Essential hand planes

[patrickjchase]

Whoops! Now I’m embarrassed

If you want to pick one somebody I'm the imposter here (relatively speaking). I choose not to show my woodwork because I know it's not on a particularly advanced level.

 

[El Barto]

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:

Veritas router planes are very highly regarded. I’ve got an old Record 071 that I refurbished. I think it was about £50. It works but if I was to buy one again I’d get the Veritas.

 

[patrickjchase]

Veritas router planes are very highly regarded. I’ve got an old Record 071 that I refurbished. I think it was about £50. It works but if I was to buy one again I’d get the Veritas.

I have the Veritas and I like it. The fact that their medium router plane takes the same irons is a plus IMO.

Router planes are actually an interesting example for why you shouldn't expect uniform opinions. They're extremely simple devices, and a simple wooden "Old Witches' Tooth" arguably ticks off all of the critical boxes in terms of functionality. Beyond that we're mostly talking about refinements and usability features/improvements, and those are inherently subjective. Drilling down to a more specific example, the tilted handles on the Veritas router plane are a highly polarizing design element. I know several people who would never consider that plane because the handles just don't work for how they hold and push a router plane, and at least as many others who love it.

 

[D_W]

For all I know, D_W, you could be the Theresa May

I could be a lot of things! I like pushing planes and making them, though. Not saying I do it well compared to a master, but I can do it passably and spot people who write a book every time they make a mediocre project.

And that's not limited to woodworking. Seems that the most prolific writers are enthusiastic and otherwise fairly mediocre at their topic (Chris Schwarz is no Tage Frid and certainly no George Wilson).

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Chris Schwarz may well be no Tage Frid, but he is a damn good publisher, who has brought the words of writers like Andre Roubo, Charles Hayward, the anonymous author of 'Doormaking and Window-Making' among others to a wider audience.

Those writers, for the most part, had all forgotten more about wood and tools than most of us will ever know.

For that, Schwarz deserves credit, not snarky side-swipes.

 

[G S Haydon]

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.

If you find reading interesting ,look up "Schrupphobel" or other European names for a scrub plane. As with most things there was a wooden version before Stanley made a metal version. There is less of a tradition in the UK for a "Schrupphobel". Perhaps Stanley saw a market for the "Scrub" in America where there was a diverse amount of trades from various European countries who fancied a metal version of a "Schrupphobel".

 

[D_W]

I've always given him credit for publishing things other people wrote. That's what he's good at. I'm sure I could find a dozen instances on various forms, and I have books that other people wrote that he's published and quite like them. Books that he wrote himself, I've had a couple and they're pretty worthless. They do generate a lot of discussion, but I'm not really looking for wide audience but low quality. It's sort of like saying that Chris Grobin has really brought music to a wide audience. Good for him. It hurts my ears and makes me long for recordings of a young Pavarotti.

Publisher is not to be confused with expert woodworker, and when he's reminded that he's not that great of a woodworker (he had a severe overreaction when his sawing skills were criticized on Underhill's program), he doesn't take it well. I don't love it when his fanboys revolt when they're faced with that truth, and I've seen a couple of times where people come out of the woodwork and register on sawmill creek to harrass George Wilson, who is a living master to say the absolute least, just because they couldn't tell a playdoh egg from sculpture.

 

[knockknock]

just because they couldn't tell a playdoh egg from sculpture.

Your comment reminds me of the Cloud Gate chrome bean :mrgreen:

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I've always given him credit for publishing things other people wrote. That's what he's good at. I'm sure I could find a dozen instances on various forms, and I have books that other people wrote that he's published and quite like them. Books that he wrote himself, I've had a couple and they're pretty worthless. They do generate a lot of discussion, but I'm not really looking for wide audience but low quality. It's sort of like saying that Chris Grobin has really brought music to a wide audience. Good for him. It hurts my ears and makes me long for recordings of a young Pavarotti.

Publisher is not to be confused with expert woodworker, and when he's reminded that he's not that great of a woodworker (he had a severe overreaction when his sawing skills were criticized on Underhill's program), he doesn't take it well. I don't love it when his fanboys revolt when they're faced with that truth, and I've seen a couple of times where people come out of the woodwork and register on sawmill creek to harrass George Wilson, who is a living master to say the absolute least, just because they couldn't tell a playdoh egg from sculpture.

Chris has written books on benches, toolchests, campaign furniture, staked furniture and probably others. For those books, he's built the furniture, benches or toolchests he illustrates, and from reading his blog, he's also furnished his house and built quite a few items for others. In the course of doing all that, he's sawn a lot of wood, and his methods seem to work well enough for him.

