel bodies and T10 cutting irons as we believe that they are more highly specified than any of the alternatives.

Quangsheng V2 Block Planes

So what's the difference between the V1 and a V2 Quangsheng block planes?

The photo above shows the two side by side, V1 (left) had a fixed threaded rod with a solid brass nut that engaged a single through slot in the top of the cutting iron. V2 (right) has a screw that runs directly into the plane body, with a captive bracket that runs in a machined groove in the top of the pillar.

The new adjuster is smoother in use and has a finer thread pitch, so the cutting iron advances a shorter distance for each turn of the knob, giving more precise control over the depth of cut. It also has less tendancy to alter the lateral setting while altering the depth of cut. The bracket engages two out of 10 slots in the underside of the cutting iron - finer threads means less travel, which means you need more slots in order to use the full length of the blade.

Here's another photo showing the two threads:

The Quangsheng V2 standard angle block planes and low angle block planes are both supplied with a 25 degree and 38 degree cutting iron. The 25 degree blade gives a 37 degree pitch in the low angle for predominantly crossgrain and endgrain work. Although personally I don't find a huge difference from 45 to 37 I admit that it does make the tool a little easier to push through the cut. Install the 38 degree blade and you are up to 50 degrees (york pitch) for predominantly long grain work.

With the standard angle plane, the 25 degree iron gives you common pitch and the 38 degree blade takes you up to just a couple of degrees shy of cabinet pitch (60 degrees). I am very much convinced of the benefits of steeper pitches for working very hard timbers and interlocking grain.

We have also had 38 degree irons made for the V1 block planes for those that want them, as well as 50 degree irons for V2s that give 62 degree pitch in the low angle block and 70 in the standard angle. Although you are still technically planing at 70 degrees the tool functions more like a scraper plane - I'm sure that this option will be popular with instrument makers.

The rebating block plane is supplied with a 25 degree iron. As these tools are usually used more like a shoulder plane it seemed to be overkill to offer the irons in different pitches. Replacement 25 degree irons are available for both the V1 and V2 versions and steeper piches could be obtained by honing a secondary bevel.

The other tweek was changing the cap screw from flat to countersunk, which has helped to keep the cap in place whilst adjusting the iron and reduced the chance of the cap shifting in use - this modification did sneak into some of the newer V1s.

So that's it for the block planes, I'm happy that we have now got them pretty much to where I wanted them to be. I will try to get some toothed irons done though for both the block and the bench planes as I think this would expand their versatility even further.

Clifton Anniversary Planes

The first delivery of Clifton Anniversary Planes arrived this afternoon and are packed up and booked for collection by UPS tomorrow. Once the sold ones have all been processed we will receive the remainder for stock. We still have one complete numbered set available, if this has not sold by the time the planes arrive we will split the set and offer them individually.

Quangsheng Block Planes

This morning we received a shipment of planes from Quangsheng. Megan has been working like a Trojan getting all the back orders processed and booking the rest into stock, so if you had one on back order it was dispatched today.

The production department managed to get all of the V2 upgrades into the low angle block plane but couldn't get the 38 and 50 degree blades ready in time for this shipment.

The V2 low angle comes with a 25 and 38 degree blade as standard, so we are sending them out with the 25 degree blades installed and the 38 degree blades will follow automatically as soon as they arrive.

The rebating and standard angle block planes have some of the V2 modifications but not the fine thread adjuster, so we have put them back up on the website as V1's and reduced the price accordingly.

Customers who had on order a V2 standard angle block plane or low angle rebating block plane will be sent a V1 spec plane and given the option to swap it (all expenses paid) for a new, full V2 spec one when the next batch arrive. We will put up separate listings shortly so that customers who want to pre-order full V2 spec rebating and standard angle blocks can do so.

Apologies for the confusion, the guys in China have worked extremely hard to accommodate us and have carried out our instructions beautifully. I managed to find a few moments to play with one of the V2 low angle block planes today and it is just the sweetest little thing in the whole world.

Clifton Anniversary planes update

News just in from Sheffield - The first of the Clifton Anniversary planes are nearing completion and will ship in the next couple of weeks.

The planes are having the final touches applied - etching the cutting irons with the number of the plane that they will be supplied with. Planes that have been pre-ordered already will be dispatched first, the remainder will follow a week or so later.

