The Tragedy of "Almost"

 This happens a lot. 

I get a new tool and I’m very excited. I take it out and it looks good. No obvious problems. Maybe it’s got a nice shine or feels smooth in the hand. Maybe the first few cuts are even good. 

Then, problems. 

Consider the Tay Tools Low-Angle, Bevel-Up Jack Plane. Right out of the package, it looks…nice. Crisp machining meets bright brass and invitingly oiled wood. The black powder-coat looks high-tech. The lever cap is chromed. Good. 

But the moment I pick it up, problems. The handle looks really nice, but it’s obviously too small. It’s been cribbed from a smoothing plane and you can’t get all 4 fingers on it. There’s a screw holding the handle down. It sticks up way too much. 

The lever cap is weird. It looks like a spoke-shave design and it’s too narrow. There’s so much room between it and the sides of the body that it’s always crooked. They did countersink the screw-hole. That’s a nice touch. 

The adjuster just doesn’t move. I crack it open and find a tried-and-true block plane mechanism. A screw with a wide lip engages a semi-circular notch in the bottom of the iron. This design has been popular for decades. It works great…if it’s made right. 

Of course, I start poking at it. I find metal shavings in the mechanism. A little waste left over from the factory? No problem. A little cleaning, a touch of oil, then grease. Reassemble. Test. 

It moves, but there’s a grinding sensation. I pull it apart again. More metal shavings. I poke around some more. There’s a burr in the blade-slot and it’s shredding the brass adjuster with each spin. 

Can I fix it? Maybe, but I shouldn’t have to. This is a $150 tool. That’s way too much money for me to perform surgery on the thing. I’ll get heroic with a $5 Stanley, but for this kind of money, I expect performance out of the box. 

Oh, and the mouth doesn’t open far enough. 

Like I said, this happens a lot. I see so many tools that are almost really good. Manufacturers routinely get it 85% right, but that’s not close enough. A mechanical tool needs pretty tight tolerances. You need to get it 95% right for the tool to even work. 

What kills me is the amount of stuff they got right. The body, which is the hardest part, is very good. Everything is flat and straight. The bed is true. There are raised bosses for both the handles. The adjuster they’ve chosen doesn’t do lateral adjustment, but they’ve cast a pair of nibs into the body to hold the blade in position. You still have to nudge the blade a little, but that’s okay with me. 

You can tell that they tried to get away with just swiping a tote from a smaller plane, but that won’t cut it here. There’s nowhere to rest your index finger, so you need enough real-estate for all four fingers. Soba is going to have to suck it up and design a new handle. And that “hand-rubbed oil finish” feels cheap in the hand. My editor Nate gripped the plane and said “Hm. It doesn’t feel very nice.” Nate’s not even really a tool guy. 

Of course, the adjuster is the big thing. If it won’t move or it tears itself apart, then it won’t work. I know mine isn’t the only one. In the single review this plane has on Amazon India, the reviewer complains that their plane won’t adjust either. They still gave it 4 stars. 

I don’t get that. 

Here’s what the plane needs: deburring of the adjuster slot, a better handle, a new lever-cap, and longer throw on the mouth-plate. Maybe it needs set-screws tapped into the sides to help with lateral adjustment. 

It’s a short list. Everything else is good. 

And that’s what kills me. Soba must have spent a lot of time and money getting this thing to market. But they didn’t push it the last 10% and just make the damn thing work. I had the same problem with the Great Neck smoothing plane I reviewed a few months ago. It just didn’t work. So what’s the point? 

I see a lot of tools like this. I hate to see the waste. Up against the Stanley Low Angle Jack, this thing will get clobbered on the American market. The Stanley might not look quite as nice but it has great features, like a blade that can be adjusted. The Soba will get returned in droves (like I’ll return mine). It will be bought by inexperienced woodworkers who will blame themselves for the tool’s shortcomings. It will get pushed to the side and gather dust. All the work of the designers and workers who made it will be for nothing. 

Almost good is actually pretty bad.