All language subtitles for Low Angle Vs High Angle The Best Plane For You

hey y'all I'm James right and welcome

back to the shop a while ago I did a

video about using a chisel bevel up or

bevel down and I started a bunch of

arguments of that which I really enjoy

so today I thought I'd take that one

step farther and do a video about bevel

up versus bevel down hand planes now

there are a whole bunch of arguments

that will start with this but I hope to

dispel some of those because I'm

actually going to show them and use

today and explain some of the

differences between them so let's dive

in and take a look at this one so first

let's talk a little bit about history

where did these come from

and where did the idea of a bevel up and

bevel down plane come from now

throughout most of history almost all

planes have been beveled down that's

with a higher angle bed angle and so

most of them are about 45 degrees seems

about right and this is the way it was

for hundreds of years now people did

make bevel up low angle planes for one

reason or another but 99.9% of all

planes were beveled down high angle

planes and so when metal body planes

started coming around with the Bailee

and others they kept with that same

bevel down high angle plane it's what

people are used to it was the

understanding and it was the plane that

pretty much every person had and that's

why pretty much all the hand planes are

beveled down high angle planes that's

just what people had well then stanley

introduced as the stanley number 62

which is a bevel up low angle plane and

the angle of the plane rather than being

at 45 degrees is dropped all the way

down to about 12 degrees and that allows

the plane iron itself to be more in line

with the cutting which cuts down on

vibration and makes it a little bit

smoother and so this really seems like a

a step up but one of the interesting

things is when they came out with the 62

it was advertised for cleaning up

butcher blocks and butcher blocks mostly

have n reins sticking up and their

largest surfaces was in green and one of

the downsides with that is if you have a

bevel down high angle plane as it goes

across all that ingrain sticking up it's

going to eventually want to chatter if

it's not really sharp and really well

set up the blade will want to wiggle

across the work and that makes them a

little bit less functional whereas with

a low angle

LevelUp plane the blade isn't going to

wiggle across the work because it is at

such a low angle it's going to slice

through the work ooh that's kind of cool

so these were intended for butcher

blocks or other ingrained applications

now they did make other planes that were

low angle bevel up a lot of the block

planes are low angle bevel up a lot of

these shooting port planes the weird

ones that are shaped odd and has a

handle on the side and they look weird a

lot of those have a bevel up low angle

plane and that's because when you're

working on a shooting board you're

awesome doing a lot of end grain work so

fast-forward through the years and hand

tools tend to disappear and power tools

become the dominant way of doing things

and contrary to popular belief I really

don't have a problem with that I have

spent more time with power tools than I

have with hand tools but over the last

10 to 15 years we've seen people trying

to slow down and enjoy the sport a

little bit more and that's where the

hand tools have started to come back in

to vote but because of that people were

coming out of this power tool mindset we

talked about that earlier with the bevel

up versus bevel down it makes far more

sense to keep the bevel up keeps the

iron low and slice the fibers whereas if

you turn it bevel down you go at a weird

angle it just feels weird to push the

chisel through the works this way and

that's one of the big differences

between the power tool mindset and the

hand tool mindset or I think I wish I

changed that to the hybrid mindset

because there really isn't a hand tool

word worker anymore everyone has a bit

of power tool in their background now

and so because of that the power tool

woodworkers coming into the hand tool

world really liked the low angle bevel

up plane and these started to take off

with more people wanting them the

problem was Stanley only made a few

number 62s they weren't at that common

elite especially in comparison to all of

the other bevel down high angle planes

there weren't a lot of these and the

price went from 50 60 bucks apiece up to

200 300 and now I've seen some of these

going for up to four hundred dollars for

the antique number 62 low angle planes

and there been several other companies

that have made it this is the new

Stanley sweetheart which is the one that

I use it's actually a rather nice plane

and for the money you can't beat that

all that to be said there is a lot of

history that goes into this and there is

a lot of person

choice that comes back and forth but now

I actually want to take a look at the

plans themselves and see what are the

specific differences between them and

what can we learn from that so first

let's look at the traditional high angle

bevel down plane let me take this out

the first big difference is that there's

a chip breaker on here it's a piece of

steel on the back and this does two

things number one it thickens the steel

and and supports it but number two it