Maybe he's more concerned about the end result that the minutiae of the process of getting there. He's found his way to saw his wood to length, and then get on with joining it together to make what he needs to. He's found a way to keep his tools sharp, and doesn't bother that there may be a gazillion minor variations, or different brands of oilstone.

You do your thing in your own time and with your own money, for your own satisfaction. You like trying every last variation of a particular process - which blade steel works best for you, which minor variation of plane design suits you best. That's fine - carry on. It's your hobby. But don't be too quick to sneer at others doing woodwork a slightly different way. Their end goal might be a bit different, but just as valid, and it might also be of interest to others.

 

[Jacob]

You can do almost everything with a jack plane - 5 1/2 generally preferred.
Next most essential is a block. My favourite is a Stanley 220 - the old sort with a wooden button, the later ones are too heavy for a one handed plane.
Hardly anything else needed until you get to rebate and moulding planes. But if you have jointers etc by all means use them but don't imagine they are essential
Scrub plane I've concluded is very specialist and not for general woodwork, which is why they are not common. They are just for scrubbing up very rough stuff such as old reclaimed timbers. The narrow blade and deep camber means the cut goes deep into cleaner wood below, without having to cut through all the grit etc embedded in the surface, just a bit of it. Ditto with reclaimed painted or varnished timber - this will blunt a shallow cutting blade very quickly but a scrub will cut through the paint layers and work mostly in the clean wood underneath.

 

[Silly_Billy]

You can do almost everything with a jack plane - 5 1/2 generally preferred.

What makes a 5 1/2 better than a 5? Now I'm confused (again) ...

In many ways it is better to think of the 5-1/2 as a short try plane or panel plane, rather than a broad jack plane. It takes a broad, shallow shaving, so if you work with reasonably straight or pre-machined material it will deal with small corrections on wide surfaces very efficiently.

Conversely, if you work with timber that starts off like a propeller blade, the narrower No.5 honed with a steep camber and used across the grain (the traditional function of a jack plane) might be more suitable.

 

[Jacob]

Yep it is confusing!
A 5 1/2 will take "a broad shallow shaving" if you want it too - and if you grind the blade with no camber. But no camber makes a plane difficult to work with and is best avoided except for special purposes
To make it generally useful it needs a good camber.

A 5 is good for smaller work. Basically, size of plane roughly corresponds to the size of workpiece, if you have the planes.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

You can do almost everything with a jack plane - 5 1/2 generally preferred.
Next most essential is a block.

This is the problem with broad questions like this one. As I said above, I haven't used a blockplane for ten minutes in three decades. This of course doesn't decry your comment, but neither does your comment (nor mine ) necessarily apply to anyone else. I rarely use No.4 and virtually never a No.5 (though I have them) - but I appreciate there are others who use those two 95% of the time.
Horses for courses.

 

[El Barto]

Yikes a few unnecessarily bitter comments towards Chris Schwarz here. He really is a divisive character in woodworking isn’t he.

I like him as a publisher, writer and woodworker. He’s proven to be an invaluable resource to me and countless others I suppose.

I always find it funny and quite telling that those truly helpful people on the internet aren’t the ones lowering themselves to making back handed or snide remarks about others. They just get on with it. :-k

Know what I mean?

 

[Beau]

5 1/2 and block plane for me. Also use a compass plane a surprising amount. Own a no4 but never use it.

 

[Ttrees]

The 5 1/2 is a completely different animal than the 5
I recently got a 5, and assigned it to the metalwork shed for planing plywood or the odd bit of softwood.
I use one of my 5 1/2's as a smoother with the cap iron set, the other with a small camber for stock removal.
I used to have a bigger camber on one plane for this, but I've surfaced all my inventory face and edge on most, so
dont need a large camber anymore...
Maybe if I got a nice tree slab I might consider using a 5 again with a large camber, but I think I will take some advice
here instead, and get a woody for the job.

I like Chris as he pursues to find more forgotten techniques and such, but I was saddened when I saw him take a
HAMMER to an old no. 3 :shock: to prove a point ..
It looked usable to me, but maybe it was a lemon?

I wonder if he would do it now, after this (re)cap iron revelation

 

[profchris]

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?

Back to the original question, the wide range of answers is because people are doing different kinds of work and so need different kinds of planes.

