thetyreman
Established Member
no7, no5 1/2, no 4 1/2 are my most used planes, I like the wider planes more, even on narrow or small stock, it just feels more solid, plus I have huge hands which can be annoying.
Essential hand planes
- Thread starter Silly_Billy
- Start date
Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:
Tasky
Established Member
"A scrub plane is designed to quickly remove large quantities of wood. Based on the Stanley 40 1/2, the open throat and curved blade allow you to take deep cuts with ease"D_W":ecwwv9xb said:
"In the past, Scrub Planes were used like a Thickness Planer to take rough-sawn boards down to size. Then the woodworker would progress to a Jack Plane, and finally to a Smoothing Plane"
https://www.lie-nielsen.com/product/scrub-plane
So yes, narrowing doors might fit in there, but mostly hogging off great thicknesses of wood.
And since I don't have space or money for a thicknessing machine....
Last two paragraphs of particular interest:
https://www.popularwoodworking.com/wood ... ous-animal
El Barto
👍
Speaking as a beginner I found that buying tools as I need them works for me. Hence for a while I only used a 5 1/2 jack plane and a no. 4 that I converted into a scrub plane.
I recently added a bevel up block and a bevel up jack to my arsenal but I was getting by pretty well without them (I can’t say it isn’t convenient having options to choose from).
So that system works for me and generally I know that everything has a use rather than sitting on a shelf collecting dust.
I recently added a bevel up block and a bevel up jack to my arsenal but I was getting by pretty well without them (I can’t say it isn’t convenient having options to choose from).
So that system works for me and generally I know that everything has a use rather than sitting on a shelf collecting dust.
Related to the original question - do any experienced woodworkers use two of any plane ?
I've inherited my Dad's tools with leaves me with two identical Record #4 smoothers. Trying to decide if the "spare" one is better traded along for something I don't have or maybe setup with a cambered iron and an open mouth and kept for scrub planing.
I find the tote of the Record #4 uncomfortably small so I need to rehandle at least one of them and try a 4 1/2 before I make a decison.
I've inherited my Dad's tools with leaves me with two identical Record #4 smoothers. Trying to decide if the "spare" one is better traded along for something I don't have or maybe setup with a cambered iron and an open mouth and kept for scrub planing.
I find the tote of the Record #4 uncomfortably small so I need to rehandle at least one of them and try a 4 1/2 before I make a decison.
Tasky":2thfb9ec said:
Lie Nielsen's text is wrong. They've said elsewhere (perhaps in video - it was the SIC there who made the comment - deneb) that it is a tool intended to do exactly what Stanley says - reduce the width of boards, and not thickness.
A jack plane is far better (and at least as fast - and faster once the follow-on work is considered) than a scrub plane for thicknessing lumber.
To someone fitting doors, if the amount needing removal was something like a quarter of an inch, there in between planing and sawing, and then the plane makes sense. As to anyone doing any significant dimensioning, abandonment of a scrub plane for a well-made and well-set jack plane happens pretty quickly. We try not to get stuck doing things like planing a half inch off of a five square foot board, and high spots are easily removed with a jack in such a way that garish tearout and torn off edges aren't a problem (like they are with a scrub). It's an impractical plane for general shop use, but the concept seems attractive. If it was practical, it would've existed long before the 1890s, but by then, Stanley was probably focusing on site work professionals. The market of mail order millwork, etc, was well established here, and that work wasn't being done by hand, but fitting mail order and factory made millwork certainly was.
Bodgers
Established Member
Strange.D_W":wpr2mtoo said:
If that's the case why am I seeing youtube videos with people reducing boards down to thickness and leveling using scrub planes? Is this the Internet misinformation at work again?
Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk
It's not that you *can't* do it, it's that it's not historically accurate. Usually when something isn't historically accurate, you find out why when you get more experience (in this case, because a jack plane is better for the job. ).
You'll find youtube videos of all kinds of things. Like guys making double iron planes. You can never believe them!!
(in this case, though, follow historical practice if you want to prepare rough lumber by hand - you'll be better off and you'll have fewer fits with gross tearout and blown out edges of boards, and spend less time and effort in the process).
