Lie Nielsen vs. Veritas

A couple of years ago I wanted to order a left handed Skew Block Plane from Lie-Nielsen Toolworks in Warren, Maine so I called their Canadian representative, Rob Cosman. At the time Rob informed me that the left handed version was back-ordered and said he had a right handed model available. He assured me it didn’t really matter if I had the left or right model because it would always depend on the grain direction when planing a rabbet if I needed a specific orientation of hand plane. Trusting Rob knew what he was talking about I went ahead and ordered it. He was right, no big deal that it was a right handed version, it exceeded my expectations and has been a pleasure to use these last few years. Late this summer Veritas introduced their Skew Rabbet Plane also available in a left or right handed version; I decided that those times when my right-handed Lie-Nielsen would tear out wood grain when planing against the grain I would order the new Veritas left handed model. It arrived quickly and well packaged as all of my Veritas tools have. Sharp and ready to go I was surprised at the size of the plane.
Now that I have one of each I’ll compare what I think are the advantages and dis-advantages of each one of these models. First up,
The Lie-Nielson Skew Block Plane:

When this plane arrived in my mailbox it was ready to work right out of the box. Finely casted bronze with a comfortable front knob in Cherry. The plane set up quite easily and even though it was a right-handed model it felt quite comfortable in use. I decided to add a longer fence to the existing bronze one that came with the plane and the folks at Lie-Nielsen had already tapped out a couple of holes just for this purpose. The plane comes with a nicker that’s great for scoring a line just before your cut which seems to help a great deal at eliminating any tear out. I find the size of this plane suits my hand very well but one problem I do encounter while using it is it can sometimes wander away from the inside edge of a rabbet while in use. I’m not sure exactly why this occurs, I try my best at keeping it firmly registered against the side of the work being planed however it still can wander just enough to leave a bit of material on the inside corner. I wonder if the Lie-Nielsen had a second post to support the fence would it correct this problem? This small left-over material is something I’ll correct by finishing off the cut with my small shoulder plane. Not a big deal but one negative against. Another item is the Lie-Nielsen model has no depth adjustment or fence. Again, not the end of the world but a depth stop would be handy when you want to cut to a certain depth and no deeper. I would not hesitate to recommend anyone purchasing this hand plane or any other models from Lie-Nielsen.

Veritas Skew Rabbet Plane

I’ll start of with saying one of the obvious differences you’ll notice right away in these two planes is size. This is not a one handed tool. Perhaps this entire article is a little ‘apples to oranges’…I know the Lie-Nilesen is technically a block plane and the Veritas clearly is not. So why bother comparing? Why not.
The Veritas came sharp right out of the box, great except that the front edge of the bottom fence and the front leading edges on the depth stop were also sharp enough to tear out some wood grain while in use. This I quickly fixed by taking a few light passes with a small file and finishing up with some 320 grit wet/dry paper. Problem solved but still my first experience with this kind of thing from Veritas…perhaps this one was made on a Friday? I also find the Veritas a little bulkier which makes set up and blade adjustment a little tricky. I’m one who likes to see down through the throat of my plane while I’m taking a shaving however the Skew Rabbet design makes this almost impossible to do while standing over it working. The design is aesthetically pleasing, it seems to have some extra ‘contours’ molded into the body just above the mouth and throat area. I’m not sure if these are there to aid in handling however, I found that they created a kind of ‘catch all’ for shavings and needed to be cleaned out after every other pass. Some advantages I found on the Veritas are these: The double pole for the bottom fence keeps things super straight and performance at cutting down a 1/4″ Rabbet in Walnut was effortless. (once I rounded over the sharp edges and finely tuned the set-up) The large front knob is also extremely nice, they also put it on an angle or skew. Having the depth stop is also great for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Another big difference between these two planes is the over-all blade set-up. This is more of a bench plane and features a bevel down blade while the Lie-Nielsen has the blade bevel up. This again is neither here or there except this: The Lie-Nielsen can be used in all sorts of planing scenarios, simply remove the fence and you basically have a nice big block plane. That said the veritas is pretty much dedicated to what it was made for. Hey, we are what we are…So with that can I say I prefer one over the other? No not really, in my perfect plane world my Skew Plane would be about the size of the Lie-Nielsen, have all of the same features it has but borrow the depth stop, the angled, slightly larger front knob and the double pole system for the fence, from the Veritas model and I think it would be ‘damn near perfect’. I’ll also suggest if you’ve been thinking about purchasing a Skew plane either one of these fine tools are far more than standard or adequate. They each have a few pluses and minuses but hey, nothing is perfect. In my shop the great thing is this; I needed a left handed model and a right handed model…so do what I did and get one of each.
Cheers!

