Customer Rating:  
Summary: Very poor quality for a Stanely product
Comment: Please don't buy this product. You will be very disappointed. I have returned the product. I agree will the other negative raters. I should have known better. Stanley and Amazon usually have good to excellent products from my experience. NOT this time. By the way, I cannot say enough good words about Amazon's return policy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: this plane is junk
Comment: This plane is an absolute piece of junk. It came with the blade looking like it had been sharpened on a brick. I spent a half-hour honing it to a clean edge, put it back in the plane, spent ten minutes setting the gap and adjusting the blade (it has no in-out adjustment screw, and the gap can't be adjusted with the blade in the plane), and after four passes over a maple board, the blade had nicks in it. The city of Sheffield should sue Stanley to make them take the city's name off the package. In addition to the difficulty of setting the plane up, the blade is over a 32nd of an inch wider than the body of the plane, so you must either grind or file the blade down to match the width of the plane body, or spend ten minutes resetting the blade every time you change directions.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pretty dissapointed
Comment: While I'm not dissapointed enough to send it back, it is definately not as nice a plane as I expected, even for this price. I bought this one and a Stanley low angle block plane and there is no comparison between the two. This plane is beyond rough - there is a tremendous amount of work to do to get it even usable. The blade is misshapen, skewed,dull, and the body is rough. I'll flatten the blade and sharpen it and flatten the sole but for the work it will take, I should have bought a Lee Valley for this one.
Sept 07 - I finally got around to working on this plane. Took a little more than an hour to flattent the back of the blade, then hone the bevel. I also lapped the sole of the body. It works much better now, but it's a very crude adjustment. With more work, I can get it to where it should be, but I felt it was more work than it should have been. It works now, but nothing to write home about.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Stanley 12-975
Comment: I purchased this plane to clean up and fit small tenons and rabbetts. It was inexpensive and I did not expect really high end tool when I bought it. It was delivered promptly and, as with all my planes, I immediately disassembled it and tuned it for use. The bottom is very flat and it didn't take much to knock down the few high spots. This blade is not even close to being ready to use out of the box so be prepared to start from scratch. The back of the blade wasn't too bad but it did take a little work to get it flat. A few minutes on my DMT stones gave me a surface that I could work with. I used a jig and worked my way from my coarse diamond stone, through the grits and finished with rouge and the leather strop and finally got an edge on the bevel that I was satisfied would work.
As I stated earlier, this is a very inexpensive tool and it shows when you try to set the blade for work. It is clamped in place with a single thumb screw and you must be very carefull to make sure that the blade is square with the plane when you set the blade. To begin with, I set it on my table saw top and placed the blade so that it was level with the bottom. I snugged the retainer thumbscrew and proceeded to tap the blade down and test it until it would cut fine shavings from the surface of a pine board. I still can't say that I have it right where it should be but I can use it for what I bought it for. I keep it in my apron and go to it when I need to adjust a tight tenon or small rabbett. The blade seems to hold the edge pretty well and has only needed a touch up on the very fine stone and strop to keep it working.
You shouldn't expect much from this plane and you won't be dissappointed. Be prepared to fiddle constantly with the blade position to get it to work. IMO if the mouth were tighter, and it had a machined slot to hold the blade laterally, it would be much easier to adjust and it would work much better. Lateral adjustment is completely by trial and error and it doesn't hold its position very well in hard woods. I only use it for very small tenons and rabetts. Anything over a couple of inches long is done with one of my larger rabbett planes.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Stanley Bull Nose Plane
Comment: Stanley Hand Tools from England are out standing. The Stanley Planes for England are made of top quality Steel and are worth the price
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