Stanley 1-12-204 Smooth Plane Handyman No. 4, Multicolor

The plane works great. A great addition to our workshop. We saw this identical plane at a flea market for $75.00. This tool is correctly priced. Thank you.

what I was expecting.

So this plane works fairly well enough once tuned up, but it's pretty rough out of the box. The plane iron definitely needed sharpening, which is expected, but the plane sole was also pretty out of whack. I used my sandpaper sharpening station, along with some straight edges to get this plane to flatness, and it was a good few hours of work.

Had bought one of the other smoothing planes from Stanley, one that has two set screws on the iron. That was a piece of junk. After a good sharpening this one works as well as my grandfathers, which was 65 years old, that I had been using until the wooden handle snapped.

This plane will take me hours to get to a state that will make it usable. The cutting iron alone has no true edges and isn't flat at all. The plane bottom isn't even close to being flat so I'll spend hours getting it flat if I can ever get it flat. Luckily I have the tools for making this tool usable, but most people do not and wouldn't know how even if they did have them.I can't complain about the price, but I didn't expect to have to spend as much time improving this plane as I would if it was used and had been sitting in someone's garage for 50 years. Then again the planes made 50 years ago probably didn't have these kinds of issues.For $26 it's ok I suppose, but Stanley isn't going to win over too many new buyers by skipping the quality control part of the process.

Total garbage ... Very very difficult to adjust, almost no micro adjustment capabilities. The blade isn't too bad, it worked just fine on my older plane... The over all quality is very poor, and needs 2-3 hours of honing (on the base of the plane) before you should attempt use... Every screw was lose out if the box and the locking lug broke after 20 or so uses ... Even for the money it's not a good deal

Was recommended by a well-known woodworker, as he uses it so much in his work.Performs just great. Easy to sharpen and maintain.Thanks.

Low quality but what do you expect for the price (and Stanley tools). I've spent 2 hours with 320, then 400 grit wet/dry sand paper and my jointer table bed trying to polish out the bottom of this plane flat and smooth. The surface, as delivered, was very rough; can't see this going over wood very easily. The bottom appears to be flat, but the edges polished out before the middle. The blade is delivered at 25 deg bevel, with instructions to hone to 30 deg before use, so you must have honing stones and a holder. Haven't honed yet (or used it) so not sure how the blade will hold up or how well it planes.