When I started to do some of my work with only hand tools, I found it pretty difficult to locate other people who actually did the same thing. Suggestions of how to dimension wood from people who generally run their boards through a thickness planer are plentiful. I can say that the advice that I've gotten from Warren Mickley has been accurate every single time. I traveled my own path through several dozen planes to end up with a wooden jack, a wooden try plane (and a metal jointer for some cases where the work is rough on a try plane), and a metal smoother.
Warren works by hand in the middle of PA where amish (who don't do much hand work) makers are plentiful and makes his living doing jobs that are cheaper to do by hand than with machines (restoration, carving, sash work, etc).
I'd imagine most of the people showing dimensioning work in videos and using a scrub plane, etc, or a lot of modern boutique tools - probably don't do much of it when the camera isn't on.
Chris Schwarz writes a lot about hand tools (the above article is a bad example, because it's from 12+ years ago, and he's comparing thicknessing a board with a scrub plane as being "fun" vs. a smoothing plane. It's completely irrelevant), but he also often writes narratives that suggest he's not very good at completing rough work with them (e.g., talking about being unable to cut the end off of his bench with a hand saw and going to a circular saw to complete the task - I don't think Sellers did that on his bench videos, but I'll admit I'm chancing that because I haven't actually watched it. But I can watch sellers and see that he is a competent sawyer). His demonstration of sawing on Roy Underhill's show was pretty painful whereas Marcus Hansen's demonstration on the same show was a display of control and experience.
You'll find youtube videos of all kinds of things. Like guys making double iron planes. You can never believe them!!
(in this case, though, follow historical practice if you want to prepare rough lumber by hand - you'll be better off and you'll have fewer fits with gross tearout and blown out edges of boards, and spend less time and effort in the process).
When I started to do some of my work with only hand tools, I found it pretty difficult to locate other people who actually did the same thing. Suggestions of how to dimension wood from people who generally run their boards through a thickness planer are plentiful. I can say that the advice that I've gotten from Warren Mickley has been accurate every single time. I traveled my own path through several dozen planes to end up with a wooden jack, a wooden try plane (and a metal jointer for some cases where the work is rough on a try plane), and a metal smoother.
Warren works by hand in the middle of PA where amish (who don't do much hand work) makers are plentiful and makes his living doing jobs that are cheaper to do by hand than with machines (restoration, carving, sash work, etc).
I'd imagine most of the people showing dimensioning work in videos and using a scrub plane, etc, or a lot of modern boutique tools - probably don't do much of it when the camera isn't on.
Chris Schwarz writes a lot about hand tools (the above article is a bad example, because it's from 12+ years ago, and he's comparing thicknessing a board with a scrub plane as being "fun" vs. a smoothing plane. It's completely irrelevant), but he also often writes narratives that suggest he's not very good at completing rough work with them (e.g., talking about being unable to cut the end off of his bench with a hand saw and going to a circular saw to complete the task - I don't think Sellers did that on his bench videos, but I'll admit I'm chancing that because I haven't actually watched it. But I can watch sellers and see that he is a competent sawyer). His demonstration of sawing on Roy Underhill's show was pretty painful whereas Marcus Hansen's demonstration on the same show was a display of control and experience.
Bodgers
Established Member
Interesting info. I see there is an article from Chris Schwarz on the pop woodworking site about the scrub plane (from about 2005) basically making the same point about it historically. Reckons it was more of a site carpenter's tool.D_W":2e4bxiv8 said:
I see in Vic Tesolin's demo of the Veritas plane, the primary demo is of reducing width (as stated) with secondary uses being roughing in a bevelled edge and thicknessing...
Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk
Not sure if LV makes a good plane for ...wait, revise that. They have the custom planes now and you can get one in jack size, and presumably they still sell a bevel down plane of their original bench plane design.
Anyway, I'd probably not even use it to rough in edge bevels on anything - again, done better by jack. If it has to be done quickly but safely, then up a notch from that. Scrub planes have geometric characteristics that make them expert at surprise catastrophic tearout, and chunking the ends and edges of boards.
Of course, if you want to use one as a novelty, that's fine. We do a lot of things for novelty (like working with hand tools when second hand furniture is cheaper than our supplies), but looking for the first step in roughing wood efficiently? Stick with a less fun and less garish looking jack planes. You'll find out that using it with good effect is plenty of fun. Shooting past a mark with catastrophic deep tearout or breakout with a scrub planes, not quite so much.
