How Necessary is a Specialised Scrub Plane?

[Jacob]

Ernest Joyce page 27 "Figure 14:3 shows the wooden scrub-, rougher- or Bismark-plane which is still manufactured, and is invaluable for knocking off the rough preparatory to either hand- or machine-surfacing. "
Not many other references about.

 

[custard]

I regularly make pieces with large, waney edged slabs. These can be sizeable pieces of furniture, large desks or dining tables for example. But my planer thicknesser can only take a 410mm wide board. One other thing, these slabs will often be hard, tough tropical timbers.

I guess I could use a router sled to flatten the tops, but personally I think the set-up of a router sled is too much faff. I'd rather just get stuck in with a bench plane.

You might argue it's a job that's tailor made for a scrub plane, personally I've never found the need. I prefer to use a simple wooden jack plane with an aggressive camber, at least to break the back of the job before finishing with a regular bench plane. It's how I made this dramatically figured Bubinga desk,

Here's the wooden jack in action on this particular slab, taking out most of the wind, knocking off the worst of the high spots.

I've done dozens of these, it's a bit of a work out, but it's still eminently do-able.

I trained at a workshop that used to make quite a few Hayrake Tables. These tended to be mighty Oak boards where the dimensions again precluded machine processing. Same story, the craftsmen invariably did the job with a wooden jack, or occasionally with their normal number seven Bailey style bench plane.

I don't know why, but scrub planes seem to be the subject of endless fascination amongst hobbyists. Fair enough, as far as I'm concerned everyone's free to use whatever tools they want. But real world furniture makers, at least in my experience, never seem to own a scrub plane, and they just crack on with either a wooden jack or whatever regular bench plane comes to hand that has a decent camber.

 

[D_W]

Let me guess, this man worked professionally during a period of time where machines were used to do most of the rough work.

He probably also worked during an era when marples blue chips, fat plated soft backsaws and other such things were the norm. I know there was an era when ECE planes were popular because there really weren't any other decent planes around, and because they heavily pushed the idea that:
1) their finer cutting planes solved a bunch of problems with stanley planes (They're worse planes than stanley, but you can market anything you want that's subjective)
2) their irons were some kind of long wearing high quality pieces of gear (their irons are about the poorest quality one can find now, but in the 70s, stanley's round top irons were bad, too. ECE just never got any better).

The reason I've had the type in older planes is because when I started woodworking, you could often get three or four planes like that in a lot for the same price as one plane. Same with #7s and such, but those days are long gone. For a while, I would try anything (thus trying both premium scrub planes, as well as a gaggle of wooden planes. English wooden planes were the first I wrote off as being confusing to use because none of mine had an iron fitted properly when I got them, and more than once, the wedge was very unlikely to go with the plane in the first place).

I'd hate to give up an english jack plane to rough wood with a bismarck type, but it would matter a lot less if I was really a power tooler just looking for hand tools to play with. Scrub planes probably sell pretty well now, because a machine cleans up their damage most of the time and most folks will never get the chance to take 3/8ths of an inch of thickness off of a panel.

This is the destiny of the jack plane I made above. I know that these planes don't get used for jack work so I make sure they will take smoother shavings corner to corner without clogging, but they would just die to makes shavings that would hurt to walk on with bare feet.

jack plane linky

 

[Jacob]

.....

You might argue it's a job that's tailor made for a scrub plane, .......

Nobody is arguing that you should be using a "scrub" plane but they have their uses.
I've been describing what I have found one useful for - and I will continue to use it!
Joyce's description of their use sounds perfectly reasonable.

 

[D_W]

Thanks for checking in custard. Of course, I'm glad your point of view matches mine, but not surprised! If it didn't, I'd still be glad to hear it. There'd be less fascination with endpoint tools (super heavy smoothers, super rank scrubs, saws with giant teeth or tiny teeth, super long jointers, etc) if people actually used their tools for a few hours a week in earnest.

The jack plane work on a slab like that isn't physically easy, but it's engaging and I think the reason most people don't tackle a job like that more often is because they don't bother to learn good plane setup and function and then build some neurons to do the "brisk walk" work that dimensioning is. It's a shame, as it may not have the circus value of a scrub plane, but it's an absolute tactile draw to the shop that a router sled never is (and once the novelty of the scrub wore off for me, I struggled to find wood perfect enough that I didn't think it made more work to address later).