The factory have asked us to supply them with Shield Technology VanGuard Anti-Rust Coating to provide extra protection for these tools as some of them may be stored for a long period of time.

We were lucky enough to grab an additional allocation of planes, so we still have one or two of each size available.

Carpe Diem

Amid speculation as to whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer will raise VAT to 20% in tomorrow's budget (Tuesday 22nd of July), we have extended our Father's Day promotion on all British made products until after the announcement. It would be pointless for me to change all the prices and then have to change them again 24 hours later. So if you are thinking about a Clifton Plane, Atkinson Walker Sawblade or some Ashley Iles Chisels, sieze the day!

More Haste – Less Speed

When you first start working with handplanes it is inevitable that sooner or later you will come across the problem of tearout. It is a common problem and every time you think you’ve cracked it another tricky piece of timber comes along that doesn’t want to play nicely. It usually happens because the grain of the timber is not all flowing in the same direction so the cutting edge of the plane iron is no longer cutting the fibres but instead is splitting them away from the surrounding material.

There are a broad range of weapons in the cabinetmakers arsenal to tackle this issue but it’s all too easy for experienced makers to omit the first and easiest way when they are advising others on how to tackle it, probably because they do it habitually and without thinking.

Assuming your plane iron is sharp, the first port of call when you experience tearout is to slow down – right down. Nothing else changes, your stance, distribution of pressure on the plane, angle of the plane to the work, all remain exactly the same, you just take your good old time - perhaps ten seconds or so per foot of timber planed.

Observe the shaving as it emerges from the mouth, the shaving contains a wealth of information about what just happened at the cutting edge. Holes with flowing shapes and very thin frail edges indicate low spots, changes in the texture of the shaving indicate patches of reversing grain that the plane is coping with already and jagged holes with thick edges indicate areas that it is not coping with.

Quite often the simple act of slowing down is enough to either make the problem disappear completely or reduce it to a couple of thumbprint sized patches that can be cleaned up afterwards with a thin cabinet scraper.

The next simple step is closing up the mouth to a slit and backing off the depth of cut so that the plane is only just cutting, a really light wispy shaving invariably produces a finer surface finish than a thicker one.

Honing your cutting iron is the next step, as the first few passes with a freshly honed iron are much less prone to tearout. The final finishing passes on a piece of timber should always be taken with a freshly honed cutting iron, regardless of whether you only honed it five minutes ago or not.

Only when you have worked your way through the 'low hanging fruit' that requires no additional kit and the bare minimum of extra time should you start thinking about steeper pitches or scraping.

Latest deliveries

Just a quick one to let you know that we recieved a delivery from Ashley Iles today. So if you have been hanging on for bevel edged chisels or a particular carving or turning tool, the chances are that we now have it in. Stock levels on the website will be updated within the next 24 hours.

The delivery also included the new Peter Benson 1/32" V-Tools, as advertised in this month's Woodcarving Magazine. As far as we know these are the smallest V-Tools ever made, perfect for details like the veining on feathers, fine hair and subtle foliage textures.

Also recently arrived are a small top up of Clifton no. 7s (already up) and a selection of lime carving blanks which will be photographed and listed over the next week or so. Our Clifton promotion finishes at the end of the month, so if you want to place an order for one at the sale price (regardless of whether it's in stock or not) please give us a ring and we can backorder it for you.

The Eagle Has Landed!

Finally! The first pallet of planes arrived today from Quangsheng and I have been busy unpacking and inspecting a sample of each type, taking photos, etc.

First impressions:

Better than expected - a lot better than expected; I was hoping for a budget alternative to the big three, a compromise that would suit folks with limited funds, something that would need less fettling than a vintage tool and might perhaps appeal to pro-cabinetmakers for rougher jobs like Jack planing.

What we have ended up with are a very serious range of tools indeed.

My concerns about the irons were completely unfounded, they are beautifully ground, rock hard and take that spine chillingly sharp edge that you only get with properly heat treated carbon steel.

The machining on the bodies is excellent, I stripped a low angle rebating block plane this afternoon and put the sole up against a straight edge – a nice triangle of light between the mouth and the back indicating that the casting had been correctly pre-tensioned as it was ground. After re-inserting the iron and lightly nipping up the cap to working tension (less than half a turn past the point where the blade advance is free enough to work) the triangular gap was gone. It may not sound like much, but getting that just right is a really clever bit of metalworking.

