Veritas Block Plane

I got a new toy last week, paid for with my lawn-mowing money. The Veritas Standard Block Plane, sold exclusively from Lee Valley. This thing is a Cadillac compared to my Stanley Low Angle Block Plane. It is considerably wider, the sole measuring 2" wide... compared to 1-3/8" wide for the Stanley and Lie Nielsen. When I first got my Stanley it took me hours to get the sole flat... of course I didn't know what I was doing, but it had to have been out of flat by about 5 mils. The Veritas was very close to dead flat right out of the box. I marked up the sole with a magic marker and then took a few strokes on a granite table with sand paper... 99% of the marker was gone. If I got it in just the right light I could barely see a slight hollowing out in the middle, about 2" diameter. So about 5 minutes on 220 grit and it was gone... finished it off with 400 grit and called it good. Point being it had to have been within a few tenths of a mil of dead flat to begin with.

But beyond the sole, this thing is truely a wonderful design. The blade adjustment mechanism is so fine. It even has a set screw on each side of the blade at the mouth for fine lateral adjustment. I decided to go look at the Lie Nielsen just for kicks to compare. They are very similar, but the Veritas does seem to be a higher quality case/machining job. The blade mechanism is similar, but it doesn't have the set screws at the mouth. I haven't used the Lie so it may work just as well, but my impression is the the Veritas will be better.