The Tsunesaburo Mentori 45° Chamfer Plane is a masterpiece of design.
The plane is adjustable for width from 0 to 20mm via the two captive wing nuts. The oak fence comes with the wing nut, so take half a dozen turns on each spindle alternately .
Positioning is aided by two integral bass rules to help keep everything parallel and true. Once the desired setting is achieved, the fences are locked in place by two knurled thumb nuts.
The body of the plane sits in a T shaped mortice within the fences, allowing it to be slid left and right to use the full width of every sharp edge - genius! The smaller the chamfer, the more significant this advantage becomes.
A brass wear strip is installed ahead of the mouth to prevent the sharp edges of hardwood boards from marring the sole .
The laminated blue paper steel cutting iron takes a wickedly sharp edge and holds it for ages. As with all Tsunesaburo planes it is set up at the factory so that the blade will advance just far enough to take a cut. After allowing the well seasoned timber to acclimatise to your workshop, a tiny amount of scraping on the bed (literally microns) with a scraper chisel might be necessary to fine tune the setting.
- Dai length: 200mm
- Blade width: 32m
- Edge width: 26mm
