I was very excited to get my first low angle jack. I was at my first steps with handplanes and seemed like a great choice, when this Stanley arrived I loved it a lot the first few hours. Then it rapidly started to drive me nuts when I begun to understand what is wrong with her and what you need from a plane. A plane is a tool that if you choose to use, you are goin to use it a lot, easy and comfortable set up is way underrated in the YT community.

I picked up one of those about ten years ago. Got it home open up the box saw the cap was junk and put it right back in the box and took it back. There are others in the same price range that are built better. Great video. Have a good one.

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this! This and the LA block plane were the first i ever got. Like you said, you can get them to work, it just takes a bit of time. They were great to kind of play with to start learning, but once i got my hands on a Lie-Nielson, i couldnt go back. It made me appreciate the quality manufacturers. I look forward to some Veritas tools as well. Thanks again!

I have the Lie-Nielsen and I love it! I use it as a dedicated shooting plane. When I got mine I ordered the hot-dog handle as well as a O-1 blade. Yes, for anyone new to hand tools, there was a time when L-N sold O-1 irons (and chisels) as a option. I use a micro bevel @ 30° and it's a end grain slicing machine!!

I’ve had mine almost since they first brought them back . I don’t have the issues you mentioned. Blade wasn’t flat but was very little work getting it there . Adjuster not loose like this one but does have play before engaging. Nice to work with .

Great video. Looks like I will save up for Veritas or LN!

Many thanks for your kind attention, I think all is clear now, and all Names you mentioned are great and geniuses, all of them respectable and made a great history for humanity improvement . Rafik M. Fawzy Consultant Engineer Cairo, EGYPT

Thanks for the review. I'd really have to think on getting one, or find one I can try first....

the extra $100 for a veritas is worth every cent. my laj has no perceptible backlash in the norris adjuster and the plane was fully functional right out of the box

Mesmerized by the wood shavings :). Looks like you had fun.

Spot on mate. Two other things. On my second run, was tightening the knob and it came off the brass insert. I filled it up with instant glue and moved on. Last year I lost the famous Norris adjuster and since then for the life of me have not been able to find it. stanley does not support and they gave up with a polite message after a few exchanges. So If any of your subscribers have one, I am a buyer. In the meanwhile I bit the bullet and got a veritas. Getting adjusted to a high end plane and very cautious with it. The magpie in me however props me from time to time to look for the damn adjuster so that I can have two planes :):)

Great in depth review I feel that so many problems ,if I was to invest in a low angle I think the veritas would be worth the extra.

Pura vida great review in my case I prefer the woodriver low angle plane it's design reamainds classic Stanley plane features but with improves on the main casting body .It is shy the Stanley company don't keep beautiful finish for its premium line benchplanes as lie-nielsen and Veritas did it.pura vida guys

I have Luban which is Australian Wood River. It has some play in the Norris style adjuster, but not that much! I adjust by 1. applying and maintaining firm finger pressure down on the "lever" cap, 2. take up the slack in the adjusting knob, 3. unscrew the lever cap tension knob, 4. adjust blade, 5. retention cap. I don't adjust blade with cap in tension.

When I first started acquiring handtools, I came across a Great Neck adjustable mouth block plane (basically a knock-off of the popular Stanley 9-1/2). It was cheap and I was poor so it seemed like a match made in heaven. That wasn't the case. The machining where the adjustable mouth mates with the plane body is so rough that the sole protrudes in the nose portion. I suspect that a patient person skilled in file work could make the plane a solid user but I now have a half-dozen or so block planes so I'll leave that work for some future owner. Someday I'll get around to selling off unnecessary duplicates, triplicates, quintuplicates, etc., etc. The key point here, and one that you made in your video, is that a lot of cheaper tools can be made to work if you're willing to put in the time and effort to fix the areas that the manufacturer skimped on to cut costs.

I have all 3 mentioned in this video. Out of box, LN is more comfortable to use. Veritas and Stanely both have fat totes. I have been using my Stanley for 3 years with my 3D printed tote, and it's been great. I need to use the other 2 more.

Good video, it just shows how far Stanley as a company has fallen. I have one of these, I used to use it on a shooting board, I found that you can get the blade pretty sharp and they are fairly cheap, I think I got one for like $15, but the thing is a wall hanger now, Though not like like my Woodriver which sits on a shelf in it's hall of shame, this one is now just retired. It was a good tool (not a great tool, not one I would recommend), and every once in a while I bring it out to flatten a board that probably should be cut up for firewood, e.g. one that has a bit too much warp in it. Though for me it was good before I knew what good was. Plus the blades are like $15 for it so, if one wants the easiest blade to hand sharpen, there is little cost in replacing the thing if one messes it up. Not that I have a plane blade with a um... I am not quite sure what angle I was going for, but it changes as you go down it anywhere, or in other words a good ad for the veritas mk II.

