- #5 Bench Hand Plane - Jack Plane -V3

First off I'm not a woodworker but I'm trying to be in my older age. Though I'm not a woodworker I am a mechanic, welder, fabricator with well over 200,000 dollars in tools. I think I know tools, how they're made and how they work. I have never used a plane to build anything. My planing experience was limited to digging the old planes out of my granddads tool box to stop my door from sticking. This method severed me well for decades until I retired and started to build a woodworking shop in place of my welding shop at my home. Steel gets heaver as one gets older. The first project I attempted was a simple storage chest. I needed an edge trued up so up to the attic I went only to pull out a plane who's wooden handles had cracked from time and poor storage. The parts were badly rusted and I'm sure the surfaces were not straight. Time to buy a new plane. First time plane buyer here. Out of the 4 or 5 planes in my granddads tool box I picked the one I liked best as well as the one I used the most over the years. Now I don't even know what to call this size and type of plane? I looked it over and it had a big number 5 on both the front and the rear of the body so I thought I'd start there. I went to the web site where I know they sell nice tools. I'm sure if I put the name here all would recognize it. Lets just say LV might be part of the name? I look up planes and all the different kinds was dizzying. I typed No. 5 into the search box and sure enough granddads exact plane was still made and a beautiful photo of a brand new unit in all its glory was on my screen! What a nice tool. Wow! Made me wish I'd started in woodworking sooner. I added the No.5 to my cart as I looked at other items in their store. When it came time to check out my bill was all of 400 bucks. I thought I must have added 2 planes or some other items to my cart my error?? NO!!! That was what the cost of the plane!?! The photos in my woodworking books of the shops with hundreds of those planes on the wall?? Must be over 1/2 million in tools if this is any example of what woodworking tools cost? I thought mechanics tools were expensive? WOW! I said there must be a cheaper tool available. Off to Amazon I went to find No.5 planes from 35 to 400 plus dollars. 30 years ago if one had any Chinese tools in their box they'd be laughed out of the shop, not so much lately. I find even some of the tool truck tools are Chinese made. So a Chinese plane was for me. Now I'm not even sure where this particular plane is made but from the cost I'm assuming. Over 175 bucks is still a lot for what I thought a plane was worth so I picked this piece from the 7 reviews and the price. 35 or 40 bucks was way to low for something like this so I wanted to go mid way between 35 and 400. My plane arrived today so now to the review. This tool is an amazing piece of workmanship. The painted parts are painted well no over spray or powder coat or what ever method they use, it looks real nice. The machined surfaces are evenly cut and are dead flat according to my straight edge. The handles are real wood and well sanded and stained. I know the parts of a plane all have their own special names like frog, yoke, sole, heel, toe, etc... but I've yet to learn all of them. So bear with me. The handles are held on by what looks like brass screws. The blade adjuster looks to be brass and turns real nice. The lever cap is either chrome plated or polished stainless as it has a nice shine to it. The blade is super sharp and even the burr was removed unlike a set of chisels I bought here last week where every chisel had a huge burr. You can tell much thought and care went into building this plane. Makes me wonder what a 400 dollar plane would look like? Must have gold screws instead of brass. Just trying to be funny as I know from experience that a top of the line tool feels different to the master craftsman. 400 dollar planes have their place in the masters workshop. In the shop of a future master this is the plane for me. Thanks for reading.

