Mouth too wide on Australian Stanley #4

[snafuspyramid]

[ian]

If the mouth is indeed to wide, it seems like a hassle to sell and replace, or otherwise swap it, for another. But I suppose it would be the right thing to do, I don't want to ruin something that others might get pleasure from as an antique.

Can anyone show me some photos of the correct mouth opening?

Eddie

the correct mouth opening is "wide enough" for the purpose.
Wihout seeing your plane, frog and blade setup I can't say much more.

As to your corrugated sole #5. It sounds as though you have a very good plane which would be a shame to bugger by opening the mouth. To my mind, your #5 is not valuable because it's an antique, it's valuable because of the corrugated sole and narrow mouth -- it should be a great user.

One of my hobby horses is the wide misconception as to what a #5 is used for and what is "rough" or "coarse" work.
"rough" and "coarse" should be defined by the quailty of surface left behind and how well a joint fits. It has nothing to do with the how many dings a tool has, or how far off flat the sole of a plane is.
A coarse surface is the surface left behind after traversing across the grain. With the right blade setup, (and Eddie the Eagle is more knowledgable in this that I) the same plane and blade can be used to traverse and smooth a board -- it's all in the lateral adjustment and position of the frog.

[snafuspyramid]

Eddie

the correct mouth opening is "wide enough" for the purpose.

Fair enough. I'm increasingly realising that there is no such thing as a perfect tool. The jack I have can't take shavings quite as thick as I would like, but it's only a tiny bit of extra work to make it do what I want it to (to remove material quickly). And following your suggestion, traversing the grain takes wood off nice and quickly (albeit with a "fuzzy" result). If I feel I need to take wood off even more quickly - say when ripping a board - I can always set up a scrub plane.

I don't mean to sound like I'm making a complaint about the tool itself. I'm more curious to discover whether I'm doing something wrong in the adjustment, or whether there is some reason for the relatively narrow mouth that I don't understand yet. I guess it's more a learning exercise than a problem-solving one.

In any case, I've found that backing the chip-breaker off further helps significantly. It's still a very narrow mouth, but I'm happy to accept that.

Thanks for all the advice nonetheless, I do hope the silly questions aren't starting to get tiring yet.

[ian]

In any case, I've found that backing the chip-breaker off further helps significantly. It's still a very narrow mouth, but I'm happy to accept that.

the chip breaker is another adjustment I should have mentioned.
move it up the blade and the mouth will open up.