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.

Comparing Clifton bench planes to ordinary planes is akin to comparing a Mercedes to a Metro:they both get you there, but along the way you’re going to experience radical differences in solidity, control, comfort and performance.You’ll feel exactly that kind of difference the first time you put a Clifton plane to work.The weight of the casting, the quality of its finish, the rigidity of the iron and chipbreaker assembly and the precision with which they are controlled makes for extraordinary planing performance.Clifton’s adoption of Stanley’s Bed Rock design, together with real improvements in both the iron and the chipbreaker design, lets you adjust the planes’ throat opening from wide open for heavy work to a gap of mere thousandths of an inch for the finest possible finishing, all with no loss of stability or control.

The seat for the frog is a solid surface milled flat and true all the way to a virtual knife-edge at the rear of the throat opening.The frog itself, precision machined to match the seat, can be loosened, adjusted and retightened without removing the lever cap & iron assembly. Clifton’s superb plane iron is a full 1/8″ thick, hardened to ~Rc60 for superb edge retention and amazingly stable performance. Easily as heavy as the iron itself, Clifton’s 2-piece chipbreaker lies flat on the back of the iron, distributing pressure all the way along its length and eliminating vibration between iron and frog. Clifton irons and 2-piece chipbreakers can upgrade any Bailey-pattern plane.

As specified in the original Bed Rock design, Clifton’s castings are considerably heavier than ordinary planes (1/4 to 1/2 lb. more than comparable models), and machining is carried out to a higher standard.Soles are flat & polished, and sides are square and likewise ground very fine.In a bow to Leonard Bailey’s inspired design, Clifton has retained the lovely full curve of the side rails, just as Stanley did on their earliest Bed Rock planes.Top edges of the rails, and front & rear edges and bosses as well, have been gently rounded and buffed to a mirror gloss.Lever cap lever & screw are polished brass—accents as tasteful as they are beautiful.In another distinctive touch, handles & knobs are nicely finished Bubinga.We’re proud to add these outstanding planes to our collection.

(Click here for replacement iron.)

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