TOOL REVIEW: Hock plane kit

1. The plane kit arrives packaged with instructions. Below the box is my proposed shape for the plane. One of many possibilities.

Review and photos: Robert Howard

What is it reasonable to expect when you buy a kit like this? If you are like me your answer will probably depend on whose name is on it. In this case, it is the well known Hock brand, long associated with quality plane blades.

Searching the small type on the box shows that it is distributed by another well known name, Veritas Tools. That makes sense, because a while back Ron Hock retired, and his company was purchased by Lee Valley Tools, which has Veritas Tools as its manufacturing arm. The kit is made in Canada, home of Lee Valley, but the blade is made in France.

2. The components come with small dowels that are used to align parts when gluing up. After dry clamping in position(no glue), holes were drilled, top and bottom, on both sides at each end to take the dowels.

I think most woodworkers, given these names, would expect the kit to be of a high standard, capable of being assembled from the parts supplied, to get a quality plane as a result.

Now there is no question that you can get such a plane, and I did, but it might not be that straightforward.

When you open up the box, you need to check every part – for squareness in particular. We are a long way from Canada, with a very different climate. As a result, not all the edges were square, and needed to be adjusted with a plane. In particular, the slope that was to support the blade had to be square to both sides.

3. Lining up the plane body parts.

The next thing I checked was how the pieces aligned with the cross pin in place. My reasoning was that the cross pin needed to be square across the body so that it was parallel to the slope that supported the blade. However, when I inserted the cross pin into the two sides, the sides did not align on any of their edges. They could be forced to align without much trouble, but what would this mean for the squareness of the pin across the body?

It did occur to me a bit later, after I had planed and docked the pieces so that they did align, that maybe they were meant to be out of alignment, because when I went to fit the wedge I found it was not only wedge shaped from top to bottom, but also from side to side. Who knows – maybe it would have been a neat fit if I had left everything alone. Once again I had to plane the part to its required shape. At this point it is a good idea to check that when the body is assembled there is enough room between the cross pin and the rear body piece to allow the blade assembly and the wedge to be fitted in place.

4. The ends of the sides did not align when the cross pin was in place.

With all this done, I glued the body together and turned my attention to the blade. This is a typical Hock type, with a thick blade (5mm) and a fitted chip breaker. I was very pleased to find that the chipbreaker was made with a slight curve, so that it sat on its front and rear edges and tightened down nicely with no gap under the front.

The blade, however, was another story. Some kind hearted soul in the factory had decided to make it a bit sharper, but in doing so they rounded over what was, until then, a beautifully flat back surface. I took the less difficult way to correct this, and ground the bevel to remove about 1mm off the length of the blade, which successfully removed the round-over. Then I could sharpen it.

5. The set-up for gluing. Two chipboard strips were used to apply even pressure. They were cut short each end where the location dowels were to avoid the glue squeeze-out. The dowels were cut off later when the plane was reduced to its final size.

Once the glue had set, I set about fitting the blade assembly to the body. If all has gone to plan, the mouth needs to be filed or cut open to  allow the blade to protrude. With care, you can make the mouth as fine as you wish.

The final step was to shape the body to my liking. Being a carver, this was the fun part for me. In doing so, I cut the top of the wedge down so that it did not sit higher than the end of the blade, which would have made it harder to tap the blade sideways when necessary to get a shaving of even thickness across its width.

One final comment I want to make is about the wood. The northern hemisphere is simply not endowed with hard wood. I have bought travishers and spokeshaves made from wood like hard maple, but they wear very quickly.

Species supplied will vary. This plane body is American cherry with a Janka hardness of 4.0–4.2kN, which means it is softer than the maple (6.4–7.3kN).This puts the cherry around camphor laurel or sassafras, but softer than Qld maple or celery top pine. If you want your plane to last, it would probably be a good idea to insert a plate of something like gidgee in front of the mouth to prevent excess wear there.

6. The finished plane. I would leave it roughly finished like this, and allow it to develop a natural patina through use.

As with everything in woodwork, adjusting and using wooden planes is a skill that you have to learn, but if you have any doubt about what these planes are capable of, google and watch any of the planing competitions that take place in Japan. If that doesn’t blow your mind, I don’t know what will. It might also encourage you to have a go at building this one.

Hock Plane kit supplied by and available from Professional Woodworkers Supplies, see www.woodworksupplies.com.au

Robert Howard teaches woodworking and woodcarving from his Brisbane workshop, roberthoward.com.au