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

4 Rating 26 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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“I had this plane a few months before actually setting it up and using it. For the last year I have been using mostly Stanley jack planes (2 of them, one actually a Wards master that’s reasonably old, and another that’s a Stanley corrugated bottom). I’ve been using Rob Cosman’s 30 seconds to sharp method and both jack planes work pretty well. I ran into a pretty stubborn flattening of some rough sawn pine and I thought I should take the time to setup the Wood River 5 1/2. I went through Rob’s entire setup video as I remember it. I filed edges of the plane body. I took 25 min to clean off oil, flatten chip breaker, sharpen plane iron, and back of iron (which absolutely needed flattening). I put a nice secondary bevel on it, stropped it, and had a reasonable edge on it. Once I started using it and got blade positioned and tote adjusted, WOW! The thicker iron, extra mass of plane, it made flattening 3 pieces of pine such quick work. I was flattening arms and arm bow for a stick chair, and the stock had grain that reversed and was tearing out, as well as some knots. The extra weight, and putting just a little skew on the plane, went over the knots without hanging up. Tear out was not happening. I do need to bevel out corners of iron a little as there were light tracks, but was better than my no 5’s (which I do still love) The thickness of the iron, weight of the plane, I just found it extremely useful and worth the price. I see cost went up to $299 since I bought it, but absolutely still worth it. It’s about to get a whole lot more use, and will be my shooting board go to now.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

“Excellent plane. The sole was flat out of the box. I was able to use it immediately after sharpening. The 5 1/2 is a good size for cleaning up a board edge and the mass of this plane makes it easy. This is the third Woodriver plane I’ve purchased. I am pleased with all of them.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

“I bought my Woodriver 5 1/2 five months ago to use in a secondary shop rather than carry my Lie-Nielsen back and forth. Initially spent about an hour preparing the plane out of the box. I've tuned up dozens of planes over the last 40 years. The Woodriver needed very little work. I compared the Woodriver to my Lie-Nielsen, a vintage Stanley, and a wooden bodied plane the same size as a 5 1/2. On domestic woods, all four planes do an adequate job with no real discernable difference. On dense imported hardwoods the Woodriver and Lie-Nielsen easily outperform the others. In Highly figured grain the Lie-Nielsen has a very slight edge. The fit and finish of my Woodriver 5 1/2 is really good especially the tote and knob. Although I tend to be somewhat of a plane snob and own several Lie-Nielsen, I'm completely happy with the Woodriver. Happy enough I went back and bought a #4 and a #4 1/2.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 2 months ago

“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.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 4 months 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 months 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 9 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).”