FAIPLANE6 No.6 Fore Plane

I gave this five stars because it is a great tool for the money. It took a little bit to get to me because it came from England. I checked all the surfaces with a machinist square and a straight edge. The edges are perfectly 90 degrees, the flats are pretty flat but not dead flat (which they don't need to be). I sharpened the blade on my Tormek so it was razor sharp and polished it to a mirror shine (in my experience the mirror finish helps it stay sharper longer and it feels nice). The furniture is very nice and coated in some kind of poly. While I own some higher level tools like Veritas and this tool is not to that level I feel they don't need to be. This tool works just as good overall in my humble opinion. The No.6 is bigger than the No.5 (Stanley numbering system) and I find it very handy when jointing on smaller work pieces or you are just looking for an in-between for a Jack plane (5) or a long jointer plane like the 7 or 8. They call it a Fore plane because you use it be-Fore many of the other planes and for that purpose it does a great job. It is heavy enough to take larger shavings and knock off high points and jointing edges. Plus it fills a hole in my collection. Making wood shavings with my planes is the most favorite portion of the work and I find it to be a very good stress reliever.My only criticism of the tool is the size of the Tote (main handle). It is the same size as the one I got with there No.3, which is fine for the small No.3 and to small and a little uncomfortable for the bigger No.6. Eventually I will probably just make a new one using a Stanley template. But it is really not that bad and I have big hands.If your budget is a little smaller, you don't want to refurbish vintage planes, or you just want a robust plane that work hard this is a great buy. All planes need to be sharpened either up front or eventually (everyday). So I don't see that as a negative at all. With that point in mind, these planes are great because you don't pay a huge amount and you can put a little money toward a sharpening system which is so vital to all your cutting tools. Sharp tools just work better no matter what the name on the tool is.That is my two cents. Enjoy and good luck.

It's a hand plane for intermediate users cause You will need to have some knowledge of how hand planes are supposed to work. How each part is supposed to interact with another to get it to shave. Overall, it's a crap shoot. You might get a ok one or you might get a turd. So you are faithfull's QC department.Plus a no 6 is not that useful since a no5 can do the rough stuff and no7 is for jointing. So a no 6 is redundant, but if you have any injury or think a no 7 is too heavy then a no 6 makes sense.I returned mine since the blade had a big crack/bubble in the steel once I got to flattening the back. I messaged the seller to replace the blade but faithless chose not to reply so back it goes. You are on your own when it comes to QC and C's support.

Once you get this beast ready to use (clean off the oil, flatten and sharpen the blade, & etc.) this is a wood curl making monster. Got a cupped 2x8 you need for a bench? Run this heavy chunk of cast metal down that hump and boom, you have a flat plank for that bench. Rough cut sawn boards? No problem. After some quick work with this Fore Plane, that board is ready to work with your jack or smoothing plane. This is my first Fore Plane so I have nothing to compare it against but it has made my life a whole lot easier. I’m a happy camper and would buy another one.

I'm a woodworker by hobby, looking for a four plane. After reading reviews of planes in the price range I was interested in, I found the reviews from GB to be the most helpful. I settled on the Faithfull #6, Fore Plane, and I am glad I did. The packaging was adequate and no damage during shipping. Truing the sole and sharpening the blade took about 30 minutes. After assembly and a few test passes, I was able to cut a full swath down to .001 inch in thickness, measured with dial calipers. It has a bit of weight to it but not a problem. Being a retired machinist and inspecting the plane, the workmanship of the plane is excellent. If I have to list a negative, it would be by preference, to have a lever cam on the lever cap as opposed to a screw type. I would recommend this plane.

Completely disassembled, cleaned all the oil off everything and started my "tuning" process. Basically it was not needed. Sole only needed a slight flattening. Sides were good. Everything lined up and fit well. Pretty much ready to use right out of the box. Blade was even sharp enough to use but I'll put my edge on it tonight. Handle is a bit small for me but beautiful wood. Very much a quality plane for a very affordable price.I hope the company reads this as I'd like a larger handle made available.Mark

Price is ok wouldn’t purchase again will see how it holds up

The plane was so solid and well built that I decided to get it in all the other sizes I could find on Amazon. I intend to build a holding station for them soon!

