Couple of weeks back, Thomas McCluskey inquired about the proper skew angle
of cutters for the Stanley 46 plane, to which Patrick Leach replied:

>> 25 degrees +/- an angstrom or two.

There are several angles involved on a 46, and I wasn't exactly sure which
one Thomas was asking about, so I decided to pull out a couple of 46's and my
trusty Starrett adjustable protractor to see for myself. Having made cutters
for 46's, I'd dont this before, but I couldn't find my notes.

Here's what I measure:

The skew of the blade: assuming this means the angle at which the blade sits
in the plane referenced to the side of the plane which is parallel to the
direction the plane moves in use, this angle is 60 degrees, or 30 degrees
deviation from the 90 degrees at which most plane blades rest referenced to
the plane side. 

The pitch of the blade, or the angle at which it sits in the plane referenced
to horizontal, is 61 degrees (as opposed to 45 degrees which is common for
bench planes and molding planes).

Most plane blades have a cutting edge which is 90 degrees to the edges of the
blade. On a 46, the cutter edge angle is 71 degrees/109 degrees (depending
on which edge you measure from).

The long edge of the blade is beveled to 110 degrees from the cutting face of
the blade to provide the necessary relief.

The short edge of the blade is beveled to 70 degrees from the cutting face to
provide support for the cutting edge but with relief also. Note that if the
blade were mounted in the plane square instead of skewed, the back of this
edge would actually protrude further to the left than the cutting edge.

I haven't been able to figure out which angle Patrick measured at 25 degrees.
There is very slight deviation between my c. 1880's 46 and my c. 1920 model.

I'm sure my terminology and descriptions are confusing, but I look forward to
further discussion.

Don Boyer