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Pakistan, Islamabad
1 Level
760 Review
68 Karma

Review on Effortlessly Smooth Surfaces With WoodRiver #4-1/2 Smoothing Plane by Travis Rio

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Borderline uncomfortable with my choice

Got this mainly because of all the videos I’ve watched of Rob Cosman on YouTube. He made a lot of good selling points, but this has so far been borderline disappointing.First off, the blade came pretty chipped on both corners. Fine. no big deal, right? Just some extra work and grind it down.The problem is that as you continue to grind it (first on sandpaper, then moved to 300/1000 grit trend diamond stone), more chips start appearing on the edge. I have 4 other hand planes, and I’ve had no issue with sharpening those blades.Next is the yoke. It seems the pin holding the "Y” is not quite straight across and causes the yoke to wander to one side of the frog. As a result, the adjustment lever needs to be always offset in order for the blade to be square. Not a huge deal, but kind of annoying since this is supposed to be a solid mid+ range tool.Customer service is great, however. If you call their number you don’t even have to answer 1 annoying IVR option. Just rings straight to a real person. Awesome.As for the plane. not sure yet. I think I’d rather return it if I have to get another blade to make it useful. An upgraded blade would be roughly $100 with tax and shipping, which prices this out of its comfort zone. At that point we are talking Lie Nielsen $$

Pros
  • ‎1
Cons
  • The aesthetics of the plane may not appeal to all users, leading to a decreased desire to use it