Why didn Stanley or Record make a plane with a 60 degree blade angle?
For the exact answer you probably have to ask these companies, but here is my opinion: 45 degrees is the optimum cutting angle for wood in its pure form. E.g. with straight grain. Cutting at 45 degrees also has less of a blunting effect on the blade edge, so in theory this would seem the best angle to use to mass produce a plane. However, in practice this angle is not so effective because timber is rarely the straight grained medium a 45 degree plane was designed to smooth. A higher blade pitch will start to induce an element of scraping which will reduce the likely hood of inducing tear out. Also if you increase the blade pitch to 60 degrees in any plane you also increase the effort required to push the plane through the wood, so combined with the additional fiction of a metal plane it would have made using the plane very hard work.
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