And if I may just put in a word in favour of the old style moving fillister plane...
Last weekend I was planing two rebates along the edges of some birch ply. I did the first one using a 778 style metal rebate/fillister plane. It worked fine; the rebate was flat and square, but the work was slow and not terribly pleasant.
For the second one I switched to an old Mathieson moving fillister with a proper skewed blade. It was much more comfortable to hold (no need to wrap your fingers round thin metal rods) and it took off a continuous shaving even when cutting on the cross-grain layer. So it did the job quicker and easier.
On the whole, these planes remain common and cheap to buy, though I think ebay saw a bit of a blip in prices when Matt Bickford's 'Mouldings in Practice' came out. If you haven't got one (or several!) get one while you can.
Last weekend I was planing two rebates along the edges of some birch ply. I did the first one using a 778 style metal rebate/fillister plane. It worked fine; the rebate was flat and square, but the work was slow and not terribly pleasant.
For the second one I switched to an old Mathieson moving fillister with a proper skewed blade. It was much more comfortable to hold (no need to wrap your fingers round thin metal rods) and it took off a continuous shaving even when cutting on the cross-grain layer. So it did the job quicker and easier.
On the whole, these planes remain common and cheap to buy, though I think ebay saw a bit of a blip in prices when Matt Bickford's 'Mouldings in Practice' came out. If you haven't got one (or several!) get one while you can.
