Spear & Jackson CJP5 Carpenters No.5 Jack Plane

Very good plane for the price. The blade does need sharpening just like what was given in the instructions. After going thru 1000 to 5000 wet sone the blade was sharp enough to slice paper. Pleased with the plane and its performance.

This S&J #5 jack plane would have earned 5 stars but for one simple flaw. On the version I purchased, the adjuster yoke (which advances/retracts the iron when you spin the adjustment wheel) is made of stamped steel rather than cast iron or bronze. It's very thin so there's a lot of movement (slop) before it actually advances or retracts the iron. I have to advance the wheel almost 4 turns before the iron moves. This plane is a beautiful one in all other aspects: the sole was almost dead flat, taking about 3-4 minutes to flatten. The chip breaker likewise took about 5 minutes to get the bevel flat against the iron. The iron itself really needed only a bit of honing to make it serviceable, but I went ahead and polished the back and the primary bevel as well before honing a secondary bevel. Another slight drawback was that all machines surfaces were coated with a film which required acetone to remove. I would have preferred a simple coating of oil instead. But otherwise, about 45-60 minutes of work to get this $35 plane performing like a $150-200 mid-level model. Impressive!

Not only did I read reviews prior to purchasing, I did general research on hand planers as I have never used one. The instructions said that this unit wasn’t “ready to go” and needed sharpening prior to use. I used it regardless and had absolutely no issues at all. Very simple and easy to use. I planed both sides of the table top I am currently working on and it came out great. I had very low expectations considering “top brand” hand planers are often over $200. It may be because of how new I am to woodworking, or my ignorance of how much better a $200 hand planer performs, but I am impressed with how great this experience has been so far with this product. I definitely recommend it.

I can’t believe how flat the sole was right out of the box. I’m just starting wood working and have bought 4 planes recently. This one tuned up quicker and any of the others. The iron took sometime to sharpen so it is hard and should hold an edge.

Old school. Super well built. Sharp. Adjustments are perfect. Wood handles are beautiful. Metal is heavy duty cast. Like all planes it takes a few seconds to dial the adjustments in. Some folks don’t know how that works, so look it up! Not hard, not long! Super happy.

These are not out of the box ready. Do not buy unless you are ready to put in the work. I had to return the first one in ordered because the sole was too far twisted it was never going to be able to get flat. You will definitely need to hone the blade, tighten some bolts, and flatten the sole and sides. This is a time consuming process, but its part of why other companies charge 10 times as much. The handles are a nice touch.

The plane is built solidly, but the sole on all of the Spear & Jackson planes I have bought have been nowhere near flat. When viewed from upside down, the heel and toe of the plane is significantly higher than the rest of the sole. The sides of the sole have also been higher than the center of the sole near the mouth. The machining on the frogs on the planes I bought was really rough and required some filing and sanding. The blade edges have not been square to the sides on any of the three Spear & Jacson planes I have. The primary bevel edges on the plane are very concave and not a true 25 degrees and were not cut straight on any of my planes, both of the edges protrude from the mouth farther than the center of the blade and the blade was not flat on any of the planes I bought. I had to sand the chip breaker on my number 4 and number 5 planes so they would rest flat on the blade and reduce clogging. The blades need sharpening quite often as well. The depth adjustment on my number 4 and 5 planes is terrible, the yoke is too small for the depth adjustment knob so I have to make three to four full turns to engage the blade. I've actually had to buy a yoke for my number four since the one I got was junk, my number 5 is a little better. To make matters worse it can slip out of adjustment on all three of my Spear & Jackson planes once in a while, which starts the headache all over again. On the more positive side, once I did all of that work, I have been able to take consistent shavings as thin as 0.005 inch, but that is only with a very sharp blade. If you don't mind putting in the work, and figuring out how to troubleshoot problems, it can be a great plane. I really wish they would spend a little more time machining the parts smoother and fitting the parts to each other more carefully. They really need to work on their blades and/or use higher quality steel and find a better way to cut the primary bevel.

According to Rex Krueger, the No. 5 Jack Plane is the most common bench plane ever made. He says not to buy these cheap new modern planes. Instead, just get a vintage plane from a flea market (or similar) and restore it. It will be about the same amount of work as setting up a new plane, but you'll spend around $5 (instead of $30 - $50) and you'll get a plane that is the same (or better!) quality as one of those fancy new luxury planes that cost literally 20 times as much. Well, Rex is right about one thing. It will take as much (or more!) time and effort to set up one of these Spear & Jackson planes as it does to restore a vintage plane that's been sitting out in someone's barn for 120 years. I've done both! After prowling flea markets for 5+ years on the lookout for a jack plane without any luck, I finally got tired of waiting and just ordered one of these Spear & Jackson ones. This is a budget plane that's meant, from a distance, to look like a luxury plane (think Lie-Nielson or Woodriver). It has shiny brass knurled nobs, polished wood furniture, and a fancy little logo on the side. Alas, up close, it's just a not-very-good budget plane. The knurled brass isn't very detailed compared to the real thing. The tote on mine has a big gash in it where someone slipped up. These are just cosmetic blemishes, though. More importantly, if you sight down the length of the tool from toe to heel, it looks like this: /_/ Alas, you will not be doing any shooting with this plane. The frog needed quite a bit of work to true it up and to remove the japanning that had bled around to the mating surfaces (see photos). The sole was very out of flat. I flattened it on a big surface plate with some rock-tumbling grit (see photos). This is something you have to do to restore vintage planes, too. The cap iron (also known as the "chipbreaker") is very odd with a heavy curve. (See photos for a comparison with a normal Stanley one.) I just replaced it with an old Stanley one from my No. 4 1/2. (That plane has a Hock cutter and cap iron in it, so it doesn't mind!) The cutting iron itself is both the best and worst part of this plane. Mine was ground skew by at least 3mm and had a terrible off-center camber. I had to regrind it more or less from scratch. This is labor intensive, and hard to do if you don't have some powered equipment like a Tormek, or a least a bench sander. That said, though, the iron itself is great! It's a little bit thicker than a Stanley iron, although not quite as thick as a Hock iron, and it appears to be made of some kind of ultra tough modern steel. It took forever to turn a burr on my oilstones. Once I finally got it sharp it whirrs through the wood like nothing and leaves a surface so glassy it's almost reflective! I took a shaving *against the grain* that's as good as anything I've ever gotten. So, at the end of the day, this turns out to be a serviceable but not great tool. You really are better off just buying a vintage plane if you can find one. The surprisingly happy ending is that you might want to think about buying Spear & Jackson replacement irons to go in your vintage planes, at least, if you're able to regrind them. They only cost like 15 bucks (compared to 60 or so for a Hock iron!