Mujingfang Rosewood 9" Polishing Plane w/1-3/4" Blade

Summary: Beautiful plane, great price, tight mouth, balanced out by batch variations such as manufacturing defects and an imperfect, soft blade. I'd recommend buying it in person to make inspection/returns easier. I would not recommend buying online. If you get a good one this is a great deal. If you get one like mine, it can work with a lot of effort.The good: a beautiful, handmade plane at a low price. The wood is stunning. The throat is very tight with a brass strip inlay to minimize wear from re-flattening. The wood is far more stable than Japanese oak and requires less fettling than my kannas. When the plane is behaving properly, it can tame any grain, even curly, quartersawn bloodwood, which usually tears out if you look at it sideways.The bad: this would be a four or five but for the imperfect plane bed and the blade.The plane bed: Mujis used to (and still might) have a great reputation for being nearly perfect out of the box. Mine was not. The plane bed was unevenly cut with a steeper angle for the lower third; the lower third was also off-kilter, leading to further chatter. I'm still trying to pare down the bed and, until I do, setting the blade is tricky.Edit: I hadn't noticed before how bad this was but the upper plane rails (whatever you call those) are poorly angled and don't connect with the wedge towards the bottom. Now I realize why I could never get it to behave properly.The blade: Came with light mill marks on the back. Not what you want to see in a HSS blade. Lapping them out took some time but was easier than expected as the steel is fairly soft by HSS standards.Summary: Weirdly enough, my knock-off mini-Muji is better made than this. I can fix the bed but I can't reharden HSS. I'd return it for a replacement but I think I've waited too long.