Essential hand planes

[Silly_Billy]

I’m enjoying reading Chris Schwarz’s Hand Plane Essentials, in which he recommends four hand planes:
1. Fore plane - albeit he suggests using a No. 5 for this - which doesn’t have to be perfectly flat
2. Jointer plane, which does have to be well tuned
3. Smoother, which also has to be highly tuned
4. Block plane (low angle)

What do you think?

Please excuse this newbie question or if this has been covered before. I don’t yet have a jointer or fore plane. Having read Chris Schwartz, I’m now wondering if I can save money by getting a cheap fore plane, but confused because I thought a decent jack plane was important.

 

[AndyT]

As far as I know, the current use of the old term "fore plane" means the same as "jack plane", ie a plane with a wide mouth and a well-cambered iron, for rapid reduction of stock to size. You won't get far without one, unless you buy all your timber planed to the actual sizes you need, or plan your work around stock sizes.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I think it depends on the type of work you plan to do. If you aim to make furniture and similar case work, or joinery work such as windows and doors, by hand methods from rough sawn stock, that's very sound advice. If you plan to do that sort of work but doing your stock preparation by machine sawing and planing, maybe you can manage without the fore plane (except when you come to a board too wide for your machines). If you're aiming to do mostly turnery, or green woodwork, or Windsor chairmaking (for example), then there are probably much higher tool priorities.

On jack (fore) planes, you can indeed save a bit, by buying one or two of the many wooden jacks out there. You will probably need access to a grinder to put a camber on the blade (tip - don't be too aggressive with the camber to start with), but it's a great way to get into wooden planes. A woody jack can make a lot of shavings very quickly - and flatten some pretty wonky stock. A jack is a 'roughish' tool for bulk waste-shifting. The try and smoothing planes do the refining of dimension and final surface, and do need to be a bit better tuned.

 

[JohnPW]

1. Fore plane - albeit he suggests using a No. 5 for this - which doesn’t have to be perfectly flat

What he suggests seems to be a jack plane.

A fore plane is a number 6, in between a 5 and 7.

 

[D_W]

A block plane is unnecessary, but the others are fine.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

A block plane is unnecessary, but the others are fine.

????? I use a block plane all the time. I could live without one if I only made free standing furniture, but for any fitting work (I fit out boats) they are essential (well to me anyways)

 

[D_W]

If you're making furniture, you can do everything you'd do with a block plane with a smoother instead. For some things, the smoother is a lot faster (trimming end grain to a marked line) and more comfortable.

I'm out in terms of what it takes to make boats.

I've had a gaggle of block planes over the years, but I really struggle to find a use for them.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

It's not really a "boat thing". It's more to do with when you are away from the bench and one hand holds the work and the block plane is in the other hand. For sure it is possible to do this with a no4 but bench planes are really a two handed affair.

 

[D_W]

I generally do as you say with a #4. Small pieces in hand, plane in the other. At the bench, of course, and if the work is heavy enough to warrant, I put the 4 upside down in the vise.

I saw someone on another forum state that block planes were developed as a construction tool, and i think that's probably accurate.

Presumably, most people asking general questions are hobbyists who will be working at a bench.

Not casting stones at someone who prefers a block plane in that situation, either. I've seen more than one person talk about wanting to have one in their pocket at all times, but a hand dimensioner who is using a jack plane would find something in a shirt or apron pocket to be pretty annoying as it taps them on each repetition. About as annoying as carrying a pistol in your pocket.

 

[Tasky]

As far as I know, the current use of the old term "fore plane" means the same as "jack plane", ie a plane with a wide mouth and a well-cambered iron, for rapid reduction of stock to size.

Is that not also a Scrub Plane, these days?

About as annoying as carrying a pistol in your pocket.

Yes, but Uncle Mike's don't make belt or leg holsters for planes... do they?

 

[D_W]

Well, i never carried in a holster. I tried one time putting a ruger SP101 in my pocket (you can do that legally here if you have yourself vetted by the county and get a permit), and it was about as annoying as putting a block plane in a top apron pocket and having it knock around. And too much responsibility for me - never did it again. I'll take my chances with the old eyeball gouge or nut punch - and before that, avoiding getting into needless trouble or loitering in bad neighborhoods.

(the sidebar to that is that in the states, if you do like to shoot recreationally, having a carry permit allows you to do something - in my state - other than going to and from the range directly. If you go to a target range or to hunt here, you are bound by law to go directly to and from and to make no stops in between. We have to take hunters safety here, too, and that is where they will advise you to pay the $19 every five years to be able to carry. My English and Scottish friends are always horrified - or used to be - when they were here and realized I had guns in the house - as if they would jump up out of the safe and commit a felony by themselves).

I traded all of my shooting "stuff" for woodworking "stuff" and watches over the years - no permit needed, and you can get away with using your woodworking tools and not cleaning them all the time.

(I only ever tried putting a block plane in an apron once, too - the plane clanked around and in hard planing, the apron had a tendency to get hooked by the horn on my plane. Rather have a tie and nickers like the old days if I had to dress up to look like a woodworker).

 

[AndyT]

As far as I know, the current use of the old term "fore plane" means the same as "jack plane", ie a plane with a wide mouth and a well-cambered iron, for rapid reduction of stock to size.

Is that not also a Scrub Plane, these days?