A Natural Progression

Sometimes I’ll meet fellow woodworkers who don’t yet utilise a shooting board in their workshop arsenal. In my mind I think that they don’t fully understand how much this simple appliance can help hand tool users accurately perform tasks in woodworking. This article is not about the shooting board as much as it’s about my personal journey through the stages of shooting board hand planes. Let’s begin…

A few years back I made myself my first shooting board, at the time I had a nice old Stanley #5 Jack plane; it’s 14″ long and at just under 5 lbs it made for a great shooting plane. It had been given to me by my father who acquired it from my grand uncle, John Pier; he probably bought it new some fifty-plus years earlier. When I got it it had the usual signs of good use, some light surface rust, a small crack in the tote and some dirt and grease. I took the plane, cleaned and oiled it, flattened the sole and replaced the iron and chip breaker with Ron Hock replacements. I also replaced the original knob and tote with some aftermarket Rosewood replacements. This thing shined like a new dime and worked like a dream. One cold, early morning in February I was about to begin trimming a few shavings off of some nice birds eye maple when it fell to the cold, hard cement floor of my then un-heated shop. As my stomach turned, I was afraid to look down…cracked. Completely in half at the throat…the old cast body was no match for the cement of my garage-turned-wood shop and I felt like I was going to need a psychiatric evaluation. Well, to make a long story longer I decided to try my hand at plane making. I had recently read The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking by James Krenov and was looking for an excuse to make a, what has now become known as the ‘Krenov style plane’.

I modeled the overall dimensions of the wooden bodied, dedicated shooter after my old Stanley (RIP). The new plane turned out to be in the 14″ length by 2 1/4″ wide. I used a nice piece of quarter sawn white Oak harvested and milled close to my home back in Cape Breton and to add even more protection/armour I laminated a piece of Jatoba to the sole creating a versatile shooting/Jack plane. I also used the Jatoba for the wedge and cross pin. Again, using a custom Ron Hock chip breaker and iron, I was quite pleased with the results. Well at least for a few days…it turned out that even in my attempt to make the plane sides accurately square to the sole I missed my mark a little. The plane functioned perfectly as a kind of Jack/Smoother, but as a shooting plane it just wasn’t up to snuff. So on to brighter days. The spring time came after that long, lonely winter and I decided it was time to replace the old #5. I did some research and discovered a modern replacement that not only would be an ideal shooting plane, it by far exceeded my good ‘ol buddy Jack.

The Lie-Nielsen # 5 1/2.
Amazing, simply amazing. What more could be said, this thing arrived right out of the box ready to work. It’s just over 14″ long and weighs in at a whopping 7 lbs. As a dedicated Shooting plane I’ve been quite happy using this tool day in and day out. Sometimes while smoothing larger panels like the top for a trestle table I built last year, I would re-adjust the mouth and actually use the 5 1/2 as an over sized Smoothing plane. Again the performance of this plane excelled and for jointing short boards, ideal. You won’t ever regret owning this heirloom quality hand plane. And with that I say, “Why stop there?”

Bring out the IRON MITER…

That feeling of revelation or better said, awe inspired-mouth hanging open, dumb-foundedness I sensed all those years ago when I finally decided to build a shooting board came flooding back this past week when my Lie-Nielsen # 9 arrived from their head office in Warren, Maine. To finally know and truly feel what a dedicated Shooting plane is like was really something special. This thing smokes! Seriously, if you were ever half considering but couldn’t justify purchasing a ‘dedicated’ hand plane like I had been doing for the past couple of years and finally want to make the plunge, I say go for it. You will not be disappointed. While all of the other planes mentioned in this article performed from adequate to quite well, this is the real-deal. Effortless and consistent. The blade adjustement controls perform like a finely tuned race car and the body and workman ship-a true master piece. What more can be said…I’ll still use the 5 1/2 as a (to quote David Charlesworth) ‘Super Smoother’ and the Krenov style wooden plane still finds it’s way to the workbench on ocassion; but the Iron Miter, this #9 will be from this day forth my Shooting Plane.
My dedicated ‘Shooter’ and cement floors be damned! Cheers.

Nice to have ‘em when you need ‘em

This morning while working on a rabbet and dado joint cut using power tools, I discovered the fit to be a little too tight. It would have taken me hours to re-set my Table saw and start to fine tune this fit; instead I reached for a few Special Purpose Hand Planes. I don’t use these tools everyday but when you need them, there isn’t anything better.
So I’m at the beginning stages of a Platform Bed project using 4/4 Walnut. It’s a basic box with solid frame and rails. I wanted to make the side platform rails a permanent fixture so I cut a rabbet and dado along the underside of the stock. I then cut a groove into the top of the 3/4″ Walnut plywood that makes up the underside box section of the bed. I used my Table saw with a stacked Dado blade attachment for both operations making sure to set up feather boards on top of the cut and along the length as well to insure a tight fit. The solid stock over it’s length had a slight twist which made the entire process a little harder than it should have been. The result; a joinery fit that turned out to be much too tight. I could have set up the table saw to re-run the same procedure making sure to take shallow cuts until everything fit as it should. The problem with this is that to re-set the saw, do some test runs and then finally attempt to peel off a sliver at a time from the joint,would turn into hours of prep for something that may not work. I quickly realised this was the perfect time to do some fine tuning with hand tools.
My two Lie-Nielson side rabbet planes were the perfect tool for widening the dado walls ever so slightly. What took me 5 minutes with these hand tools would have taken an hour on the table saw. I followed with my small Router Plane manufactured by VERITAS here in Canada. It was the perfect tool to ride down the edge of the stock, cleaning up the depth of the cut. A quick and easy hand tool fix for a joinery problem from a power tool. Nice!
I don’t reach for these tools everyday but when you need them, they’re sure nice to have around.

Tool Chest Update

Just wanted to say that the new Tool Chest I built two weeks ago has been performing everything I had hoped for. A great way to transport my essential tools to a work site it’s actually been on the road for two weeks now with me. I thought out a few minor design changes and will add them to the next one. Stay tuned…