Review on WoodRiver #92 Medium Shoulder Plane by Eric Wright

On first use, the blade chipped. Just a few test runs and I noticed the wood tearing rather than cutting. I stopped, examined the blade, and there was a chunk missing. I've owned a number of hand planes of other brands (from cheap to expensive) and never had an issue like this. I thought with a name like Woodcraft backing it, the quality would be better. However, I was very disappointed. The fit and finish is average at best. Adjustment screws are rough and do not smoothly turn. I could live with this, given the price. However, breaking on first use is not acceptable. The plane is really nice looking. I wish they spent as much time in quality control as they did designing it. Likewise, I wish I could speak more to the performance, but I never could get that far.UPDATE: I contacted Woodcraft and they sent a replacement blade. Shipping was fast and I received it within a few days. The blade did not arrive sharp. You could feel a bur on the bevel side and it couldn't pass a paper slice test. However, the blade did take an edge pretty quick with some sharpening. I ran the plane across some wood and it was able to crank out some nice shavings even on end grain. Overall, it functions pretty well with the new blade. After, I did a quick test on the original blade. I tapped it into some wood and the edge further chipped leaving pieces embedded in the wood. It appears it suffered from a bad heat treat leaving the blade brittle.I'm increasing the rating to three stars which I feel is generous given my first experience with it. It's nice looking and functions well now. However, I have two main issues with it.First, is the fit and finish. Clearly WoodRiver has some quality control issues. This is obvious if they are shipping planes with blades that are brittle. However, the plane could use some overall refinement in the control screws that extend the blade, lock it in place, and open/close the mouth. This makes fine tuning a bit rough, but not impossible. This leads me to my next point.Price. This plane is approximately twice the price of cheaper shoulder planes on revain and within tens of dollars of brands like Veritas and Lie Nielsen. If they charged half the price, I would be more tolerant of the quality issues. Given the price, I expect a plane that is at least close to the fit and finish of the premium brands. It's a difficult choice to go with WoodRiver when I could invest just a bit more and get a product that I know will work well right out of the box.