The only thing that makes this product inferior to the high-end planes is the frog adjustment is a bit fidgity (three screws and still somewhat sloppy. Still, it's far better than the standard Record design. And I'm not going to adjust the frog more than a few times. It's perfectly acceptable.

For more information on advanced sharpening we recommend David Charlesworth’s video Plane Sharpening, available in both DVD In comparison to my Lie-Nielsen planes, they pale quite a bit to me. I feel the L/N tools are truely "heirloom quality" as they will far outlast me even with continuous hard use... If the wedge is fixed with the sides wedge-shaped cuts in a wood – once again – the wedge should be perfect to fix equally left and right side of the iron.The Cap Iron is a one piece design giving rigid clamping and the Frog locating pins and screws are made from polished and ground stainless steel. The Lever Cap is made from grey polished Cast Iron with the Screws and Adjusting Wheel from polished brass. The Y Lever is a solid one-piece casting and the Adjusting Lever and most other components are made from polished stainless steel.

Assuming somebody else out there wants to use a similar cambered-blade setup, I think that the work required is worth the almost 50% cost savings (relative to my existing #5, which can support such a blade configuration out of the box), but only if you're comfortable with such mechanical modifications. My thinner, standard-fit cutting irons do not chatter and they never have chattered for any of the above reasons. Chatter is a very unique and isolated occurrence in planing with a plane on so rare an occasion, it might happen only once in five years. So, where is the confusion? Chatter is very difficult to produce, sometimes difficult to evaluate and is so fine it barely takes more than two rubs with fine abrasive paper to remove it. In my own life of woodworking daily for 56 years I have witnessed chatter only a half dozen times under my own plane and from beneath the planes of the 6,500 students I have trained over the past three decades. Doesn’t that tell you something? Look, you are having struggles planing. The questions you might not be asking of your bench plane are:And that is why I think they are outdated. And also my long explanations about chatter reasons there are still applied. The iron is fixed way further from the cutting edge than in B/S planes, that allows him oscillating with a lower frequency, that could result in a chatter.

I do Like: The weight, balance, design, and feel of the tool. Despite the previous issues, I feel the tool is worth the price. The sole is more than flat enough for me, and square to the sides. Finished nicely... When tightened down, honed, and set up, the plane functions as expected. How many of the most magnificent ornate buildings around the world had their woodworking done with so called “inferior steel” ? Is there any other physical difference that makes a No.4 more useful for smoothing, other than it's smaller size and weight making it easier to handle? So manufacturers have dumbed down the skill required to accommodate the lowest common denominator (the user).

Addendum

This plane comes with a new and improved Stainless Steel yoke installed in the Frog. The Steel is stronger than Bronze and will be more resistant to wear over time. It takes less effort time and skill to run a piece of timber over a jointer than to learn how to plane a piece of timber correctly. Most current and past hand-plane makers seem to follow the numbering system (and design details) popularized by Stanley (and invented by Leonard Bailey?). I think the rabbet plane would work better for smaller work, and possibly with wood that is not as hard (my bench is out of ash). The wooden wedge. It should be just perfect. It is fixing the iron all over the plane surface against another plane surface and if it is not really plane wedge (nice one 🙂 ) it will not homogeneously press on the iron. Or left side will be loose, or right one. Or nose of the iron, or tale.. If it is wedge with a rod/strange holder that wedge push against, you always have a big lever between real fixing point and cutting edge. Planed wood will “press and release on the iron”, it will bend (the big lever allows it) and jump, and if it is in resonance with the lever size and force applied, one will have a chatter. Chatter actually IS a resonance oscillation of the iron.