Discuss your plough plane

Rob Keeble

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GTA Ontario Canada
Do you own a plough plane?

Do you use it?

How do you find it works?

I got given a #43 record plough plane by my Dad. But frankly this thing has never been a pleasure to use.

So one thought I had was to buy some new blades and I got to wondering if the blades Lee Valley has for their plough plane would work? Anyone know I don't see why not.

But then I started reading about the LV plough plane here a write up by Chris Schwarz and with having seen their blade selection it got me thinking. Perhaps its just better to buy a modern version that's been better engineered.

So any of you have the Lee Valley Plough plane? I know some of you might know this as a Veritas tool but to me they all Lee Valley.

The cool thing now is the wide blade conversion capability check this video out.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/Home/VideoPopup.aspx?v=47

So whats the verdict? I am thinking this would fit nicely into my Santa stocking. :D
 
The LV is certainly a nice piece of work, and likely is an improvement over the original Stanley/Record/Sargent it's patterned after.

My preference is still 'old school' though. I like my Stanley 45s and 55. Neither gets used often, and the 55, in particular, can be almost overwhelming with all its many parts and pieces, but they do a great job when properly set up.

YMMV...
 
I have the LV plow plane and like most of their products is very well made. It is a pleasure to use. You only need one version of the plane (right or left) depending on your preference as any tear-out in the groove is not seen and to be honest, you will be taking thick shaving to get the job done.

LN debuted their own version of the small plow plane at the WIA (Woodworking in America) conference. It should be coming out in early 2014.

img_2061.jpg


Check out the Wood Whispers video of the conference that shows the plow plane in action. LV's plow plane works very similar. I got this video link from an earlier thread on this forum.

 
I have the LV. I ended up getting it after searching fruitlessly for a 45 or 55 locally that was priced even close to competitive that wasn't already a giant bucket of rust. I have used dads old Record clone a couple of times and while the LV was somewhat easier to setup/tune once in operation they didn't behave a whole lot differently to me anyway.

Honestly I haven't used it as much as I'd imagined I would when I got it :D The handful of times I have used it its behaved about like I'd expect a plow plane to work (well if fussy and somewhat cantankerous).
 
If I want to do the work of a plough plane, I use a straight dado bit in my router. One day I'll buy a dado blade for my TS. I always think there's no sense going nuts about hand tools when power tools will do the job as well. I own two rabbet planes, but I use them mostly for cleaning up rabbets made by my router.
 
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To be honest Rob If it were mine and it had such a special meaning I'd try my best to learn it. After all, thousands of woodworkers over the years have made some pretty nice stuff with it and other antique tools not as sophisticated as modern tools.....
 
To answer your other question the LV blades won't work with the 43.

See the picture from here for 43 replacement blades
http://www.toolnut.co.uk/products/p...s/Replacement_Plough_Plane_Cutters_-_044.html
vs
http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=69741&cat=1,230,41182,43698,69741

and you'll see they have different adjustment notch styles.

Mr Cohen has (as usual) a very good comparison (and I see that what I used at dads was closer to a 44 although his has fancier casting so I'm not sure who actually made it without having it in hand, but its definitely not a 43, so I've never used a 43.. the risk of going on a fallible memory :D):
http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/The Veritas Small Plow Plane.html
 
If I want to do the work of a plough plane, I use a straight dado bit in my router. One day I'll buy a dado blade for my TS. I always think there's no sense going nuts about hand tools when power tools will do the job as well. I own two rabbet planes, but I use them mostly for cleaning up rabbets made by my router.

I always think there's no sense going nuts about power tools when hand tools will do the job as well. :)
 
Thanks Ryan Derek sure is a very very good reviewer of tools. Great comparison and he hits the nail on the head with the 043. Its the blade adjustment or lack thereof that i found miserable when i tried to use it. And its pretty small and i did not find a nice way to hold it.

I think based on the way the o43 holds a blade i could get away with all the lee valley narrow blades.

Will have to dig it out and give it another whirl. But i am still putting that new plough plane on the Xmas list :)
 
I have a Japanese plough plane, that I never use. I don't like the way the fence slips. For making grooves, I use either my Stanley 45 or my Veritas router plane. The router, while a bit slower, is my favorite choice. And the best solution for stopped grooves.
 
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