Taytools 469614 Smoothing Bench Hand Plane #4, 9-3/4 Inch Sole, Ductile Cast Body, Lapped Sides and Bottom, Blade RHC 55-60, Sapele Handle and Tote

The first plane I ordered was a quality disappointment. Excess casting on the underside of the frog that would not allow proper blade advancement, excess powder coating on frog surfaces that should have been unpainted, and sides out of square from dimensions in the product description. Amazon authorized a return and exchange. I had heard such a good review of this plane on YouTube that I wanted to see if I just got one that slipped through quality assurance.The first one was obviously one that slipped through quality control. The replacement plane is every bit as described and equal to the one I saw reviewed. Flat sole, sides square to the sole, powder coating only where it belongs, etc. All I needed to do was flatten the back of the blade and hone it. Beautiful results.For the price, this is a quality plane at a bargain price. Just make sure you get a good one.

After tuning and living with it a while I'm pretty satisfied with this plane. I purchased it more or less out of curiosity as like most hand tool woodworkers, I don't lack for #4 planes.The good:-the tote is a nice comfortable shape, a nice height and the finish feels good in the hand.-The sole was indeed lapped flat. This saves a ton of work tuning a plane.-the adjustment is easy and there is a pretty normal amount of lash between advancing and retracting the iron.-the iron holds an edge nicely and sharpens easily.-the fit is good, the frog holds tight and nothing shifts as you cut.-nice thick castings.The bad:-You have to lap the back of the iron into flat. This is pretty normal but must be done before the plane can be an effective smoother-the bed needs flattening. This is not necessarily normal. In order to get a good performing smoother, this must be done accurately and it was not quite acceptable out of the box. This is easily fixed but a beginner might not know why they can't get their plane to perform and it could be a major source of frustration.-once I got the frog off I found that the making surfaces to the plane body both on the frog and plane body were not smooth at all. I filed and polished them carefully so they stayed flat but are now smooth. The adjustment feels much smoother now and the frog is obviously more secure feeling. This should prevent a source of chatter.-the castings have only the minimum cleaning of burs and flash. Does not effect the plane performance but clean them up while you have the plane apart for a better looking tool.-the chip breaker must be tuned. I needed to stone it until I got a clean, even mating surface between the back of the iron and the edge of the chip breaker. This is normaland expected on inexpensive irons but necessary to get a good performing smoother.The take away:Don't expect this to be a finely tuned tool out of the box. Be prepared to tune it up. It has good bones though and once you put the work in it gets quite nice results. Critically, the sole is flat. This saves hours of work over other inexpensive planes. Out of the box it performs acceptably for Jack plane type jobs but it will not perform as a smoother. You must get it the rest of the way there.

Minimal setup and fine tuning out of the box, feels like a much more expensive plane. Very comfortable to use. I highly recommend this plane.

I agree with many of the other reviewers: Mine the frog was misaligned so no matter how I try and set up the frog the blade comes out crooked, and I have to move the adjustment way to one side (always the same side) to get an even shaving. The chip breaker did not fit well against the blade and took almost as much time flattening it than it took to flatten the sole. The sole flatness was OK, but there were pretty deep concave sections that took quite a while on my 300 grit diamond stone to flatten out. The flange on the frog adjustment screw just barely engages with the frog, so it doesn't really work as intended. It took a lot of my day just trying to get the frog in a workable location so the mouth wasn't too wide or too narrow. At the end of the day, I did manage to get it reasonably sharp and able to take some decent shavings, so it's a working tool now but it sure took a lot of work. I also purchased a Taytools #6 (before tuning up this #4), and I hope that one isn't as much work.

This plane looks and feels decent and the materials are mostly of acceptable quality. The sole is flat. However, that's about where the positives end. There are numerous deficiencies, including the following:-The iron. It itsn't even close to flat out of the box, requiring about an hour of work on a coarse diamond plate to fully clean up the back of the cutting edge. After sharpening, the iron does not hold an edge satisfactorily. You'll need to sharpen it after every 20 minutes or so of actual work.-The frog and the interfacing surfaces in the body are not machined accurately. The front contact points are at least .010" out of being coplanar. This means the frog does not mount solidly to the body nor support the blade firmly during use.-The retaining screw holes in the frog are drilled too far forward. As a result, the frog can not be advanced farther than the very back of the throat.-The casting is crude with lots of lumpy areas of scant and surplus material.In general decent materials can be the saving grace for an inexpensive plane, because some time spent properly setting up the tool can make it function well. However, in ths case of this one, there are defects in the machining that would be extremely difficult to correct by hand. Further, the quality of the iron is poor. You'll probably spend more time sharpening it than actually planing with it.Spend a little more and buy a better tool.