The sides of the plane are not square to the sole, nor the sole flat to any sort of useable standard. Any plane needs tuning and flattening to some degree especially in this price range, however, there is a point where it is so out of true that it cannot be relied on. The front and back of the mouth of the plane has a noticeable gap between them to the naked eye when a straight edge was held to it. It did not require thickness gauges or strong back lighting to see the deviation. It might be fixable with sanding and some time, but the sides are equally out of square and that will not be fixable unless taken to a machinist which for a plane of this price point is not worth it. I used a machinist square to check and similar to the sole a clear deviation was noticeable without feeler gauges or strong back lighting. This plane will not be usable with a shooting board. All in all I am very disappointed with this plane. I did not expect anything fancy at this price range but flat and square are a fundamental requirement for a plane to be useable (I fully expected to have to hone and latten the sole).To make matters worse I ordered this from the US, and the price to return the item through amazon was more than the plane cost so I am stuck with it. If you are in the US, DO NOT BUY this plane.

This is a big plane and it's heavy - it feels really solid and I got it because it wasn't a lot of money for a longer plane than my No. 4 to do a particular job with no expectations one way or another. Quite honestly, I'm very pleased, it's not ridiculously bad out of the box (if you're desperate like I was) and as long as you're not expecting it to do finishing work because that's not what it does. If you need to flatten some big areas, you might need to look at a couple of feet of Jointer Plane as well or instead, but I'm quite pleased with it and am enjoying using it for this kind of work.I got it initially for one job - to do some long panel rough to smooth-ish primary work, followed up by my Stanley Sweetheart no. 4 doing the finishing. So yes, it needed some honest setting up - how far and how obsessive is down to your own level of Crazy Woodworking Madman and the demands of the job you're doing, but giving the whole thing a strip down, a nice sharpen on the stone with regular honing oil, a ride on the strop to final polish, an alignment check for the body and a scrub with fine grit paper/0000 wire wool for another bit of a polish and a wax buffing (so I'm odd like that, sue me), sorted in a pleasantly spent hour or so at the workbench. This got me to a point that's certainly good enough for a DIY'er with reasonable need and use who's not too far along the aforementioned Crazy Woodworking Madman scale.Feels like it will last plenty long enough as long as I don't do something stupid like drop it or wreck the blade and mounting mechanism through being dim.

The media could not be loaded.  This is a replacement for another brand number 5 plane that had to be returned. I am under no illusions that this was goingto be a perfect plane, but for £40 I am happy to let this be something I can experiment with. Structurally the main casting of the sole is substantial and sturdy. The sole is dead flat along its length and across its width which is good. The casting is not 90° though. They are perhaps a degree or 2 shy of square, but at this early stage of my woodworking development, its no biggy. Mechanism seems to function as it should, frog is adjustable (which is good, coz it was a mile out when it came) and as in the pictures, I did get good, if thick full width shavings of meranti wood. 2 other minor things. As in the picture the chipbreaker was not evenly ground and the edge was out of square, as was the iron; but nothing that half an hour over a waterstone couldn't heal. So, the last pic shows a shaving of redwood as fine as I could get it, which was 0.002", 2 thousands of an inch thick. Which isn't too bad. So, in general I am happy with what I have. The time will come when better, more refined planes start calling to me, but at this initial stage, this is a useful plane that makes me happy when I'm using it. 40 quid? Bargain.

This is an excellent plane considering it’s less than half the price as any other brand of a plane this size. I have around 20 different woodworking planes in my collection and I would rate this as highly as any Stanley or Record plane. One thing I’ve read on a lot of negative reviews of any plane is the blade is not sharp or they have no way to sharpen it my advise to those people are don’t buy a plane or chisel as even top brands need to be honed when they come out of the box. I now have 2 faithfull planes and I’m very impressed I’ll definitely be buying more

At 18" long and weighing several pounds this is a bit of a handful but well up to the job. I would love to buy Lie Nielson planes but I cannot justify the spend so this Faithfull No6 seemed like a good choice for very little money. It came well packed in a box inside another box so no problems there.The first job was to dismantle it and de-grease all the parts and the plane body which were coated in a sticky protection oil. Next was to look at the blade which had been ground giving a good straight edge but was not up to fine work. A session on a 1000 grit stone followed by finishing on a 4000 grit stone gave a mirror finish. I stopped short of giving it too sharp an edge as the quality of the steel used for the blade would probably fail to hold it for long. Once reassembled and set up I started out on some 20mm thick Oak boards with satisfactory results. It worked a 24" edge to a dead level in about 5 or 6 minutes of moderate muscle work.All in all I can't fault the plane and although it will not stand comparison with tools costing ten times the price it is fantastic value.

As per the other reviews, this is not a 'quality' plane, it is a budget plane, and as such it is exactly what I expected. The sole is flat, the iron takes and holds a good edge. One day, if I feel the need, I shall invest in a higher quality No. 6. In the mean time I have no regrets in purchasing it.One complaint though, the quality of the yoke is poor, it must have escaped quality control, because the tip is badly formed, it will not fully retract the iron despite setting the cap iron less than 1/32" from the cutting edge.