This is just a beautiful hand plane. Very well made and nicely crafted. The plane works ok out of the box, but I spent about 20 minutes of tuning and my goodness is this a thing a performer. I love it and about to order the #4 smoothing plane and #6 plane. Out of the box there are 2 things you will notice. The plane is very well made and it caked in rust proofing lubricant. Some people do not like it, but I do. Just means the manufacture went to that one extra step to get me a nice product. You do want to wipe all of the oil off it though with a clean rag. Take the lever cap off. Remove the the cap iron/chip breaker and blade and wipe down the whole plane including the frog getting rid of all of that oil. Take the cap iron off the blade and give those a thorough wiping too. Before putting it back together. Break out a flat head screwdriver and check that the frog adjustment, tote, front knob screws are tight. No need to over tighten them. Just make sure they are tight. Run a finger across the mouth of the plane and see if you feel any burrs. If so use a flat file to to file down those burrs. Nothing to aggressive. My planes mouth was fine and did not require any filing, but I have heard some of these do. I also gave the blade some honing. From a 1000 diamond plate to 8000 to 16000. No need to bother with the mating surfaces between the blade and cap iron. They are already perfectly mated. Then reassemble the plane. No need to bother with the sole on these planes as they come perfectly flat. The whole tuning process took me about 20 minutes if that and it's a beautifully working plane. Now if this was a lie nelson and I had to tune it. I would be giving it 3 stars, because I shouldn't have to tune a 325 dollar plane out of the box, but this is a 180 dollar plane that only took 20 minutes of out of the box tuning and that deserves 5 stars in my book. I have a couple of the newer stanley sweetheart planes that require much more tuning out of the box. In my opinion this wood river #5 plane is the best jack plane for the money. Unless you want to buy one of the older stanley bedrocks and spend days tuning it. On top of that putting a nice blade and cap iron on it like Hock plane blades will cost you about 70-80 bucks. This is a nice option and I have done that to a couple of older stanleys that I love, but in the end you are expending a lot of energy and money getting the plane back to usable condition. When you can just purchase one of the woodriver planes. Unless you just like restoring old planes, which is very nice to do but can get pretty time consuming and tedious.

I've been frustrated by cheap handplanes for a long time, so I finally took the plunge and replaced my old crummy Sears plane with this WoodRiver plane. This is the single most expensive tool I've ever purchased. It's only about half the cost of a comparable Lie-Nielsen plane, with nearly equal quality, but it's still alot to pay for a handplane. So is it worth it? Well I'd say that if a high quality bench plane is important to you then you won't be disappointed here. You certainly won't find anything better at this price point. These WoodRiver bench planes are based on the iconic Stanley Bedrock planes, which were some of the best bench planes ever produced. The Bedrock design has two advantages over other planes: 1.The frog can be moved back and forth, thereby adjusting the mouth opening, without removing the blade. 2.There is a rock-solid connection between the frog and the plane body, which improves the performance of the plane in a cut. New handplanes typically require much tune-up work before use. But not this plane. The setup work required is minimal. As other reviewers have mentioned, there was a generous coating of oil on all the metal parts that had to be wiped off. Also, the blade I received was not flat on its back, and it required more work to lap flat than I was expecting to do for this price. But otherwise there was nothing else for me to do but start making some shavings. Just about every detail of this plane is made right. The handles are well shaped and finished nicely and they feel like real wood instead of plastic. The depth and lateral adjusters work with a perfect smoothness. The sides are dead square to the sole which is important for shooting planing. The cap iron fits seamlessly on the blade, though the bevel on top of the cap iron is ground rather rough; You may want to lap this smooth. The body is cast extra thick and heavy, which gives you more momentum in a cut but might tire you out after a while, and I could find no casting flaws on the entire plane. The cap iron and blade are both a full 1/8" thick and are very stable in a cut. I have no way of accurately checking the flatness of a plane this large so I cannot comment on the flatness of the sole. All of the mating part surfaces in this plane are ground flat and smooth, which makes everything fit together nicely and reduce vibration in a cut. The only exception to this was the bed where the frog sits in the plane body; This surface had some rough milling marks. However the bed was still flat and the frog sat in it solidly. Overall this plane is solid and beautiful. I have just two minor issues with this plane. First, the enlarged depth adjustment wheel on this version of the plane makes it quite difficult to get a screwdriver to the frog adjustment screws. Second, there is quite a bit of slop in the lever on the lever cap as well as the yoke of the depth adjuster, the latter of which causes much backlash in depth adjustments. It is possible to buy a cheaper plane and spend several hours tuning it up to get (almost) the same level of fit and finish as this plane. But even then you're still stuck with an inferior casting, cutter and other parts. And finding a real antique Bedrock plane in servicable condition is getting harder all the time. It's really nice to buy something that's just built right in the first place.

