“Bought it Dec. 2024 on sale for $159. It arrived a day early. Looked great out of the box. Checked sole flatness with a machinist straight edge. Dead flat. Checked sides for square to the sole, a bit off, but no biggie for me, I’ll just use the lateral adjustment when shooting. Back of the blade was flat. It took less than a minute per sandpaper sheet to polish up to 600 grit starting from 220 on a granite slab. There was the slightest of nicks on the bevel of the blade, but that came out when doing my initial sharpening. Flattened the underside edge of the chip breaker in about a minute with my Arkansas stones. Put blade and chip breaker back together - no light between the two. Adjustment knob and lever work great, not too much play in the adjustment knob. I eased the edges of the sole and lapped it starting from 220 grit to 600. That didn’t take long. All in all, I probably spent 30 mins for the initial setup, which isn’t bad at all in my experience. Now it’s tuned to how I like it. I’ve spent much longer tuning other planes I got off eBay and even the wood river 5 1/2 that I got 4 years ago. This was a pleasant set up. I was saying oh yeah I’m my head after each step. I have a type 17 Stanley no 4 and one of those newer Stanley Sweetheart no 4’s, this Woodriver is a joy to use over the Sweatheart and performs just as well as my type 17. I already put it through some good work finishing some gifts for the fam. Used it as a shooting plane and smoother on some zebra wood, cherry, walnut and maple. Prob put 3 hours of good work on it so far. I’m really impressed especially given the price I got it. Very happy. My final thoughts are that I treat used and new planes the same when I first get them. I expect to do some tuning, but with the new out of the box planes I don’t expect to have to do a lot of work to them, and this was the case with the Wood River no 4, so I was very pleased.”

3 Helpful Report

Posted 3 months ago

“This was not the first wood river plane that I have purchased and it will not be the last. It did seem however to be the lowest quality one that I have owned. The casting was fine and the blade is decent but the knob and tote were terrible. Whoever finished them did a bad job. The knob had ridges and wasn't perfectly smooth, the tote was substantially flatter than any other wood river I have held. Both were not smooth in the hand and seemed to be lacking a coat or two of finish that my other planes have. The wood was also very ugly and lacked the nicer grain of my other wood river planes. I ended up just making my own knob and tote to replace them since it would be an hour drive there and back to return it to the store. The other negative was that the chip breaker needed substantial flattening to mate with the blade flat. All that said the plane is decent once you get the edges eased and blade sharpened. It takes great shavings and works as it should. It also looks great now that I put walnut knobs on it. I was disappointed that this one wasn't quite as nice as some of my others, but it wouldn't keep me from buying one again. It's the best quality per cost ratio that I have found. It won't wow you like a Lie Nielsen, but it won't disappoint you like many cheaper planes on the market.”

2 Helpful Report

Posted 4 months ago

“I bought this during 2024 black Friday sale. I'm super pumped about this smoother. It's beautiful, hefty...much heavier than my old Bailey #4, and functions great. I haven't put it through any real work yet, but expect it to be a daily driver for years! I'm anticipating buying the #7 in the coming months.”

Helpful Report

Posted 4 months ago

AN From Manly

Verified Reviewer

“I recently purchased the #4 Woodriver hand plane. Unfortunately the choice was very limited and I urgently needed a plane, otherwise I would have purchased a different model. Overall the quality is good, but the handle is way too small to be comfortable for an adult. The Rob Cosman review on Youtube mentions this as well. Just makes you wonder why no put a larger handle on the #4, or at least make it very clear in the product description that this is a kids plan or for people with very small hands. It makes it extra hard as I'm planing Australian gum wood at the moment, so definitely not the right tool for the job, but like I said choice was limited. Looking forward to order another model as it has been a pleasure to deal with Woodcraft.com. Shipment was very fast and shipping costs was very reasonable to Australia. Thanks guys!”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

AN From Manly

Verified Reviewer

“I recently purchased the #4 Woodriver hand plane. Unfortunately the choice was very limited and I urgently needed a plane, otherwise I would have purchased a different model. Overall the quality is good, but the handle is way too small to be comfortable for an adult. The Rob Cosman review on Youtube mentions this as well. Just makes you wonder why no put a larger handle on the #4, or at least make it very clear in the product description that this is a kids plan or for people with very small hands. It makes it extra hard as I'm planing Australian gum wood at the moment, so definitely not the right tool for the job, but like I said choice was limited. Looking forward to order another model as it has been a pleasure to deal with Woodcraft.com. Shipment was very fast and shipping costs was very reasonable to Australia. Thanks guys!”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

BA From Granby

Verified Reviewer

“It's not fair to compare this to good American/European made planes that cost a lot more. It's more fair to compare it to newer Stanley planes made in the Far East, and it is easily better than those. I only have two concerns: The cut adjustment screw has so much play that it becomes a chore to adjust. WAY too wide tolerances. If Woodcraft had paid a bit extra for tighter tolerances, it would have cut this daily irritation. The plane itself is on the light side. This is not a good thing for a bench plane. You want it to have plenty of inertia, so it keeps on planing even if met with a little resistance, and get a longer stroke. I will likely epoxy some additional weight onto it. If you only use it for short pieces and can put your body weight behind it, it's not a big deal. But for longer planks, more mass would be helpful.”

2 Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

#4 Bench Hand Plane - Smoothing Plane - V3 Reviews