: My bench is pretty well fixed with saws, and planes from the small and long
: ends of the spectrum, but I'm beginning to fill out the middle. At this
: point I'm beginning a low key hunt for a decent smoother.
In my experience, there are a couple of non-obvious places to go for a
decent smoother. The obvious places are Patrick & L-N.
1. I have a John Gage smoother that I can sharpened with a slight
curve, such that when it is set fine it has less than an inch
of cutting area. I can get stuff so fine that you can easily
read through it.
2. I have a Stiletto brand #4 clone that has an old fashioned (thick
at the cutting end) blade. That sucker is a great smoother, gives
my L-N #4 some serious competition (but doesn't have an adjustable
mouth type deal like the L-N).
The curved blade trick is key. I think you can take any old junker plane that
has a reasonable frog - i.e., one that doesn't chatter, and curve the blade
until it works. Try it.
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