Clifton No. 3 Smooth Plane

Clifton No. 3 Smooth Plane

The Clifton Bench Planes are highly attractive and functional tools that aim to give you an accurate and smooth finish. Ideal for the cabinet maker and discerning woodworker, both amateur and professional. These planes are ready to use from the box and do not need hours of flattening and fettling to make them fit for use (though we appreciate many woodworkers will prefer to hone the cutting iron themselves.)

The Clifton Bench Planes are made from the finest materials: the body and frog are made from accurately machined grey cast iron with their sides and sole fully ground. The walnut knob and handle are carefully shaped and sanded. The cutting iron is made from cryogenically treated 01 steel, hardened and tempered to 60-62 Rockwell C the precision ground and are 0.120″ thick (3mm). The Cap Iron has a single piece design to offer rigid clamping. The Frog locating pins and screws are made from ground stainless steel and are polished. The lever cap is made from grey iron casting polished. Both the screws and adjusting wheel are made from polished brass. The Y Lever is a solid one piece brass casting. The Adjusting Lever and some other components are made from polished stainless steel.

The frog and frog seating in the body of these planes are based on the BEDROCK design, first seen on early Stanley planes, meaning the seating pad in the body is full face, fully machined to mate with an equivalent full face, fully machined underside of the Frog. This ensures absolute stability of the Frog, providing a firm and solid surface for the cutting iron, this again rests on a fully machined upper side of the Frog. When allied to the extra thick Clifton cutting iron and Clifton cap iron. This design has probably the most rigid and effective clamping mechanism of any Bench plane available.

The accuracy of this mechanism allows for the cutting iron to be advanced to give a virtually “zero” mouth opening, so allowing the finest shavings to be taken even on the most difficult of timbers. The BEDROCK design uniquely allows the mouth width to be adjusted without dismantling the Frog and iron assembly. To adjust the mouth width, the Frog should be moved backwards or forwards as required. To do this, loosen the outside two of the three screws located at the back of the Frog seating pad (underneath the adjusting wheel), then turn the central screw clockwise to close the mouth and anti-clockwise to open the mouth.