Thanks, Jamie! Maybe you could review the Woodriver if you get your hands on one? :)

My experience is positive with the 62 plane. No issue

I owned this plane for a while and had very similar thoughts. It was my first plane with a norris adjuster and after using it, I thought I didn’t like norris adjusters. Turns out it’s just really sloppy on this particular plane. I have a few Veritas planes and love the norris adjusters on them. When I still owned this I got the Veritas low angle jack as a christmas splurge and figured that the law of diminishing returns would apply and it would only be a little better. I was wrong, it’s easily twice as good and worth the cost difference in my view. And I don’t think the Stanley is a bad plane per se, the Veritas is just a really, really good plane. I would say the Stanley 62 is an okay starter plane, but if you can afford it or can wait and save up a bit, just go straight for the Veritas. The LN is great too I’m sure but I haven’t used it myself. A bad plane would be the modern, entry level Stanley #4 (12-905). Luckily my wife got it for me for $10 at a garage sale. After many hours spent tuning it up, the bed is still a mile off from flat and the thing chatters like crazy when I try to plane even moderately hard wood. Probably the frog needs to be ground flat or something like that, but I can't be bothered to waste any more time with it.

I have not had the problems you described with my No.62. It created mirror smooth surfaces from the initial setup. It does however have a small problem that can probably be solved with a carfull aplication of machine oil. The mouth tneds to stick and I invariable have to take the knob of to free it when I want to adjust it. Current;y it is at the stage where I need to resharpen it and it is still generating those mirror smooth surfaces that wont need a smoothing plane to clean up. I only know it need sharpening because it needs a bit more effort to use at the moment.

Have you made a video on the veritas minuture planes yet ? I have a few of them and love them .

I have the L-N No 62 version which I really screwed up by setting it on something corrosive. I'll either have to send it back to L-N, or grinding on it myself.

What do you think of the Stanley sweetheart 60.5 low angle block plane with adjustable mouth lately discontinued

Does the Veritas Low Angle Jack come with the blade flattened out of the box? Honing still required, I assume.

Stumpy nubs just did a KZfaq on flattening where he used and highly recommended using 320 and then 400 grit 3M Cubitron sandpaper. Said it was much quicker. Once flat he then polished with other media.

Was the sides square to the bottom of the plan wondering if it would make a decent shooting plane coincidentally I’ve been offered to buy one someone has they also have Stanley sweetheart no4 he’s selling both I’m hoping to make low angle plane a shooting plane

Just ordered one of these wonders ("Wonder how much fettling it will involve to get it to really work?") from Amazon Prime (not Amazon U.K. as, if it has to be returned, I would have to pay UPS, not Amazon) and we'll see what transpires. Never had a Norris style adjuster before, but at first glance it looks like some brass shim stock shaped into a shallow cylinder and silver soldered together could be made to take up the slack. Again, "We'll See". One could call it, "Fettling for dollars". (Which can sometimes be frustrating, but still beats the heck out of "Bobbing for french fries".)

Yeah, I'm disappointed. I'm just a couple of years into learning woodworking, and this plane is the most expensive I've purchased. I expected a much better product. The iron isn't square, and I can't keep the right side of it from sticking out farther than the left. I've checked it with every engineer's square that I have. It's skewed, and my 2 hours of honing hasn't fixed it. (Yeah, I understand the lateral adjustment; I'm not that much of a newbie.) Anyway, after watching your video, this plane is going back to R-----r asap. Thanks for the vid.

The shape of the cap would be a deal breaker for me. I normally wouldnt use a low angle anyway, but I was getting cramps in my hand because of using a plane on a shooting board, so I sprung for a low angle with nice cap iron and that hot dog thing and it made all the difference in comfort and power. Cant speak for everybody, but a low angle jack that isnt modified to perform well on a shooting board is a missed opportunity by the manufacturer.

I am thinking that the Jorgensen jack plane from Lowes would be a vastly better deal.

So I ended up buying Stanley 62 that I saw for sale at first I was super worried about all the play on the Norris adjuster that you experienced but this one has zero play

There is an issue with Norris adjusters. The bottom end of the blade should have no sideways movement. It really need adjustable screws if the body gap is wider than the blade. I think the lee Neilsen has these. The lever ideally should be much longer to facilitate small adjustments. Normal Stanley planes have a much better system. They just need better irons. The Qiangsheng is the best mid price low angle. I can never understand why there is built in slop or backlash. Just drill the correct size hole. It can’t be more expensive.

This thing is impossible to keep the blade set and square. Every time to adjust the blade in or out it takes forever to get it square left to right.

The slop in the Norris doesn’t necessarily mean you have to overtighten the the cap iron. You can get around it by always taking up the advance backlash. Backlash really annoys me. Why would they mill a hole the wrong diameter?

Woodriver low angle Jack is nice

yes you have issues, you're comparing someone else's Sweetheart

in less than 2 min its you have issue

You always give me the impression that you criticize Stanley for the sake of criticism, and you give Veritas precedence over everyone, even Lie Nielsen, and you forget, or seek to forget , that everyone is merely developing what Stanley designed and the history he created, aided by scientific progress and modern advanced machines. Each of them has something to be proud of and distinguishes something from the other, and you do not know if it were not for Stanley, whether there would have been Veritas or Lie Nielsen and what their equipment was like.

If you use your time reviewing Chinese caca (caca is Spanish word for sh..i..t, but it has a nicer ring to it), you are not only wasting time, you are elevating a piece of garbage to a dignified level that is almost offensive, my friend.