Very nice quality hand planes. Very comfortable to use, and the finish on the planes is very smooth. I got tired of restoring old hand planes so I bought these and only spent a few minutes on each blade to get a razors edge. I read that numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6 handles were small, but I disagree with that. I'm 6'3" and have older planes with small handles. These ones actually fit nicely, although the number 4 was a little smaller than the rest, which I thought was strange. Adjustments are easy, but the lateral adjuster is a little too stiff. Otherwise it takes very fine shavings and leaves a glass smooth surface on the wood. Tested with red oak. All planes were sealed in a plastic bag and covered in an oil to prevent rusting when being shipped. The planes were easy to take apart and clean. I highly recommend this product. If you were to buy each of these individually, you would be spending nearly twice as much. I'm confident that these planes will last a lifetime, and maybe passed down to my son when he gets older

For the price, this is an exceptional plane. I have several other Stanley bedrock planes I that I have restored and I love how well they work. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find original Stanley bedrock plains because the prices of skyrocketed. I decided go ahead and give myself a chance for a decent Jack plane without having to wait for something to become available at a reasonable cost online. I've been waiting for several years. I did go through setup process which I always do. Anyway. Imagine my surprise after honing the blade for a few minutes. I was able to get a shaving about the thickness of a a butterfly wing. The exciting thing for me was that it was 2 ft long. In my opinion, this plane will do well. Even if I do have to sharpen it more often than my veritas 4 and 1/2 and it's amazing blade.

I love this plane, so now I own 2. I bought the first one a couple of years ago and upgraded the iron(blade) to a thicker IBD blade. This new one seems to have a thicker iron than the first and there is no chatter. The sole is dead flat and I didn’t need to do anything except take it completely apart to check all of the parts, wipe off the packing grease, ease the edges of the sole with a fine file, and put sharp edge on the blade. I use the Rob Cosman sharpening method (see robcosman.com) with 1000 and 16,000 grit Shapton stones and was slicing 1,000th” ribbons off of hard maple 15 minutes after unboxing the plane. The #4 is a very versatile plane and I bought the second one for teaching woodworking to autistic children, which I do as a volunteer at The Otto Specht School. All classes have 1 to 3 students and I would have bought a third one if I could afford it. I demonstrate with a WR #5 1/2 and the students follow along easily with the #4’s. Woodworking with hand tools is very therapeutic for people with ASD and the students love it. Sub-par tools would be very frustrating for them to work with. All of my planes are Wood River v3 or LN planes, which cost a lot more but are excellent. Wood River has done a wonderful job with engineering and design, and the bubinga handle is smooth and comfortable in my large mits.

I'm generally happy with this plane, although I was disappointed to find that the right side of the body was not quite 90-degrees from the sole. This plane was purchased to use with a shooting board, and I'm right handed, so this was a problem. I don't have the tools needed to fix this, but I was able to apply a strip of painter's tape to the shooting board that looks like it fixed the problem. I'll just have to be sure to check the fit every time I use the shooting board. Considering the price, this was pretty disappointing. With regard to the remainder of the device, I love the way the frog attaches to the body and how the two adjustment screws engage. Very clever and so much better than other planes I've owned. The blade is thick and sharpens nicely. I purchased the star-shaped blade adjusting add-on from Cosman, which is a really good addition. When adjusting the blade depth, this adjuster engages with very few turns when changing directions on the blade depth. It's a fine plane - I'd purchase another - just wish the right side was more precisely square to the sole.

I purchased both Stanley 12-137 No.62 Low Angle Jack Plane and this plane, and although they are setup differently they can be used to perform similar functions. Blade: The Stanley plane had a much thicker blade and in my opinion it was by far superior. In contrast the WoodRiver blade chipped on first use. I was shocked and disappointed, but how good is a factory honing going to be. Not very. I spent roughly 30 minutes grinding and honing the blade to remove the chip. I then proceeded to test the plane again. That is when the magic happened! Just kidding, it's just a plane. I was very happy with the results though. It is well balanced, and feels more stable than the Stanley No.62. Adjustments: This is where WoodRiver's plane really had the edge. The Stanley adjustment is so cumbersome. I also own a Stanley low angle block plane that uses the same mechanism, but on the No.62 it was almost impossible to get the damn thing to cut consistently smooth. Finish: The WoodRiver plane just looks like a million bucks. It's an attractive plane that leaves a silky finish, granted that has to do a lot with the blade honing, but the planes design and craftsmanship helps. Also, to sole was dead flat. I was not expecting that at all, but when I checked I was pleasantly surprised. This is a solid plane in my opinion.