Hello Lee Valley and Other Plane Manufacturers

[Scribbly Gum]

There are some excellent quality hand planes being manufactured these days by a variety of different manufacturers.
I wonder if they are looking for an idea for a new style of smoothing plane.
Here is a new idea that is really an old idea.
Instead of manufacturing a range of smoothing planes with a variety of different frogs - standard pitch, York pitch, high angle frog etc, why not incorporate all of these into a single plane with a frog whose bed angle was adjustable.
It has been done before, and apparently successfully in Australia.
With the ability these days of manufacturing to higher tolerances and with superior materials and computer controlled design, it ought to be a snap.
So here is a picture of what is supposedly a Watkinson Plane made in Australia. This one is from Hans Brunner's Gallery.
Looks like a winner to me.
Were these the only ones who tried this, or have other past manufacturers also had a go at it?
Wouldn't it be great to see these produced again.
Cheers from Tele Point
SG

[thumbsucker]

Bridge City Tools made a plane like it called the VP-60 Variable Pitch Plane. It is discontinued tool line and sold for $1500 US.

A bevel up plane achieves the exact same task but with no need for a complex adjustment mechanism or need for a screw driver when you change the bevel and you simple change the blade to change your bevel angle.

I have become a strong advocate of bevel up planes.

Designs that are not commercially successful usually fail to catch on for a reason.

[Scribbly Gum]

A bevel up plane achieves the exact same task but with no need for a complex adjustment mechanism or need for a screw driver when you change the bevel and you simple change the blade to change your bevel angle.

Yes I think that the adjuster mechanism could be improved.
I was thinking of a quick lock cam, operated by a small thumb lever instead of the twin screws on the Watkinson.
It would provide a quick and instant adjuster of almost unlimited angle range so that bed angles could be changed on the fly.
And with the tight tolerances of today's manufacturing would be without slop or play in the mating surfaces.
No more having to stop and change blades as in a BU plane.
Cheers
SG

[Rob Lee]

Hi SG -

I bid on one of these on eBay (possibly - that exact one!)... an interesting concept, but it would be a bear to produce....

Cheers -

Rob

[Scribbly Gum]

Hi SG -

I bid on one of these on eBay (possibly - that exact one!)... an interesting concept, but it would be a bear to produce....

Cheers -

Rob

If anyone could do it your team could.
How about the quick release cam lock?
Is it feasible?
Cheers
SG

[Rob Lee]

(snip)

How about the quick release cam lock?
Is it feasible?
Cheers
SG

Don't see why not.... you'd have to rough up the bearing surfaces a bit to ensure you get a good lock-up, but you can get really good mechanical advantage with a cam.

Cheers -

Rob

[IanW]

What about the mouth? Unless you could organise the geometry just-so, rotating the frog is going to open the mouth as you raise the bed angle, so you need to add an adjustable mouth to the equation. Not a big deal, as plenty of Rob's products attest, but another bit of cost.

AS TS says, great ideas don't necessarily translate into commercial success. Furthermore, it seems to be a rule of nature that tools designed to do more than one operation rarely do them quite as well as single-purpose tools do. There are so many simpler ways of skinning this cat, & the ones that spring to my mind are: 1) get a high-angle smoother, or 2) if you must have a multi-purpose tool, take TS's advice & have several blades for your BU. Both alternatives probably considerably cheaper.....

OTOH, I guess you could take the cynical view - woodies lerv gadge-its, and the more brass knobs & tweaky bits you can incorporate, the more desirable it gets to many. Never mind if it's going to sit in its box in the tool chest for most of its life. Keeps them in spanking condition for the collectors of tomorrow, like all those multi-purpose planes of yesteryear.....

Cheers,