I would have absolutely no qualms about putting these tools in front of some of the top cabinetmakers in the country, they really are that good.

So, perhaps we had better make that the big FOUR from now on!!!

Quangsheng Planes

Today we have made the final payment and received shipping information on an order of planes from Quangsheng Tools in China. We have been looking for an acceptable range of budget handplanes for a couple of years now, and after six months of intense questioning these guys seem to have come up with the right answers.

The planes were originally developed with the help of Woodcraft in the USA, where they are marketed as Wood River planes. Unusually they are cast from steel rather than iron, a very good but expensive way of doing things that I had previously thought to be the preserve of infill planes. I asked for a copy of the specs and it is a low carbon steel (anything under 2% carbon is steel) with a high chromium content so it should have reasonably good corrosion resistance too.

I also asked about their grinding and was told that they anneal the castings before grinding them and was sent this photo showing a nice big solid bed grinder - important as it acts as a heat sink as well as pretensioning the body and holding it absolutely rock steady as it passes under the grinding wheel. A steady flow of coolant again reduces the chance of the body being stressed by the introduction of heat.

For the handles I have opted for Chinese grasstree wood, they also offer rosewood handles which they apparently buy in from England. From an environmental perspective I couldn't justify using a far eastern timber that has been transported here, shaped, sent all the way back to China and then brought all the way back here again, it seems ludicrous. So the stuff that is local to the place of manufacture, and apparently grows like a weed seemed by far the best bet, I have used grasstree handled tools before and although somewhat plain, it is stout and perfectly acceptable.

The one thing that does concern me is the use of T10 (the Chinese equivalent of W1) for the irons, this can vary hugely depending on the heat treatment, specifically the hardness of the water that is quenched in. Soft water does lovely things to tool steel whilst hard water tends to do the opposite. I haven't been able to find any definite information on the hardness of the water where they are made so we shall just have to wait and see. If it comes to the crunch we can always replace the blades or re-do the heat treatment.

The big question now is how fast TNT can get them here. They rather unhelpfully quote 10 days plus, which could mean anything.

*Update* We have upgraded the shipping option so they should be here at the beginning of December, just in time for Free Shipping Fortnight!!!!

It's all coming together!

I absolutely love this time of year, there is so much going on. It's like the point in a run where you have just broken through 'the wall' and seem to be pulled along by a wave of momentum.

Christmas is a real make-or-break time for us and the work that began at the end of August is now coming close to fruition. Thankfully this year we have had a very strong third quarter, so cashflow for Christmas stock is much less of a concern than usual.

Around now we start receiving stock deliveries from our suppliers. All the new products have to be photographed and listed, the magazines need artwork for the Chistmas advertising campaign and in the warehouse there is lots of work to do pre-packaging kits and making room for new lines (including selling off all the odds and ends on the Workshop Heaven ebay shop).

The C.I. Fall bevelled firmers are already up on the website and the first of the morticers will follow shortly. The new Famag carbide tipped augers and Forstner bits are up as well and we have just added new website sections for Christmas gift ideas and stocking stuffers.

A huge box arrived this afternoon from Mora of Sweden with lots of new knife blades and assorted goodies and we are eagerly awaiting a pallet of planes from Quangsheng Tools in China (don't worry we won't be trying to fob anyone off that they are American!). They have however been developed in close conjunction with Woodcraft, who are American, and are tipped to be reasonably good copies of early Stanleys made in cast steel, bronze and brass. Combined with a selection of optional upgrade plane blades by Ray Iles I think they could prove quite popular.

At the same time there are family traditions to keep up with as well - last weekend we got together with some mates and pressed a batch of cider for Christmas 2010, I reckon 80 gallons should be about enough to slake our thirst from next year's Christmas campaign!!!

Clifton Prices

Just a quick heads up that the new Clico pricelist is due out at the end of the month. They are normally pretty reasonable, just normal inflationary corrections, but if you want to grab a nice new Clifton plane at the 2008/9 prices, now's the time!

I have put in an order to top up our stock at the old prices. I will show the new prices as soon as we get them, but then put everything on special at the old prices until we run out. This seems like the fairest way of doing it for all concerned.