actually breaks the curl as it comes up

it hits the chip breaker and wants to

curl up and crush into itself this

compresses the fibres ahead of the cut

and in doing so it can really help you

with tear out and going through

difficult brains so you have a chip

breaker on one of these planes number

two you have a frog this is the bed that

the iron sits on and one of the nice

things about that is you can move the

Frog backward and forward to change the

orientation and change the size of the

cut you can also change the angle of the

Frog by getting a different frog but

having a separate frog makes the bed

adjustable there are a bunch of other

things that are slightly different with

the levers and depth adjuster and that

type of thing but for the most part from

that point on they're kind of the same

they both have a cutting edge and they

slice through the work so then we come

over here to the low angle plane now in

the low angle plane we don't have a chip

breaker we just have an iron and the

reason we don't have a chip breaker is

that the bevel is on top so you can't

actually have a chip breaker that comes

up over the bevel and then will create

that breaking edge right there also

because of this the bed is so low that

the bed is integrated into the plane

it's all one unit so most the time what

happens is that with the low angles you

actually have an adjustable mouth so you

can open and close the mouth as opposed

to moving on frog backward and forward

some of the newer high angle bevel down

planes actually also have that

adjustable mouth like this Veritas

custom plane which is one of my favorite

planes but one of the really nice things

about a low angle bevel up plane is that

there is no chip breaker and everything

goes together much easier there aren't a

lot of adjustments on here it's just a

simple thing you drop in the blade you

adjust its depth in its angle and it's

all done with this one little lever back

here doing the norsu gesture that it

goes really quickly there's there's less

to figure out on this then there isn't

one of these so this brings us back to

the age-old question of should I make

something that is more complicated but

is more adjustable

confine a ball or should I make

something as simple or easier to set up

has less problems but it's a little bit

more locked in to what it does and in

all honesty that's really a personal

question because that kind of comes down

to all the other things do you prefer

Apple or do you prefer Windows there

there are a lot of things along that

line that you happen in life that you

have to kind of decide do you want

something more customizable or do you

want something a little bit more

reliable one of the other things you can

do with a low-angle plane is you can

quickly change out the iron so in this

right now I have a 25-degree iron so 25

plus the 12 degree this has a 27 and 1/2

degree angle of cut or I could put in a

50 degree iron in here and that would be

62 so it would be the cutting angle plus

the bed angle it brings me to is 62 and

so we talking about what the use for

that is but one of the customizable

things with this is you can actually

change out the iron to change the angle

of attack with the traditional plane you

really can't change the angle attack now

you can get different frogs and switch

those out and for my various

customisable plane I actually have a few

different frogs it takes a good bit more

work you have to take a bunch of screws

out you take the plane apart you switch

out the Frog and you can change the

angle but for most of the time you

really can't change the angle on these

without doing a lot of work to them

where that really comes into great use

is something like this where I have

reversing and swirling grain there's a

lot of twists in here and there's

actually a little bit of curl in the

white oak this is an incredibly

difficult wood to work with but with

this low angle bevel up plane it's

leaving a good bit of tear-out on here

and you can actually hear it kind of

crunching is it work cuts through the

wood there's just a lot of tear out

being left in here and that's because

the blade is actually getting underneath

the fibers lifting up the fibers and the

fibers are breaking ahead of the cutting

action and without a chip raker on there

to compress it

those fibers will then break off now you

can close the size of your mouth so the

fibers won't lift up too far ahead but

not having a chip breaker on there is

really detrimental whereas if I bring in

my high angle bevel up plane that has

been tuned within an inch of its life

I can get a really nice clean cut and

you hear the difference it's kind of

nice zip II sound it even through this

rough rains take at it for a little bit

I can take this back down with something

it's nice and smooth right off of the

plan

and you see after a few quick passes

here I've gotten rid of most all of the

tear out being able to use this even

with the high angle cutter in here I'm

not gonna be getting as good work as I

am going to be getting with this one

because I can really customize this and

shape it to get a glass smooth surface

on even the most difficult woods but

that being said let's look at one more

thing where this really makes a big

difference here I have white oak

standing up in grain and so this is

