Spear & Jackson CSP4 Carpenters No.4 Smoothing Plane

I've seen a few reviews complaining about the sharpness of this plane and so I thought I'd offer my opinion on it. It's a nice little plane, fully functional, acceptable quality, and .................blunt. So what. Every bladed tool you will buy will need sharpening before use. It took me all of 90 seconds to sharpen, and another couple of minutes setting the plane. Now I have a very nice piece of kit that didn't cost the world. But a word of advice. If you're going to buy one, you have to invest in some diamond plates and a leather strop. You not only need these for initial set up, but also to keep the iron sharp going forward. Hope this helps.

Well made tool but needs sharpening and setting ip before use. Blade was completely retracted on opening and completely blunt. Wouldn't cut at all. Videos on YouTube show you how to put an edge on the blade using an oil or wetstone.

Love these old fashioned plainers! Does the job even if you have to a tad of elbow grease to do it - so worth it

I haven’t used a plane for years but getting a new Stanley plane brought it all back. Once set up it performed perfectly. Door trimmed and it now fits perfectly. Great value and still as good as it ever was.

On receipt, it was clear that the plane was unusable without some work. The general impression was 'cheap import' and the Spear & Jackson logo was only in the form of transfers applied to the sides the sides (which wore off rapidly). The blade seemed very thin (at 1.9 mm) and the blade edge had nicks along it. I notice that a 'spare or replacement' blade is advertised by Spear & Jackson for the same model on Amazon as being 0.5 mm thick. An initial trial with a piece of pine showed the surface planed but with lines along it where the nicks were on the iron edge. Putting a straight edge along the full length of the sole showed significant light coming through in the middle. Probably a gap at the centre of more than 1 mm. Checking the cross section of the sole at various points showed that it was convex at some points and concave at others. There were no instructions with the plane in the box which would be a problem for a newcomer. I did very significant flattening of the sole, cleaned the paint from the frog and sharpened the blade. The blade would not take an edge - it kept crumbling on the edge when sharpened at 25 degrees. It was better with a secondary bevel of 30 degrees (and a microbevel on the flat side). Having done that, it seems to be a workable plane if the iron will hold the edge. I suspect it will need a new blade but will give this one a try fist. I have hopes that it will be a useful addition to the toolset .

Son very please Yet to be used on anger

This is a barely viable plane straight out of the box. I've struggled with it for 2 days and gone through a lot of troubleshooting to improve it. Few points in order of severity: 1) The blade has an edge but you'll need to sharpen it (even 240 grit sandpaper gives a huge improvement)! The blade is really hard and you won't need to sharpen it after every use. 2) Parts (see frog in pictures) were assembled with blobs of paint between roughly flat surfaces. Remove the paint (and worst of grinding marks) and the frog/blade will sit more square. 3) The sintered metal parts (esp. frog and clamp) are have quite a few voids and my frog wasn't sitting flush with the sole due to a large burr). Fortunately the metal is very soft so it's easy to sand them back. 4) The sole is a little concave but it's good enough not to worry about. After spending 1-2 hours touching it up and tightening everything, it works really well. Check out Matt Eastleas YouTube video 'i made a £38 plane perform like a £338 plane' for details on refinishing a plane. You may find an old one (with better quality/longer lasting parts) at auction but you'll likely have to spend a lot longer refinishing it!

Used and owned various planes in the past, both as a professional and DIY. Used this to plane some doors which were not fitting properly. It allowed me to get the doors to fit and look correct. Extremely sharp blade, which makes light work of the job. Well constructed and easy to adjust the blade. To remove the blade for cleaning and sharpening, all that's required is a flat head screwdriver. Would recommend that you clean and dry if used outside, as being constructed from steel, it would rust up if left wet. Yes well worth the price, and definitely recommended

Works very well, specially at this price. Shaving very thin cuts once set up and sharpened. Its made me fall in love with hand planers.

Well made product, nice looking and works great. Now a valuable part of my shop

This plane is my first and boy do I love it, it was soo cheap, so I was expecting junk but found an awesome plane that I use all the time, it's perfect, except it has an odd screw that holds the locking cap, it also has a lose angle adjuster lever, that I can't stop rattling, the Stanley planes changed the block plane for the worse, they have too many little adjustments that are not needed.

Por el precio, está muy bien. Con una buela afilada y ajuste normal para una herramienta económica, trabaja súper bien!

Buen cepillo con poco mas que afilar la cuchilla y asentar la contracuchilla. La suela esta bastante plana. Despues de menos de una hora, logré obtener virutas bastante finas. Muy satisfecho con este cepillo. Con pocos ajustes se pueden lograr resultados como un Lie Nielsen, Veritas o Woodriver.