 

[D_W]

Nobody is arguing that you should be using"scrub" plane but they have their uses.

in a thread that ask the question "how necessary is it", that's not a ringing endorsement.

I do know one use for a scrub, and that would be in offering classes to beginners. I'd probably bust out a scrub and then bust out a plane set up to take a 3 ten thousandth shaving. Beginners love that stuff - ooh and ahh.

if someone were to ask about a jack plane in an all hand tool process with rough lumber, the endorsement is easier - it's absolutely essential, and having two isn't a bad idea. After one busts through the idiotic advice from guru bloggers and past writers that "Jack" plane means a plane that can do everything (inevitably after power tools are used in those descriptions).

 

[Jacob]

....

if someone were to ask about a jack plane in an all hand tool process with rough lumber, the endorsement is easier - it's absolutely essential, and having two isn't a bad idea.

I agree. Who wouldn't?

After one busts through the idiotic advice from guru bloggers and past writers that "Jack" plane means a plane that can do everything (inevitably after power tools are used in those descriptions).

Says the would-be guru blogger!
What is the origin of the term "Jack" plane in your humble opinion?

 

[D_W]

Who is a guru blogger? I don't have a blog.

No clue where the term jack plane came from as I don't read historical texts, but the idea that it was intended to be a plane that could be set up as a smoother, scrub plane or short jointer is nonsense.

 

[Jacob]

.... the idea that it was intended to be a plane that could be set up as a smoother, scrub plane or short jointer is nonsense.

Nobody has ever said that as far as I know, are you hearing voices? Except you yourself said earlier that the function of the jack is the same as the scrub, to quote: "..being ready for the jack plane off of a scrub, which is a strange notion - they do the same job" Make your mind up!

Getting a bit boring this thread I'll try to keep out of it!

PS correction - where I said earlier about using a 22" woody on long work I meant 26". I just checked when I saw in Joyce that a 7 is 22" long

 

[D_W]

Getting a bit boring this thread I'll try to keep out of it!

You're getting "Jacobed" here. Except you're addressing hand tool questions referring to people who got their ideas about hand tools from using them mostly minimally with power tools.

But it's interesting that you're holding on to something that's a modern patch over idea (custard put it well -

endless fascination among hobbyists - But real world furniture makers, at least in my experience, never seem to own a scrub plane

re: your mention that I'm just setting a jack plane to scrub - no, I'm not. Neither should anyone else - the iron profile is pretty close to useless (it is useless if a jack plane is around) - I'm setting up a jack plane like a jack plane. What I said is that if you set up a jack properly, it will remove material just as fast as a scrub, more accurately, and with less follow up - I've said this over and over. It will do it with a profile that's more suitable to accurate work, but at the same time, not at the cost of efficiency.

 

[Jacob]

You're getting "Jacobed" here. Except you're addressing hand tool questions referring to people who got their ideas about hand tools from using them mostly minimally with power tools.

But it's interesting that you're holding on to something that's a modern patch over idea (custard put it well -

endless fascination among hobbyists - But real world furniture makers, at least in my experience, never seem to own a scrub plane

re: your mention that I'm just setting a jack plane to scrub - no, I'm not. Neither should anyone else - the iron profile is pretty close to useless (it is useless if a jack plane is around) - I'm setting up a jack plane like a jack plane. What I said is that if you set up a jack properly, it will remove material just as fast as a scrub, more accurately, and with less follow up - I've said this over and over. It will do it with a profile that's more suitable to accurate work, but at the same time, not at the cost of efficiency.

That's better you are getting it down to less than 500 words.
I don't recall anybody saying that real world furniture makers own scrub planes .
But nevertheless I expect some of them do!
Joyce thought so too. His work was the result of extensive research amongst real world furniture makers though he wasn't one himself.
Maybe they were pulling his leg about scrub/roughing/bismark planes? Seems an odd thing to simply make up.
You point out (from one of the historical texts you don't read ) that Nicholson doesn't mention the scrub plane. I wouldn't take that as proof that they are just a figment of an amateur woodworker's imagination; very many writers don't mention scrub planes but a few do - particularly Salman.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Wells and Hooper (Modern Cabinet Work, first published 1908, third edition 1922) give a suggested tool list for a cabinetmaker. It includes a 'Bismarck, or Roughing plane, single iron' (priced at 1/9d by Tyzack and Son, Old Street, E.C. (which is a London address). They also illustrate one on page 8, looking very much like the continental short plane with horn at the front. They describe it on page 9, saying, "a single iron plane for taking off the dirt and first rough surface of boards".

