So it arrived and worth the wait it was too. It has a beautiful heft in the hand and the whole thing is finished to the standard that we have come to expect from Lee Valley/Veritas...ie wonderful design with crisp detailing and a nice black crinkle finish. Their design team certainly look at things from a new angle instead of purely reinterpreting an older design.
The blade is a nice piece of 1mm (0.040") High Carbon steel that is very precisely ground and only needed to have the burr put on with the burnisher for it to perform its job. I scraped some highly figured blackwood and it effortlessly scraped past the tearout and polished the surface. The sole comes hand lapped instead of just surface ground so that is why it is dull flat grey but I suppose you could polish the sole back up a bit if you were so inclined.
The palm rest pivots to either side to fit your hand better if you want but I tried that but left it central as I felt that was more comfortable. There is a grub screw under the handle to induce some flex into the blade to make the cut more aggressive which works well. The blade angle is fixed and the adjustment is via the grub screw just mentioned. I think that it is 20 degrees ahead of vertical.
Anyway all in all a very tasty piece of kit that should be a great addition to my lutherie arsenal....highly recommended!