Anyway, I'd probably not even use it to rough in edge bevels on anything - again, done better by jack. If it has to be done quickly but safely, then up a notch from that. Scrub planes have geometric characteristics that make them expert at surprise catastrophic tearout, and chunking the ends and edges of boards.
Of course, if you want to use one as a novelty, that's fine. We do a lot of things for novelty (like working with hand tools when second hand furniture is cheaper than our supplies), but looking for the first step in roughing wood efficiently? Stick with a less fun and less garish looking jack planes. You'll find out that using it with good effect is plenty of fun. Shooting past a mark with catastrophic deep tearout or breakout with a scrub planes, not quite so much.
Tasky
Established Member
I merely looked up what you said and that's what I found....D_W":2pg54r0c said:
Apparently it did.D_W":2pg54r0c said:
Stanley just made the first metal ones from 1890...
Oh, yeah, that'll be Sellers, Schwarz, Charlesworth, Maguire, Cosman, Wright, Wearing, Tribe and all the other Woodworking Gurus lying to you to sell tools, innit.... I'd just assume anyone you've heard of is a complete liar now, just to be safe, y'know? :roll:Bodgers":2pg54r0c said:
Silly_Billy
Established Member
I can see that if I ask two experienced woodworkers for advice, then I’ll get three answers 
However, forums (fora?) would be no fun without healthy debate.
I was going to ask which router plane would be best as a starter, but now I’m too afraid to ask :lol:
However, forums (fora?) would be no fun without healthy debate.
I was going to ask which router plane would be best as a starter, but now I’m too afraid to ask :lol:
Cheshirechappie
Established Member
Sideways":2da6kplk said:
I'd keep both, mainly for the family connection, but also because a second smoothing plane can be useful. The advice most experienced woodworkers give is to keep your working kit of tools as small as possible, so you become thoroughly familiar with each tool, and there's fewer to store and maintain. However - most experienced woodworkers have selected their 'small kit' from a wider assortment (very wide indeed in some cases!), and most have other tools 'in store' for when they might come in handy. Some of those will be specialist unusual tools, but some will be fairly standard.
That said, if you find a smoother that does it's job well and is more comfortable to your hand than the Records, you may find both go into store, and it may be pragmatic to 'release equity'.
Try a few different grips before doing anything drastic with the handles, though. Some people prefer to grip a small Bailey plane more like a woody coffin smoother than try to wrap their fingers round the handle, or lay their index finger on the side of the frog, giving them more a 'three-finger' grip. It's worth a play about before entirely sidelining them.
Silly_Billy":3itx0dhp said:I can see that if I ask two experienced woodworkers for advice, then I’ll get three answers
Well, if they're both accomplished, you might get very similar answers. If you ask a guy who writes books, and then ask a guy who fed himself doing the work the guy who writes books wrote about, then you might get two different answers. I'd probably rely on the answer from the guy who does the work, and save questions about how to write or publish books for the writer.
Aside - I think you should start a question about the least number of stones that you can use to get an acceptably sharp edge, or the lowest possible cost for a reasonable sharpening system and what it is.
patrickjchase
Established Member
D_W":3h7cgwen said:
It's also worth keeping in mind that there are multiple woodworking "traditions" that simultaneously evolved different solutions to the same (or similar) problems. In some cases, most notably the Japanese tradition, those differences were partially driven by a bias towards different wood species. In other cases there's no such readily apparent rhyme or reason.
IIRC the planes we now think of as "scrubs" come out of the continental (specifically German) tradition, whereas fore/jack planes were originally english (I know that's true of "fore" planes, not positive about jacks). I could be remembering incorrectly, though - this is a case where input from somebody like Warren Mickley would help.
It's also worth noting that Stanley had a tendency to slap traditional names on planes that didn't always have a lot in common with like-named forebearers. Their use of the term "fore" to describe a panel plane was a particularly egregious example, but the Stanley #40 isn't quite the same thing as a Continental scrub either.
