A Hacker’s Guide to HAND PLANES
Many woodworkers love using wedged-blade, wooden-bodied hand planes. But for me, the aggravation of tapping a blade into adjustment outweighs any romance. The Veritas plane hardware kit rekindled my interest by introducing a modern twist. The Norris-style mechanism makes adjusting the blade of a wooden plane as easy as any metal-bodied plane.
Mid-way through building my first Krenov-style body (top), I stumbled on this kit’s real (and surprisingly, yet unsung) benefit: the potential for major modifications. The adjustment mechanism, with its rare-earth magnet core, offers an easy means to play around with different sizes, shapes, and even plane bed angles. In theory, you can try out multiple designs for the cost of few steel cups and a metal rod (to make additional cross pins).
“Hacking” a plane isn’t as hard as it sounds. Using Veritas’ directions as
