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I don't have any problem with my Stanley Baileys except for one thing: there's a lot of slop in the blade adjusting mechanism. It's annoying--especially with my No. 7. Are the Bedrocks or LN planes any better in this respect?
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overland said:
I don't have any problem with my Stanley Baileys except for one thing: there's a lot of slop in the blade adjusting mechanism. It's annoying--especially with my No. 7. Are the Bedrocks or LN planes any better in this respect?
LN (and the Veritas) planes are much better. I could tell a huge difference.
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Adjusting slop is probably my biggest complaint with hand planes. My LN is "tighter" than the Stanleys I use. I think some slop in the Stanleys can be a result of wear.
Slop is just one of many potential irritations, or quirks, in hand tools. Because the LN is a "final smoothing plane" I find it more exasperating to adjust due to the level of work it does.
Edit: Veritas favors the Norris adjusters, which combine lateral and depth adjustment in one "stick". Some find this more difficult, but could be a familiarity problem.
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I have fondled hundreds of Stanley bench planes and the amount of adjuster backlash or "slop" varies. Here are my generalizations.
Bedrocks seem to have less backlash than the Bailey planes as a group.
Older Baileys seem to have less backlash than newer Baileys.
BUT individual planes can vary. When you find one with little backlash, add it to your user group.
As for the LN planes, they are made well and all pretty tight.
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For sure, the modern LN and Veritas planes have less backlash than the vintage Stanleys. You can minimize the backlash on the Stanleys when backing off by simply rotating the adjusting knob as if you were extending the blade until you just start to feel some pressure on the knob.
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Allan Hill
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overland said:
I don't have any problem with my Stanley Baileys except for one thing: there's a lot of slop in the blade adjusting mechanism. It's annoying--especially with my No. 7. Are the Bedrocks or LN planes any better in this respect?
All blade advancing mechanisms have slop; I don't find it burdensome, maybe because I'm used to it. LV and LN planes have less, but still have some. As already noted, wear might have something to do with it, but each plane has its personality.
Only way to deal with it, at any level, is to always end adjustments with advancing the iron.
Plane slop is like marrying a girl who can't cook; it ain't gonna get much better over time, so you deal with it.
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Admiral said:
Plane slop is like marrying a girl who can't cook; it ain't gonna get much better over time, so you deal with it.
One more dream gets crushed...
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Admiral said:
All blade advancing mechanisms have slop; I don't find it burdensome, maybe because I'm used to it. LV and LN planes have less, but still have some.
When the LV and LN planes are 100 years old like my Bed Rocks and Baileys, I wonder how much slop they'll have.
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Greg Wease said:
[blockquote]Admiral said:
All blade advancing mechanisms have slop; I don't find it burdensome, maybe because I'm used to it. LV and LN planes have less, but still have some.
When the LV and LN planes are 100 years old like my Bed Rocks and Baileys, I wonder how much slop they'll have.
[/blockquote]
Probably less, the machining is better, tighter tolerences, but we'll never know, will we?
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I learned how to use a Bailey plane as a youngster, fifty years ago now. When I started following a forum on the internet in 2005, I had some trouble figuring out what guys meant by slop. That is because in the normal scheme of working it does not come into play. We always adjust in the forward direction. If we did not the iron would slip in use. So in practice we are not turning the screw back and forth, but just in the one direction. So it is easy to forget that there is such slop in the first place.
