How can I adjust my hand plane to take an even cut across its width?

Question

I have a low angle jack plane (Stanley #62, bevel up) and it has the ability to adjust the blade side to side when I lock down the blade and iron, which supposedly is to allow you to even out the depth of cut across the plane's width, but I can't get it deep enough on one side. No matter how I position it, one side cuts deeper than the other.

Is this correctable simply in the method of sharpening or is there something else I need to do?

I know the picture is a poor representation, but the plane sole is on the right and you can see the blade protruding out as the camera looks down the length of the sole.

Answer 1

First, I would check the squareness of the blade, making sure it is razor sharp. Secondly, there is typically a little wiggle room where the blade resides in the plane. You may be able to pivot the blade to the left or right to counter effect the angled cut you are making.

Perhaps that is what you mean side to side? If that does not give enough play to turn the blade to correct the problem, maybe the only thing left is to sharpen the blade a little out of square to correct the cut...

Turning the blade has always done it for me.

Answer 2

Sometimes the blade can be located to one side of the bed, not allowing the blade to shift enough with the lateral adjust lever to get the edge parallel with the sole. Ensure the blade has more or less equal space on each side. Two other items can be the culprit: 1) blade edge not perpendicular to the sides (doesn't have to be perfect - within ~.020" across the blade), 2) blade bed machined out of parallel with the sole - if this is the problem, return the plane for a new one.

Answer 3

If your blade turns out to be square and you still have the problem, either the blade is not sitting flat on the frog (unlikely) or the frog itself is not sitting flat on the bed of the plane. This is quite a pain to fix; you have to take everything apart and use a file to flatten the burr or mold line that is causing the problem.

I once had your problem and it turned out that I had ground my blade out of square.

The best reference I have personally seen is a video by Christopher Schwarz called "Super Tune a Hand Plane" available here [shopwoodworking.com - part of Popular Woodworking's site.] He goes over every possible thing you can do to make your hand plane work better.

A related video by him is called "The Last Word on Sharpening" which is also very useful.