#5-1/2 Bench Hand Plane - Jack Plane - V3 Reviews

3.9 Rating 23 Reviews

About Woodcraft:

Woodcraft Supply, LLC is one of the nation's oldest and largest suppliers of quality woodworking tools and supplies. You'll find Woodcraft stores in more than 70 major metropolitan areas across the U.S.; and Woodcraft annually distributes 1.5 million catalogs featuring more than 10,000 items to all 50 states and 117 foreign countries. The Woodcraft catalog is a standard among woodworkers as the most complete offering of first rate products for woodworking available anywhere. Woodcraft also publishes six issues of Woodcraft Magazine annually.

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Phone:

800-535-4486

Location:

1177 Rosemar Rd,
Parkersburg
West Virginia
26105

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“This plane properly prepared and tuned does exactly what one hopes it would. Its weight and size facilitate ease of planing through both soft and hardwoods. But NO plane comes ready to do this out of the box. This one needed some minor flattening of the shoe which was accomplished on a granite sharpening platform and 320 grit paper. This plane was slightly concave toward the blade opening but was perfectly flat with about 45min plus effort and then polished with finer grits. The sides were perfectly square to the shoe and did not need additional flattening. The frog was in proper orientation to the set of the shoe. As expected the blade needed some truing in bringing it to a fine mirror polish on the flat as well as the same on the primary bevel by setting up a secondary and tertiary bevels (note Bob Cosman's method works well after some practice.) Also I checked the flat of the chip breaker to assure full contact with the flat of the cutting blade and it did need minor touching up using the granite platform already described. After making sure the blade was parallel to the shoe, the depth adjustment was fairly easy to set to the point of accomplishing consistent shavings at approximately one thousandth of an inch. Also I found applying proper lubrication to the shoe lessened friction significantly. One last note: the boxed plane is preserved in a coating of oil that requires full disassembly to wipe down the excess. All in all I am well satisfied with the results for flattening and joining edges.”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 weeks ago

“Great plane. I love the size. Works great on my shooting board. A little fine tuning on the blade edge and it shaves thin and even.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 weeks ago

“Mine was in very good shape. No problems with setup, sharpening, or honing. It really is a pleasure to use, especially coming from a #4 as my historical go-to plane. Rob Cosman's system for setup worked well from me and I am not a typical hand sharpening person. I have a shooting board and this planes weight and size improved my technique there as well.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 5 months ago

Mark Seasholes

Unverified Reviewer

“Nice plane; Good price (especially when on sale). Sole is flat to withing 0.0015" Sides are square to sole. Able to cut shavings down to 0.002" right out of the box! Not too bad! Thinner shavings possible with a little blade sharpening and honing. My only issue thus far: I'm not sure the frog seats 100% inline with the plane body. The frog seems to be a slight angle and I'm having trouble figuring this out. Good news is that I can compensate with the lateral adjustment level. And, only a slight adjustment is needed. Note that this plane is improved with Rob Cosman's star knob (and to a lesser extent by the addition of his hex screws).”

2 Helpful Report

Posted 5 months ago

“Great value really nice to use”

Helpful Report

Posted 5 months ago

Richard Whitby

Unverified Reviewer

“A well-built, nice-looking plane, with a solid casting and frog. But but neither the edge nor the blade as a whole was flat. It took considerable time to sharpen. And it took nearly hour of working furiously with a coarse diamond stone to make area where the blade and chip-breaker meet sufficiently flat. Maybe I'm wrong for expecting better, but I did.”

3 Helpful Report

Posted 5 months ago

“If you can only buy one hand plane, get this one. The 5 1/2 is the most versatile of all the planes. I went through the standard Rob Cosman tuning process (hand planes are NEVER ready for use out of the box) and it required very little tuning at all. The sole was dead flat as was the sides. Can’t wait to build my shooting boards. Very pleased with the quality.”

2 Helpful Report

Posted 5 months ago

“WoodRiver 5-1/2 I’m new to woodworking and I bought all of the sharpening stones to tune in. My problem is not knowing how to use this plane. Never been able to get even a touch shaving. Talked to WoodRiver and they have no instructions on what different screws are for or anything.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 7 months ago