I’ll admit that a first-time experience with a hand plane can be frustrating. You can search using Google with the terms “Hand Plane Tune-Up” and find all kinds of online articles about tuning and using hand planes.

The first thing I’d check is that the chipbreaker is on the correct side of the blade, or iron. It should be on the side of the blade opposite the bevel. It’s a common mistake with “newbies” to put the chipbreaker on the wrong side. And I like to put the edge of the chipbreaker about 1/32″ away from the sharp edge of the blade.

I hope this helps!

–Randy

I purchased a bench plane a few weeks ago. Now I’m basicly new to woodworking and I really haven’t done much work with a hand plane. Well I just started to use it and it was working fine but then I did a very stupid thing. I took the blade apart. When I assembled it back into the plane I noticed that I didn’t quite get the blade depth right, be cause now it really doesn’t cut, it more like glides across the top of the wood. Can you point me to an article that maybe might be able to help me in properbly adjusting the blade? I have no clue in what I’m doing. Help…

Thanks,
Ron