Veritas - Low-Angle Jack Plane (Rating: 5)

This is my 1000th post so I thought I should make it special; so I will write about a great plane my great wife gave me for my birthday (its actually on Sunday but we were in Winnipeg visiting my brother and his wife so we had an impromptu birthday party there). Any way this is of course a Lee Valley tool and you can go to their web page for dimensions etc. I'll just write about my impression of the tool. First off is the heft of the tool, its got a good solid feel to it and the tote and knob fits well in my hand. The long toe makes it easy for a novice like me to get a good set on the stroke and the handles offer great control. I've been working on a Douglas fir project so this is the wood I first tried planing and it went great. Straight out of the box this tool cuts even clear whispers of curls even on the difficult fir grain. I did get a bit of tear out on the fir as the grain switched direction at one point, but that is to be expected. I installed the A2 blade (I waffled back and forth as to whether I wanted the A2 or the O1 steel and eventually decided on the A2) during the party and couldn't wait to get home to try it. I switched over to some cedar I had just to see how it would plane and as you can imagine I got beautiful full width curls the entire length of the board. I'm afraid I spent about an hour just planing various bits of wood as this tool is just a joy to use. I like the stability of the extra wide sole, and the long toe helps me set up and follow through a cut. The adjustable mouth is easily adjusted and LV has ensured that you can't accidentally bash the blade with the sliding toe so even I can adjust the throat to get whisper thin curls out. Of course the long sole also makes for a great flat surface and after planing some boards that I'd run through my planer I found these boards were even flatter than what the planer gave me. All in all a great tool and I would highly recommend this tool. My only quibble about this tool is the rear screw on the tote was a little loose… and that is looking real hard for a downside to this tool.