Such planes do crop up on the vintage market from time to time, but are nowhere near as common as jack planes. They also appear in some contemporaneous catalogues (e.g. Preston 1909, page 82, referred to as 'German jack or roughing plane' - two types illustrated, one very much of continental pattern, the other simplified with a simple peg front 'handle').

Conclusion - they were about in Britain and some people owned them, but they weren't as commonly used as jack planes, or as on the continent. North American practice may well have been different.

In answer to the question 'How necessary is a specialist scrub plane?', it's a matter of personal preference. If the sawn timber you use is pretty clean and fairly flat, a jack plane will do all the cleaning off needed, but if you have some warped boards with ingrained dirt, or reclaimed stuff with paint, dirt and nails, the scrub has it's uses. I own one and have used it occasionally, but not often.

Nice to have, but not essential. Wooden jacks are fairly cheap and plentiful, so another solution is to have two jacks, one set up with a wider mouth and more aggressive camber than the other, for rough work on dirt-ingrained stock.

 

[Jacob]

Wells and Hooper (Modern Cabinet Work, first published 1908, third edition 1922) give a suggested tool list for a cabinetmaker. It includes a 'Bismarck, or Roughing plane, single iron' (priced at 1/9d by Tyzack and Son, Old Street, E.C. (which is a London address). They also illustrate one on page 8, looking very much like the continental short plane with horn at the front. They describe it on page 9, saying, "a single iron plane for taking off the dirt and first rough surface of boards".

Such planes do crop up on the vintage market from time to time, but are nowhere near as common as jack planes. They also appear in some contemporaneous catalogues (e.g. Preston 1909, page 82, referred to as 'German jack or roughing plane' - two types illustrated, one very much of continental pattern, the other simplified with a simple peg front 'handle').

Conclusion - they were about in Britain and some people owned them, but they weren't as commonly used as jack planes, or as on the continent. North American practice may well have been different.

In answer to the question 'How necessary is a specialist scrub plane?', it's a matter of personal preference. If the sawn timber you use is pretty clean and fairly flat, a jack plane will do all the cleaning off needed, but if you have some warped boards with ingrained dirt, or reclaimed stuff with paint, dirt and nails, the scrub has it's uses. I own one and have used it occasionally, but not often.

Nice to have, but not essential. Wooden jacks are fairly cheap and plentiful, so another solution is to have two jacks, one set up with a wider mouth and more aggressive camber than the other, for rough work on dirt-ingrained stock.

Agree, except the narrow blade of the purpose made scrub is much narrower than any jack, which makes it very different from a modified jack.
I just had a look in Salman where there is a picture of a "Bismark" plane, with the Marples mark on it ; W.M.&S. and 3 shamrock leaves, so others were making it too. Perhaps Marples or Tyzack gave it the name?
Salman lists dozens of scrubby varieties going under different names, from different periods and places. Obviously widely used in the past.
P.S. Checked out Nicholson. No scrub. He describes "Carpentry" as quite distinct from "joinery", with different tools including adze and axe. 'Joinery' back then would include fine furniture as well as architectural stuff; Chippendale made almost anything, including (shock, horror!) painted furniture and coffins!
PPS checked "Woodworking in Estonia" (a beautiful book which I keep meaning to spend more time with) - some very interesting looking planes there! Also some very clever low tech ways of doing things, planing on a pig bench etc etc.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

It's been interesting to watch this discussion to see how the points have been advanced. It's always fun to watch master Jacob relentlessly pursuing a point of view.

I don't own a scrub plane, and mostly flatten boards and straighten edges on a planer. But every now and then I've had to resort to hand planes to do the job, e.g., a board too wide for the surface planer (jointer for David) that has to be used in that width. For the most part, as described by David, I just went at it with either my no 5 jack plane or with my no 7 try plane, both Records. It took some work, but I got there.

