Veritas Iron edge trimming plane

[lcm1947]

Man I am excited about this tool. I never knew anything like it existed until today. Saw it in the Issue 173 November 2006 Wood magazine. I've had the magazine for awhile as you can imagine but until recently never gave a hand plane a second thought so just ignored it I guess. Anyway with me just working on my first piece of furniture and not having a jointer I have been thinking about planers in general but figured the learning curve would be too great for me to get involved with but this thing looks like it would be easy to use and get great results. Anybody own one that would care to let me know what you think of it? It sure has got me excited. This could very well be the answer to my problems with edging 3/4" boards. Oh yeah it looks like it's available at Lee Valley.

[Bruce Cohen]

Mac,

I've owned the bronze version for quite a few years and its a wonderful tool for when you need to square an edge to the face of a board. The only thing you have to know is that if your board's edge isn't dead flat, the edge plane will follow the hills and valleys of that edge.

Before I got a jointer, I used a long shooting board and a #6 jack plane to straighten the edge. although, if your shooting board isn't squared to the board's face, you'll now have a flat edge that's not 90 deg to the face. Sort of messed if you do, messed if you don't.

The Veritas edging plane excells when you already have a flat end and need to either trim the width a bit, or if a wider jack or jointer won't do.

For example, I just finished two cabinets made of maple plywood. I edge glued 3/4" strips of solid maple to cover the ends. Of course, I had to trim them down a bit, and if I used a wider plane, I would have gotten some of the plywood's veneer too. As the edging plane will only cut a 3/4 wide shaving, trimming the edges was a breeze. Also Veritas suggests you pull the plane towards you, a la Japanese tools. I find I have a lot more contol this way.

When they made the iron edging planes (it comes in both left and right hand configurations), they upgraded the way you adjust the amount of blade exposed. I for one am almost tempted to buy an iron model just for this improvement. But I really love how the bronze one looks. So I guess I'll keep it for a while longer.

Hope this answers your questions about this really great specialized plane.

Bruce

[lcm1947]

Yeah thanks Bruce. Excellent description of it's use. Sounds like just the tool for me then. Pull it towards you though, heh. Kind of Weird. Anyway it sure sounds like what I need. So as long as my edging is 3/4" wide I could thin the thickness down then to be even with the ply it sounds like as well as smooth or joint the edge tool. If so beautiful! I can't believe nobody has ever even mentioned this tool before. I think somebody or other has talked just about every tool in the world except this one. Boy ain't it the way. I'm the last to know.