Spear & Jackson CSP4 No. 4 Smoothing Plane

This is an excellent tool considering the price. (I paid a bit less than $25.) The casting is good, handles are nice, and the blade, chip breaker and cap seem to be pretty well made. Straight out of the box, it was ready to take nice shavings from a piece of red cedar I had laying around. However, the plane needed quite a bit of work to get it to perform like a proper smoothing plane.I disassembled the plane and examined the components. The casting appeared to be well made with no gross defects. The sole of the plane was more-or-less flat, but it did require about 45 minutes to flatten properly. (Working from 80 grit sandpaper to 220.) The sides were perpendicular to the sole. The casting was nicely painted, although there was a bit of paint on the seating for the frog, which I scraped off with a razor blade. As is usual for new planes, the back of the blade needed to be flattened before sharpening. That took about 15 minutes, and sharpening the blade took about 5 more. I put the plane together, adjusted the frog, and made test cuts. Some debris was accumulating between the blade and the chip breaker, indicating a poor fit between the two. I flattened the end of the chip breaker on a stone so that it fit the blade correctly. That took about 10 minutes. Total time required to properly set this up as a smoothing plane was about 1 hr 15 minutes.After setting up the plane, it did indeed perform like a proper smoothing plane. On figured maple, the plane removed very fine shavings and left a glass-like surface. At this point, I am very happy with the plane and consider it to be a bargain despite the work needed for tune up. Thus my 5 star rating. My only real only real complaint is the excessive backlash on the wheel that adjusts the blade depth, but I expect that with an inexpensive plane and can live with it.

Overall, this might be good to learn to fettle a plane or if you already know how. A true beginner might be very frustrated with this tool. For the price, it is a good value as long as you know what you are getting into. I have to commend S&J for making a number 3 at this price, and compared to any other source of number 3 planes, this is a tremendous deal. After many months, still there it is at a great price, it is a great thing that S&J even offer it. But there were some quality control issues that could trip up a beginner.The casting was dead flat on the sole and perfectly square on both sides. This was excellent. It is a thick casting that feels very solid.The chip breaker is on the cheap side, just a slab of metal, but not too bad and doesn't need to be fancy to work. The blade and chipbreaker were ground well enough and didn't require much to make perfectly flat. The chipbreaker did have a rounded edge I didn't like, so I spent 30 min turning that into a bevel-type edge and ensuring it was flat against the blade. After using, I think the iron quality is basically fine, no obvious issues there.The wheel mechanism is OK, better than some other cheapo models. It is smooth, but it does have some slop. The pressed metal piece that links with the blade itself to advance it was too loose against its mounting pin. So I hammered a nail to remove that cross pin from the frog, and then hammered the eyelet openings the pin runs through to smush them a bit and make the fit tighter. No more slop there.The frog is the big problem. Mine had a casting that wasn't properly milled, as the factory left a wad of iron next to the screw hole that interfered with the screw height. It raised the screw head against the blade until it made the blade ride above the frog bed! (My photo shows the location...like a blob of iron that was not milled out.) I used a drill and a thin HSS chisel to gouge that blob of iron out so that the blade would seat properly. A normal person would send it back rather than do this.There were also some small chips on the edges of the frog bed casting, but nothing that affects performance.The mouth had some extra iron near a corner that needed very careful filing out for the blade to seat properly on the mouth. The mouth is pretty open for a smoother, so I bought a thicker iron that's in the mail now.I used a hand file to go over the frog bed and other parts that needed to be flat. Overall except for the big stupid errors, the castings of the frog and body are quite good, if that makes sense...and especially compared to other planes in its class. It's as if nobody checked this one, quite strange.The handle will need some TLC to get it more comfortable. It's a nice wood and not sloppy at all but truly needs reshaping with files because some edges bit into the palm too much.After spending an afternoon getting everything as tuned as I could, I got decent 2-2.5 thou shavings and pretty good performance. I still think there's more fine tuning possible based on the results I'm getting so far. It doesn't feel as smooth as an old stanley 4, but I hope I can improve that.Overall, I'm happy to have a no 3 size for the price, and I'm treating it like a thrift store find, so I'm happy to put in work as its own project. In truth, nobody needs a number 3, so most people will regard this as a side project. For that, it is rewarding.I do wish the S&J markings were more than a light little etch on the side. But that's just me. A stamp on the iron would be a nice touch, for instance. A proper chipbreaker would also be fitting.Edit: Months later it is working flawless, the blade has held up well, I get full width shavings and it is really nice to use. The number 3 size is thinner and lighter than most similar smoothers, so I like to have it nearby. Also I see I am listed as Vine Voice. I just joined this week and bought this plane months ago with my own money. Just FYI.

You see, I don't know much about planes so I didn't want to spend a fortune. After research on what a really good plane is I opted for this because of its price and features. If weight is any indication, this is heavy. Brass and iron fittings. Wooden (real) handles. The first thing I did was take it apart and examine each piece. The blade might be a little thin but I have nothing to compare. All the knobs and threads work as they should. If you're going to buy one (any plane) learn HOW they work before purchase. You will have to sharpen and flatten the shoe on any new plane so study how to do that. Once you get the parts, you'll do fine. They ought to sell this in a kit with a sharpening stone and a selection of sand paper but I already had those. Even if you didn't use this it'd look great on the shelf!

Excellent purchase. Well described. Great instructions on setting it up and adjusting.