[prescript: This time I remembered to check google archives _before_
posting... 8^O ]

Greetings,

Having fettled, sharpened, honed and polished my production Stanleys, I
can get wispy curlies from cross-grained hardwood. So far, so good. Now,
with a gnat's whisker of blade showing, I'm trying to get the lateral
adjustment juuust right. Out of the box, with wide mouth and lots of
blade, for pine, say, I could eyeball the adjustment adequately. With a
couple of thous of blade, though, even a gentle tap on the lever takes the
blade too far 'tother way.

Is this simply a fine-motor skill that I have to practice? Are the
lateral adjusters on "good" planes easier to set? I begin to understand
the appeal of a screw-type lateral adjustment. Those LV and Knight set
screws look mighty nice, too. There's lots of advice on the web for
setting up planes, but I haven't seen anything regarding micro-adjustments
of the lateral adjuster.

I've tweaked the cap-lever bolt, looking for the point which will allow
firm lateral adjustment, without slopping around when blade meets wood.
I've tweaked the alignment of the frog. I've partially ground the face of
the frog (haven't popped out the lateral lever retaining pin yet...). I've
squirted dry graphite in various places. I've tried lubricating the frog
face with paraffin (Gulfwax).

As a related question, what tool would a machinist use to gauge the
parallelism of the face of the frog to the front of the mouth? Setup bars?
Gauge blocks? An ancient post in the Google archive says that one doesn't
need the lateral adjustment if one's blade is properly sharpened. Well,
ok, but the frog has to be parallel to the mouth for that to be true.
Also, there's no way to align the blade on the frog during assembly, other
than finger feel.

Yep, I'd rather have L-N or LV. Sigh.

--
"Keep your ass behind you"