I don't want to get sidetracked into a discussion about what people call things - that's linguistics not woodworking - and I am well aware that usage is fluid, over time and countries.

But there exist two different planes but with overlapping purposes and many people prefer to use two different words to distinguish them.

A scrub plane is a short, narrow, lightweight plane with a very heavily cambered iron. When it crops up in the English tradition it generally has a horn as its front handle, making it look obviously 'foreign' - hence its alternative name of "Bismarck Plane". Using it is a bit like using an axe - it's quick and rough. You won't get a smooth surface from it - more of a ploughed field.

Here's my scrub plane in use

A jack plane is longer, wider and its blade is less cambered. It can leave a fairly smooth surface, ok for an underside or for preliminary sizing before smoothing.
Wooden ones are very common, as are the Stanley style 5s and 5½s

Here's the first forum photo of a wooden jack plane I found

The usage can overlap - but I think that if you have both tools you will tend to use them differently

 

[Racers]

I couldn't live without a block plane.

My minimum is N08 5 1/2 and LN 62.

Pete

 

[D_W]

I'd assume that the scrub type planes are construction tools. I don't think they were needed or used for a very long time in preparing lumber for finer work, where a Jack plane will work just as fast and has the potential for a flatter and better surface.

I've stated this before on at least several forums, and the response is often "I couldn't live without a scrub plane, it's really useful". I doubt the "scrub work" they do is any faster than jack plane work for an experienced user, but a scrub plane may be easier to use to trim doors, etc.

I've never met anyone who hand dimensions who ever says they do much with a scrub plane - it's usually the idealized thing of "knocking a high corner off of a wide board before it goes onto the machine jointer". Also done at least as well with a jack, with the potential of using the cap if the wood is outright terrible, and with less blowout at the side of the board.

 

[D_W]

I couldn't live without a block plane.

My minimum is N08 5 1/2 and LN 62.

Pete

I had the same feeling early on, and at the time, I also though it should be low angle. If you went without it for a little while and used a stanley 3 or 4 and could manage with one hand, you'd probably find out that you can do without the block plane with little trouble, and may prefer not to use it in general.

The only thing where I favor a block plane is on the ends of very small exposed (through) tenons - faceting/beveling the narrow side of them accurately can be a bit difficult with a larger plane. Even that, though, can be done very well with a quick pop of a chisel.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Depends what you are used to - I've owned a block plane for probably 30 years, and I doubt it's been used for 10 minutes in all that time.

 

[custard]

I also find a block plane pretty useful,

-at the timber yard I'll keep a block plane, a tape measure, and the cutting list in a pocket. If there's an interesting looking rough sawn board then a few strokes of a block plane reveal more detail about the grain.

-for levelling up legs on chairs and side tables I prefer to hold the leg with one hand and use the other hand to plane down to the scribed line with a block plane.

-a block plane's a handy tool for chamfering, easing an arris, or putting a quarter round on an edge. Its size makes it perfect for shaping an escutcheon to fit or rough flushing inlay work.

I use both machinery and hand tools on most jobs, so apart from a block plane the only planes I really need are a longish bench plane for jointing edges, a smoother for final clean up, a shoulder plane for fitting tenons, and also a hand router plane for things like letting in escutcheons and cutting hinge mortices. If I've got a board that's too wide for the planer/thicknesser then I prefer a wooden jack for timber preparation, personally I've never found much use for a scrub plane. I could see a use for a carriage makers plane when it comes to preparing drawer cavities in case work, but I don't own one and I've always managed to find a work around.

Too many tools are as big a problem as too few, maybe bigger. You need many hours of practical experience with any tool before you really get it, and spreading those hours across too many tools means you don't achieve full mastery of any. Plus of course tools need fettling and maintaining, and that's all time that's better spent making stuff!

 

[Tasky]

I don't want to get sidetracked into a discussion about what people call things - that's linguistics not woodworking - and I am well aware that usage is fluid, over time and countries.

TBH, I find understanding of the 'linguistics', the what and the why, matters quite a lot for reasons of clarity. Perhaps more so these days with an international audience.

I have been reading about it meantime and it seems a Scrub plane (made official by Stanley in the 1890s) is meant for initial hand-dimensioning of rough timber and "hogging off" huge amounts of wood at a time, before you go on to the Jack but, like other roughing and furring planes, have largely been replaced by machines these days and are now mostly the domain of hobbyist hand-toolers (and YouTube Gurus) who usually modify a spare No 4.

However, I do keep reading about people who mod up these Scrub planes, but still use them like or instead of a Jack (as in jack-of-all-trades), hence the question.

 

[D_W]

According to Lie Nielsen, the scrub plane was designed to do things like make doors narrower.

I'd say that I'd suggest people avoid buying one and buy a decent wooden jack plane instead, but I'm sure I've had at least three scrub planes at different points, so who am I to criticize?

I still have an old $10 continental smoother set up as a "bismarck" now, but it's difficult to find a use for it.

 

[patrickjchase]

A fore plane is a number 6, in between a 5 and 7.

A "fore" plane is a British term for a roughing plane, that came into use literally Centuries before there was such a thing as a #6. If you look at classic literature on the topic, the descriptions of Fore plane look more like what we would now consider a Jack. Schwartz' use is historically correct.

When Stanley decided they needed to name their planes they happened to slap the name "Fore" on the 6, but it's arguably a misnomer. The 6 is closer to a traditional panel plane IMO.