Chinese wooden hand planes

[thedonutman]

I got one of these when I was back in China visiting family. It costs 72 Yuan, which is about 6 quid I think. The body seems to be made of some sort of Rosewood. In fact the grain patterns are very similar to the fretboard on my Indonesian made Ibanez guitar, so it's probably some sort of Asian Rosewood. The handle, that's supposed to go through the body looks like a bit like Wenge?! Certainly not the same material as body. Initial tests on some Korina show it works pretty well, with minimal adjustment so far. Can't imagine these Chinese blades would be great but we'll soon find out.

Anybody else have any experience with these planes? They look suspiciously like the ones Rutlands are selling for £30. The engraving on the body and blade reads 木井方, which is "mujingfan" in Pinyin I believe.

 

[woodbloke]

I have one of the Rutlands planes which looks very similar to yours...bit smaller with a single iron cutter pitched at 60deg. The steel appears to be quite good and holds a decent edge and it makes an effective small smoother for difficult grained timbers - Rob

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

11" long Mujingfang ...

Excellent plane for softwood.

Regards from Perth

Derek