FaithfullFAIPLANE4C No.4 Smoothing Plane

Like every chisel or plane I've ever bought, from new they are never honed to the sharpest point. Get yourself a honing guide, sharpen it up and off you go. This is my go-to plane for most jobs. Best of all, no crappy plastic handle.I suggest watching some Paul Sellers videos on youtube. Blokes a legend with wood.

OK. I am going to admit. I am 63 and a toolmaker so not you average joiner. I look after my tools quite well. And, make most better over time. Here’s my take on the £20 plane. It took me 1hour 22minutes to flatten the sole plate and throat and grind and hone the blade, polish the throat button and throat cam and runners and settle the angle lever. Now, I have a block plane that shaves the hairs from my arm, no more demos please John my left arm looks like a 10 year olds, and gives me great satisfaction knowing I set it up. “Faithful” tools, love em. So, pay £120-200 for a block plane or stop cribbing. I value my tools because I put time in them. And because I value my tools I value the job they do. Faithful don’t pay me I just liked the name when I was an apprentice, no reason to change now.

do not waste your money unless you want to spend several hours getting this plane somewhere near usable, utterly useless out of the box with a blunt blade with traces of paint on it, very rough cast base which was not square, slots in blade for lateral adjustment were not deep enough to work at all, finally the adjustable nose was not adjustable as it was installed while paint was still wet, once it was free and paint cleaned off i had to regrind the base due to height difference.

The item arrived without any shipment protection, which is very bad for a sensitive and heavy item like this that needs flat surfaces. Mine arrived with a small bump on the front corner. If it were any bigger I would have returned it, but it was manageable with some sanding.It will not work out of the box (like most planes i think). Get some quality 120 - 240 sand paper to flaten the base and then use 240 and some more refined (600-1000-etc..) to sharpen the blade.I'm not an expert and this is not a premium plane. But after some sanding work I'm happy with it.

Not to good to be honest as blade was chipped and ground crooked and not square to the mouth and it was lying in pieces( inside box)For the price I suppose I should have known and I guess I can tidy it up and find a use for it (rough work maybe or pvc)

On first inspection it became apparent that the front is damaged. It looks like it was dropped prior to delivery and now has a nasty bump in the sole making it unusably without heavy sanding/filling.

Brilliant just the job

brilliant tool for the money