Then, many years ago I was inspired to modify a not very satisfactory Record no 4 smoothing plane - I had plenty of alternative smoothing planes kicking around, five including this one. I opened up the mouth with a file, and put a fairly hefty arc on the blade's cutting edge, and set the cap iron back so that its corners only just touched the limits of the arc at either side of the blade. In use, when the centre of the blade protruded by about 1 - 1.5 mm below the sole, only about 1/2 - 2/3 of the blade was exposed. It works reasonably well and in the past I've hauled it out sparingly to knock off the worst of the high spots in a board, or some particularly skanky bits of board face or edge prior to reverting back to the no 5 or no 7.

Then, one day many years ago (maybe twenty, I faced the task of flattening something long, wide, cupped and twisted again, and thought, "Screw this for a game of soldiers." So, out came my DeWalt hand held power planer, which took about ten minutes to do pretty much the same thing my home made no 4 'scrub' plane would have achieved in maybe half to three quarters of an hour.

I don't think I've used my modified no 4 'scrub' plane since, and it sits rather forlornly and perhaps a bit unloved in my toolbox. So, in conclusion, I'd say a proper scrub plane, much like my home made version, would probably end up mostly sitting in my toolbox primarily as some sort of decorative and slightly interesting artefact, especially as a hand held power planer is also to hand. Maybe I should offer up my lovingly modified hack of a no 4 scrub plane to the denizens of eBay. You never know, I might get £100 or more for it, it being a one-off and quite rare, ha, ha. Slainte.

 

[D_W]

The instructions given often to modify stanley 4s and now a stanley 78 are somewhat maddening (they would work if you were living in a vacuum and had a job to complete, but are just the same fodder that sellers or someone would do as a "something for nothing" gimmick when something better is widely available).

But, that bloggery sells - usually done by folks whose hand dimensioning is limited to showing other people how to do it (the standard for performance is pretty low when the group being taught is beginners and most will drop out before being able to sharpen anything).

If someone had the means to extract dust, I'd also suggest a power planer or a large belt sander with a 24 grit belt or something of the sort. I have a hand held power planer, but for whatever reason, it clogs within 30 seconds on a fein vac. (I bought it in case there was a fast request to make something that I wouldn't work by hand, or a giant slab that would be a pain to sharpen to the middle of - neither has occurred).

Forums have diluted the discussion of this kind of stuff to "anything works fine - 'your mileage may vary'", and poor choices lead to people saying things like "you can't actually make anything entirely by hand" or "nobody could rip lumber by hand and make anything". Well, I guess if the hand methods are taught on sample pine boards by people who never actually make anything by hand, then it could be pretty difficult to get anything done.

I never read much of anything to come to my conclusions above, and only was introduced to nicholson by Warren, who mentioned that the way I was using a jack plane wasn't suggested by Nicholson (I like to set the plane fairly heavy on anything less than about 5 feet and walk with it, but have changed that to do what nicholson says as it requires less energy - working an area as long as a stroke, and then backing up that length until done). Jacob complains about the length of my posts, but someone who has come to something through trial and error and experience rather than reading and referring to the author will generally have more reasons about why they made their choices. This is something far better learned by experience (which does take some patience buying and trying things) and completing work without falling back to power tools when the novelty wears off.

On the bright side, I did just see a completed sale of an LN 40 1/2 scrub plane (used) on ebay for $345. When LN has them in stock again, they'll be $175....
...not surprisingly, it was used, but unused.

 

[Jacob]

It's been interesting to watch this discussion to see how the points have been advanced. It's always fun to watch master Jacob relentlessly pursuing a point of view.

I don't own a scrub plane, and mostly flatten boards and straighten edges on a planer. But every now and then I've had to resort to hand planes to do the job, e.g., a board too wide for the surface planer (jointer for David) that has to be used in that width. For the most part, as described by David, I just went at it with either my no 5 jack plane or with my no 7 try plane, both Records. It took some work, but I got there.

Then, many years ago I was inspired to modify a not very satisfactory Record no 4 smoothing plane - I had plenty of alternative smoothing planes kicking around, five including this one. I opened up the mouth with a file, and put a fairly hefty arc on the blade's cutting edge, and set the cap iron back so that its corners only just touched the limits of the arc at either side of the blade. In use, when the centre of the blade protruded by about 1 - 1.5 mm below the sole, only about 1/2 - 2/3 of the blade was exposed. It works reasonably well and in the past I've hauled it out sparingly to knock off the worst of the high spots in a board, or some particularly skanky bits of board face or edge prior to reverting back to the no 5 or no 7.