I'd say that, whatever you're doing, you definitely need a medium-sized 'un. Quite what that means depends - I made a lot of ukuleles using a No 3, but I'm now working on some guitars and the No 3 is a bit small so I'm using a No 4. Someone making big tables might go No 5 1/2.

That might be all you need if it has an adjustable mouth and you've got a few blades, so you can remove excess material, smooth and deal with end grain.

If you need to join long pieces then a long 'un would be handy, though not essential. For a ukulele a long piece is maybe 12 inches, so I could get away with the No 3 (and have), but I still find a few uses for my No 7.

If you do a lot of small scale end grain work as I do you need a little 'un, probably a block plane (though my Quangsheng No 1, which I thought was an indulgence, turns out to be really useful here).

And then there is oddball stuff - I have one of those cheap 3 inch long brass and rosewood things via eBay which sees a lot of use on the innards of an instrument. Mouldings and so on need specialist kit. I find a woodie scrub, not too aggressive, really useful because I don't have a thickness sander. And on you go.

In the end you'll probably buy all of these. If you really want advice I'd say try every job with what you have in hand and see how you get on. You'll soon tell if the size/style of the plane doesn't suit that kind of work, and that will tell you what you want to buy next.

Or, if you have lots of money, buy it all now and gloat over it!

 

[D_W]

Yikes a few unnecessarily bitter comments towards Chris Schwarz here. He really is a divisive character in woodworking isn’t he.

I like him as a publisher, writer and woodworker. He’s proven to be an invaluable resource to me and countless others I suppose.

I always find it funny and quite telling that those truly helpful people on the internet aren’t the ones lowering themselves to making back handed or snide remarks about others. They just get on with it. :-k

Know what I mean?

Yes, the folks like me not selling anything, giving stuff away and not holding back legitimate comments about who is who (vs. those in the tool show circuit, who will not provide their accurate opinion about anyone else in the same club) - we're not truly helpful. Here's a simple point. When you need a book published because it's out in low volume and overpriced on the used market, Chris is your guy. When you need advice about tools, he's not your guy unless you like changing opinions and his lack of competence (who else would make a two part bench top under the guise that it's easier to make for someone using hand tools and then say they couldn't manage to cut the ends off? Who else would clench nails over in a huge mess like a three year-old? There are endless displays of incompetence).

If you like the "funny guy" for hand tools, look to Roy. He's nowhere close to the class of a George Wilson, etc, in ability, but he is still very good and his presentation is great.

If you like woodworking lite, though, feel free to put people like me on ignore. I'm not offended by that.

 

[Andy Kev.]

I suspect that all the replies to the question in this thread will be a reflection of how people work and that will itself dictate which selection of planes works best for them. So there will be lots of "right" answers and probably hardly any wrong ones. So here's my twopennerth:

a. A low angle jack plane. This is far and away the one I use most and it is about as wide as a 5 1/2. It took me a while to realise that the blade really does have to have a light camber on it. It also works perfectly well as a smoother.

b. A 7 or an 8. A long plane is surely the best thing for getting a long board finally flat. On anything over 2 feet long this one follows the LAJ. It needs two blades, one lightly cambered and one straight, the latter being solely used for the jointing of edges.

c. A low angled block plane. I don't use it often but when it's needed there is no substitute.

In the light of the above I've come to the view that a dedicated smoother is an absolute luxury. That said, there's no harm in a bit of luxury and I treated myself to a Clifton 4 1/2 which is only ever used for final smoothing, a job which it does immaculately.

Obviously at some point one will need a plough plane and a router plane but I assume that that is an uncontroversial statement.

The order of acquisition of the above is another matter. I would say get the LAJ and block from the outset and once you feel you really know how to use the LAJ, then get the 7 or 8. The only other plane which I added to the list was an old No 5 to which I added a modern blade which I cambered heavily and that is used for quick removal of heavy shavings more or less in the manner of a scrub plane.

 

[Oskar Sedell]

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.

Hi David, I want to understand your opinion on jack vs. scrub. Please forgive me if I take your quote above out of context, this is not my intention.

For clarity, I talk about the british style Jack or fore plane vs. the continental wooden scrub, without cap iron. I surely agree that rough dimensioning with controlled or limited tearout is great. I do this myself for show surfaces. What about back sides, or otherwise hidden surfaces where terminal, catastrophic tearout does not matter. Might a scrub be faster or more effective here?

The top of an old high cupboard at home shows exactly this. A deeply scalloped surface with even deeper tearout, all hidden from sight by the crown moulding. But I bet the work went really fast.

What is the role of shape and ergonomics (sole length, grip, etc. )?