Question on Kunz #80 Cabinet Scraper

Question:

HI! Paul, Happy New Year!

Not to beat a dead horse, but I received a Kunz 80 for Christmas. I was pleased to find that the blade had one side beveled to 45 degrees. That was the only good thing I could find. The sole was very roughly ground and does indeed mar the surface. This will require some work. The blade falls through its slot with the clamping bar screwed down tightly. There is a 1/16 inch gap. I understand that I can file the two mating areas under the bar clamp to fix this. I also found that the adjustment screw hits the bar clamp on the bottom edge of the bar. with 1/3 the diameter of the screw. The clamping bar is quite robust and wide, and I was wondering if I filed the bottom edge of the bar, so the screw clears it would allow the scraper to function. I am also wondering how much clearance is necessary? I hope you can shed some light on this.

Thanks for being such a mentor. Best wishes to you and yours.

D K

Answer:

Well, as often happens, I give a fairly positive report on a tool hoping for the best but being truthful about my thoughts at the same time and then things go wrong.  I wanted to give you a good report on KUNZ and they let me down. Sometimes I get it in the neck but there you go. They have a good product UK makers abandoned that cost them zero in design and product development yet they cannot get the simplest solutions right. One quality control person resolves issues like this with the tweak of thumbscrew. My recommendation is to buy from a reputable maker and as far as I know there is but one in the whole wide world and that is Veritas. I  tried, everybody. Faithful UK repro-models are pretty bad now they never resolved any of the issues I highlighted two years ago.

OK, in answer to this dilemma. Of course you should send it back but that negates the gift giving and takes as long as it does to fettle it. Remove the bar that (should) clamps the blade to the body and where the two half moons are ate each end mark where they meet the indent and add 1/8" inside the recess. Take a flat file and file down the half moons to form a recess at either end, both to the same side of the bar. You can take it down as much as you like but 1/32" should do it. Now the bar should clamp solidly.

In the overall of things the final voice says consider carefully before you buy.

Best regards,

Paul