(I keep one of those conti smoothers very rank - it's fun to play with from time to time, but not a scrub. Coincidentally, I do have a Berg scrub iron, because someone was selling them a couple of years ago and I ordered two smoother irons from him, and he sent me a scrub plane asking if I'd make a scrub and then share the design with him).
Lasse or something? Nice guy. I didn't make a scrub yet, but it might be a nice ruse. Coincidentally, I made a purpleheart coffin plane with an intentional mouth plug to have a tight mouth and a sloping-away wear, and after all of that, the iron turned out to be chippy. Excellent design for a guy who doesn't tuck his shirt in and look in the mirror too often (as in, those interested in pretty would be ashamed of a plugged mouth coffin smoother), but the iron blew the effort out of the water.
On the fence about tempering it a little further, as my past experience with chippy irons is that it's usually not just that they're overhard, and chippy isn't a characteristic that many berg irons exhibit, even when they're hard. Feedback through the stones suggest that this iron is somewhere around 62, not impossibly hard. I had high hopes because the one place you want an iron on the harder side if you can have it (without compromising toughness) is the smoother. Everything else works well a little above saw temper on up, but smoothing with a too-soft iron is a bit of a nuisance.
Puts a damper on the smoother, but that's aside from this topic.
if one finds a $10 conti smoother and sets it up as a rank jack, that makes for a decent "scrub" plane.
Yes on the regions and their tools. There's not a whole lot in long planes from the continentals other than a jointer. Everything else tends to be similar in length, which suggests that they weren't obsessed with dead flat boards, but a skilled user can get "very flat" with those planes, or pretty flat (visually) and move on.
Lasse or something? Nice guy. I didn't make a scrub yet, but it might be a nice ruse. Coincidentally, I made a purpleheart coffin plane with an intentional mouth plug to have a tight mouth and a sloping-away wear, and after all of that, the iron turned out to be chippy. Excellent design for a guy who doesn't tuck his shirt in and look in the mirror too often (as in, those interested in pretty would be ashamed of a plugged mouth coffin smoother), but the iron blew the effort out of the water.
On the fence about tempering it a little further, as my past experience with chippy irons is that it's usually not just that they're overhard, and chippy isn't a characteristic that many berg irons exhibit, even when they're hard. Feedback through the stones suggest that this iron is somewhere around 62, not impossibly hard. I had high hopes because the one place you want an iron on the harder side if you can have it (without compromising toughness) is the smoother. Everything else works well a little above saw temper on up, but smoothing with a too-soft iron is a bit of a nuisance.
Puts a damper on the smoother, but that's aside from this topic.
if one finds a $10 conti smoother and sets it up as a rank jack, that makes for a decent "scrub" plane.
Yes on the regions and their tools. There's not a whole lot in long planes from the continentals other than a jointer. Everything else tends to be similar in length, which suggests that they weren't obsessed with dead flat boards, but a skilled user can get "very flat" with those planes, or pretty flat (visually) and move on.
Bodgers
Established Member
D_W":1zb9v6n3 said:
Nice!
Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk
Silly_Billy
Established Member
I'm happy using 400, 1000 and 8000 stones, together with a leather strop. I don't feel sharpening is holding me back, thanks to taking a sharpening course. However, I won't claim to be Ron Hock and am hungry for any woodwork tips.D_W":2z7ppsuq said:
Well, I'm finding Christopher Schwarz's book helpful. Similarly, I bought a David Charlesworth DVD (recommended on this forum) that I'm finding extremely helpful too.D_W":2z7ppsuq said:
That's good. Unfortunately, I can't tell who's accomplished via an internet forum! For all I know, D_W, you could be the Theresa May masquerading as an accomplished woodworkerD_W":2z7ppsuq said:
Bodgers
Established Member
Interesting. I assume you mean the German wood planes like ECE, Ulmia etc? I always assumed they were basically the same. I.e. smaller width sole, wide mouth, cambered blade.patrickjchase":7go4gbvy said:
Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk
Bodgers
Established Member
Silly_Billy":jlr8nx2r said:via an internet forum! For all I know, D_W, you could be the Theresa May masquerading as an accomplished woodworker
https://www.youtube.com/user/daw162
Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk
Silly_Billy
Established Member
Whoops! Now I’m embarrassed