Then, one day many years ago (maybe twenty, I faced the task of flattening something long, wide, cupped and twisted again, and thought, "Screw this for a game of soldiers." So, out came my DeWalt hand held power planer, which took about ten minutes to do pretty much the same thing my home made no 4 'scrub' plane would have achieved in maybe half to three quarters of an hour.

I don't think I've used my modified no 4 'scrub' plane since, and it sits rather forlornly and perhaps a bit unloved in my toolbox. So, in conclusion, I'd say a proper scrub plane, much like my home made version, would probably end up mostly sitting in my toolbox primarily as some sort of decorative and slightly interesting artefact, especially as a hand held power planer is also to hand. Maybe I should offer up my lovingly modified hack of a no 4 scrub plane to the denizens of eBay. You never know, I might get £100 or more for it, it being a one-off and quite rare, ha, ha. Slainte.

Well - a modified 4 will do it but doesn't make as good a scrub as the scrub does with a much narrower blade and tighter radius.
Power planer not always a good alternative of dirty surfaces as you very quickly end up with blunt blades.
Which brings me to the whole point of the deep/narrow bladed scrub - it cuts mostly into the clean wood below rather than skimming along through the grit/paint in the surface. The crarp gets lifted off with the shavings. That's all there is to it, plus being easy to use and very easy to sharpen
Sometimes it's just what you need, which for most people will be not often, if ever.

 

[Jacob]

......

On the bright side, I did just see a completed sale of an LN 40 1/2 scrub plane (used) on ebay for $345. When LN has them in stock again, they'll be $175....
...not surprisingly, it was used, but unused.

That's generally the case with most of the LN/LV planes on ebay, and often still in the box. Mint condition and if you are lucky you will get a pristine "plane sock" thrown in!
They get bought by aspirational beginners on the promise of instant results outa the box, but fail to deliver.
n.b. the ECE scrub is only e73 : Scrub Planes with single Iron | FINE TOOLS and as far as I know works as well if not better than the heavy brass knobby versions
I'd also recommend for D_W Dictionary of Woodworking Tools as he needs to learn a bit more about planes. More planes described here than in any other publication ever!
PS too long a post D_W I'd aim at 200 words max. Hope that helps.
PPS just waded through a few more words - what are these 5' or more long things you are making? Surely you are not making the elementary novice mistake of planing your stock before you've cut it to length according to your cutting list? PAR stock is what DIYers buy from timber merchants but not what craftsman make in small workshops.

 

[D_W]

I'd also recommend for D_W Dictionary of Woodworking Tools as he needs to learn a bit more about planes.

That's funny.

As far as long things, I've made a bed - the rails and striking mouldings for regular cabinetry are the longest things that I've made. In terms of regular making of anything with, let's say, 6 or 8 foot boards in furniture? I haven't seen it - most case pieces that are of significant size and height are made in separate parts. Striking the mouldings so that they can be cut and applied with no discontinuous profiles is the only large work. Otherwise, all of the parts are cut from rough, glued and then dimensioned. This is where the suggestions like "you can only do it if the grain runs the same direction" go away as it's generally not the best way to do things, and competence with planes eliminates need to worry about it - and without resorting to things like plaining directly across the grain.

Nicholson's texts about planes are about the only thing that I've found that matches my experience. I don't read other peoples' texts about planes ahead of time because confirmation bias makes people (like you with scrubs) think that something they read is legitimized as best. I'm happy that most of nicholson's discussion matches what I found out of laziness, and happy after the fact to have picked up a tip on jack planing to save another small amount of effort, but if I'd have read and applied 9 out of 10 books written in the last 100 years about hand tool woodwork, I'd be far behind my current ability to wield a plane to do accurate work efficiently, or to do rough through fine sawing - or even sharpening method.

I'll work over your sharpening pictures another day - the irons that you've mid-sharpened are biased against efficiency if finished further, but they're probably fine for housewright work.

 

[TRITON]

My thruppence worth is beware

Beware woody hipsters who laud old specialist planes, which no longer have a use in the real world.

 

[Jacob]

......

Nicholson's texts about planes are about the only thing that I've found that matches my experience. I don't read other peoples' texts about planes .....

Time you widened your horizons.
Just rereading Nicholson and was pleased to find my long 26" woody is technically called a "long plane".
I posted earlier about planing 14' long stuff.