actually one of the most difficult ways

to cut and so with a with a high angle

plane you have basically a chisel coming

through here and it's at a high angle

like this and so it has more of a chance

to jitter it takes a lot of setting up

to make it actually work well on here

whereas if I were to flip it down like

this and put the chisel at an angle this

way there's less chance of vibration and

more chance of just slicing through all

the fibers that are standing up so yes I

have taken the time and I can set up

this plane and I can do it but you can

see it's kind of bouncing I'm still

getting really nice clean cuts and I'm

working at it getting these beautiful

end grain shavings but if I bring over

this one which I really haven't spent

much of any time on I can put it on here

and go and you can hear the difference

I'm taking a heavier cut so I'm actually

taking off a lot more material I'm

getting these stronger shavings of in

grain all the way across and this is

really really shining and this is just

doing one strip of it if I had an entire

butcher block that was wide as well as

long this would just completely outstrip

a high angle plane and that's why for me

my shooting board is actually set up to

fit my low angle plane and so for this I

can trim off end grain really quickly

and really easily because I really want

to fiddle with setting this up to do in

grain it just does it really well so

let's draw a few conclusions here

between the low angle

the high-angle plane which one is better

well neither one is better they both

have things that they do well at and

they both have things that they don't do

well at if you are a new person to hand

tools and you're trying to figure them

out sometimes getting a low-angle bevel

up plane is really smart because there

isn't a lot on this you can mess up

there quick and easy to set up you can

switch out the blades and you can

progress on these very quickly without

having to learn a lot of the skills that

go into some of the more fancy hand

planes but if you've been working with

hand tools for a while and you're

looking for that next challenge and

something is a little bit more difficult

working with one of these can be an

incredible pleasure because once you

actually get them set up and fine-tuned

they feel amazing and they can do some

really cool things with figured woods

that you just can't do with a low angle

even with a high angle iron in there

it's still limited in comparison to what

it can do with a traditional plane now

the correct answer to the argument is

you need both of them because well you

can't ever have enough tools so you

might as well go ahead and get both but

that being said you know if you only

need one or the other either of these

will do all of the tasks either of these

will work as a standalone plane and do

all of your planing work but if you're

doing a lot of specialty in one

direction or the other you may be better

off with one or the other and in the end

it really comes down to a personal

preference which one do you find do you

want something that takes less set-up

time and is a little bit quicker and

easier but may not be as customizable

well then you might want to go with a

low angle bevel up plane if you want

something with all the bells and

whistles and ways to customize it and

shape it down and make it exactly what

you want then you're probably going to

want a high angle bevel down plane and

for some reason this topic brings up a

lot of arguments in the hand tool world

and I don't want it to be that way

because there really is no right answer

when it comes to hand tools and it

doesn't matter about what topic you're

talking about there is no best way to do

woodworking there's just the way that

works for you and find something that

works for you find something that fits

your style and that's why I encourage

people to experiment play with different

things try different methods try

different tools find something it works

for you because every person out there

is very different

every person's gonna have different

things that they like every person's

gonna have different things that they

enjoy so don't worry about what one

personality

another person on YouTube is saying

because you are a different person and

you might find that you like something a

little bit different so I hope this has

answered a few questions for you and put

a little bit of this debate to bed now

if you've been following me for a while

you probably have realized this is the

third time I've covered this topic and

given an entire video over to it and

that's because for some reason this

keeps bringing up arguments so I wanted

to do a little bit more detailed video

today and show some of the differences

in action I hope that works for you and

I hope that helps you out so if you did

enjoy the video please hit like comment

share subscribe ring the bell those

things really do help out the channel

and they help us grow and reach more

people thank you for that also if you

have any particular thoughts or ideas or

something you think I missed let me know

those down below I'd love to read that

so I think that's about it for now and

until next time have a wonderful day so

I've got a bevel up plane and I've got a

bevel down plane now I need a bevel

sideways plane Oh

oh wait I've got one of those it's

called a side rabbet planer