KAKURI Japanese Block Plane 50mm for Woodworking, KANNA Smoothing Plane Manual Hand Planer Tool for Finishing Wood, 9.5 x 2.5 x 2.3 inches, ECO Oak Body, Made in JAPAN

I am an advanced hobbyist woodworker, and a retired carpenter (served a four year apprenticeship). I have a number of Japanese tools among my many, many tools. Some of the chisels I love (some hot so much), some of the saws are better than OK, but I'm committed to Western style. Let's see, I began my apprenticeship in 1975, and worked along my dad for a decade or more prior to that, so I'm a bit long in the tooth! I've been intriqued with Japanese hand planes for a number of years but never enough to take the plunge. A week ago I decided to dip my toes with this block plane. It's OK! Then why five stars? Price is cheap, for one thing and it has the basis for being an excellent plane. While it can make a shaving right away, you are better off thoroughly reading the instructions and experimenting with a piece of straight grain softwood. So, what do you need to do? I can understand how some reviewers have said the blade is stuck (I thought so too, until I learned exactly where to tap the back). Some say the blade is razor sharp. Well, to the not so experienced, it might be, but spend a bit of time on a very fine grade stone on the bevel and face of the blade. It took about ten minutes to sharpen. Don't forget to also smooth the wedge, both the part the touches the blade and the two bent points at the rear. Experiment with inserting the bladefor proper projection, then lightly tap the wedge into place (don't over tighten-not needed). Now begin experimenting, pulling the blade towards you. Thirty minutes after opening the package, I was making .001" thick shavings-very nice, but it was on softwood! I need to learn more about this plane and maybe replace the metal wedge with One made from white oak. I may try to refine the bladebevel a it more. Remember, this is just an experiment, as I have well over hundred handplanes already, including several dozen western metallic planes. For $20.00 bucks and change, this is a cheap, fun way to try Japanese style hand planes, but remember, it is not fully ready to go, right out of the box, but a bit of time invested, will reward you with satisfactory results!

Wow! This is a great plane. The iron is sharp and ready to go write out of the box. Adjustment of the iron is really easy with just a few taps of a hammer. This is my first Japanese plane and I am really impressed in how great it is. I've never had a plane that is ready to go straight out of the box. I can't believe how inexpensive it is as well. I am amazed!

To me, this is a delightful bit of craftsmanship and evolutionary engineering (in the same sense that the bicycle is as simple and efficient as it can be due to its evolving design over many years. This little tool delights me. First, go find a video called, "Setting Up an Inexpensive Japanese Plane". It's only 8-minutes long. This plane is capable of fine work if it is properly set up. In the referenced setup video, the sole is setup with 3-contact (reference) points, using a card scraper -- i.e. some very slight hollowing between contact points is done (0.04mm max). Please note that not everyone sets up the third contact point at the back (far end) of the plane. I'm not clear on why this is so, but I suspect it may have something to do with jointing versus smoothing operations. I do not intend to set up a third contact point on this block plane (for now, anyway). It comes with two contact points on the long portion of the sole, so my opinion is you should try the sole as is, before embarking on any sole setup. The sides of my plane are square to the sole. Nice. My plane, and another I saw, both shipped with the blade upside down. I suspect this is just a shipping safety thing. Bottom line, this is a bevel down plane. If you don't know what that means, ask questions of someone who does. I bought this plane and a larger plane (it's also a Kakuri). The larger one is unusable without the setup shown in the referenced video, but I'm looking forward to doing that. This smaller block plane seems closer to being ready to go, but as others have stated, some sharpening and prep are in order. If you're new to hand woodworking, your idea of sharp is probably much different than that of those fellows you see in woodworking videos whose planing seems effortless and precise.

I've used hand planes for maybe 2 years as a hobbyist woodworker, and being very intrigued by Japanese style woodworking, I've always wanted to try one of these types of planes. Observing master craftsman adjust these planes always seemed intimidating to me, but when I found this listing on Amazon for such an affordable price, I figured why not try? Immediately I felt like I was holding a premium tool in my hand, with the body of the plane being smooth as glass, heavy weight, and the wood being a beautiful glassy surface. I couldn't believe I paid almost $200 for my western plane when I could have started with this. I don't have a brass hammer (which is softer than steel and preferred for adjustments), so I used my cheap rubber/plastic mallet for adjustments. With a few knocks, and in less than 2 minutes, I had it ready to go. I just used my eyes and lightly brushed over the mouth opening of the plane to see when the blade had come out enough, and with a little time I was producing shavings on padauk and hard maple that were better than my $200 plane ever made! I couldn't recommend this to woodworkers enough, and I think I would even tell beginners to start with one to get an easy and cheap entry into hand tool woodworking.

My first Japanese handplane, and I found this one easy to setup and start messing around with. It's good enough to convince me I may need another one to experiment with, but make no mistake it's not replacing my western planes. I somehow lucked into an old Stanley 605 and put a Hock blade in it and I've never seen thinner hardwood shavings than that combination can make, including YouTube videos of Japanese competitions. That said this has definite benefits on softwood and is WELL worth $17! A $17 Japanese plane couldn't possibly be worth its weight right? I mean the whole culture and tradition surrounding Japanese planes involves LOTS of man-hours invested hand tooling every piece... and obviously that costs more than $17... so what on earth is this thing? Well basically it appears to be a machine milled block (dai), and a die cut chunk of steel for a blade. That's really it, and there's nothing magic to it, but there are some small details that make this plane nearly ready to go right out of the package! I snapped some quick photos to illistrate what I'm talking about. The body is all just milled, but it's very flat from the front to the mouth and then ever so slightly relieved behind the mouth just like it should be. The mouth is all just milled, but because the blade is also just a stamped out piece the fit is already very close to what it should be and I expect will be exact after I work on the blade just a bit. I'll come back and finish this review after I hone it up and take some shavings, but so far I'm very pleased. I feel like I paid for a build your own plane kit, and got what looks like a truly functional tool! I have a Stanley 60 1/2 and was considering a new blade for it, but for less than the cost of an aftermarket blade I grabbed this and the Moore and Wright 4003 square I'm using as a straight edge in the pics. If this holds an edge and works endgrain well, it's a 5 star product at twice this price. Update: planed some yellow pine 2x4 without even sharpening it, just filed the blade and chip breaker a smidge to get a fit I liked in the dai and went to town. I knew the technique was backwards from a western plane but I didn't think about how much easier it would make it to line it up planing an edge to get a clean entry onto the board face. Normally with a block plane or Stanley 3 or 4 I might get a little sloppy on the first 1" or so of a board edge, but with this the start was perfect and then the very end got sloppy. Even with a factory sharpened blade it has a very cool burnishing effect on pine that I don't see with any western planes. I'm very satisfied with this purchase even if I only mess around with this on my little pine shop shiznit projects. For the price, size, and weight this thing will probably be with me anytime I do something in softwood. Interested to see how the edge holds up.

I recently got the hand plane, and I'm new to using hand planes. The hand plane was a little tricky out of the box and required some sharpening to get it to run well. I sharpened the iron parts and they don't seem to line up quite right. It's clear that one side takes a larger bite out of the wood than the other side and I suspect it has to do with the inconsistency of the iron faces. This is probably a good plane if you spend the required time to get it all set up, but if you're looking for a plane that works well out of the box, I don't think that this is the one for you.

This japanese hand plane is very nicely made. The blade is easily sharpened and adjust with a light tap from a hammer

It's sharp and well made. I just need the skill to use it, as it's a bit of a learning curve. I think it works better on soft wood than hard wood.