Scrub plane size

[Sheffield Tony]

Whitmore is one maker of the "British Made" / "Made in England" #2 which I think was originally intended for scrubbing use and they work extremely well for that purpose - as I'd suggested earlier. :wink:

Sorry - I'll read the thread more carefully before jumping in in future I was trawling e-bay for a while looking at Stanley #40's at quite a price, when I first spotted these no-name #2's. I might get one next time I see one nobody else wants - meanwhile I have my homemade wooden scrub plane.

 

[GazPal]

Whitmore is one maker of the "British Made" / "Made in England" #2 which I think was originally intended for scrubbing use and they work extremely well for that purpose - as I'd suggested earlier. :wink:

Sorry - I'll read the thread more carefully before jumping in in future I was trawling e-bay for a while looking at Stanley #40's at quite a price, when I first spotted these no-name #2's. I might get one next time I see one nobody else wants - meanwhile I have my homemade wooden scrub plane.

There's never any need for sorry Tony. Pointers are very easily overlooked when reading threads. I think the only time the extra dividend for a #40 tends to be worthwhile is if someone intends to do lots of work with one. Otherwise it tends to be more of a shelved spare part or display piece, as their unrefined form doesn't tend to lend them to uses other than scrubbing surfaces and scalloping beams, etc..

I think those no name #2's tend to float in at around £3 - £6 on evilbay, but they are well worth a dabble and their narrow iron width is well suited to scrubbing work.

 

[Jacob]

Blade width.
Just did a bit of a morning warm up with a plane (I'm supposed to be doing building work). I thought I'd see what would be the maximum cut I could get with my ECE scrubber. With the blade fully out it's just possible to do a full blade width cut (33mm) for maximum waste removal but I had to open the mouth a bit. Hard work even on softwood and a dead stop when it came to knots.
In other words 33mm is as wide as you need to go with a blade. A wider blade with less camber will still cut, but shallower and with less waste removal. And 33mm is too much for hardwoods though it might work on green wood?
So 33mm is a good compromise perhaps.

 

[Corneel]

Do you plane across or with the grain? That makes a huge difference.

I can't push my old german scrub with the blade fully extended. Not strong enough I guess.

 

[GazPal]

Do you plane across or with the grain? That makes a huge difference.

I can't push my old german scrub with the blade fully extended. Not strong enough I guess.

Laterally and diagonally normally, but seldom longitudinally/with the grain unless blindfolded and with both hands tied behind one's back.

 

[bugbear]

Do you plane across or with the grain? That makes a huge difference.

Yes - the beam strength of the shaving is massively reduced, since it breaks on the short grain.

BugBear

 

[Trafalgar]

I've just got lucky with some plane buying which means I have an excess of wooden bench planes. Maybe now is the time to make one into a dedicated scrub, I've looked into it and there seem to be two favoured sizes, roughly a No. 4 or a No.5, with an iron between 1 and 1 1/2" wide. Just wondered if anyone with some experience of them has any advice before I start.

Thanks,

Carl

I believe that you do not need length in a scrub plane. The main point is to get down past rough sawn surfaces to clean wood, PERHAPS doing a little flattening and easing out of humps along the way . It's possible you might even make a swale deeper. We're talking about an operation taking less than fifteen minutes time, if even that.

If you're starting with stock seriously over planned thickness (you will probably find yourself in this situation relatively rarely, or should at least) then you can certainly use a scrub to knock off the bulk. Otherwise you are just setting the stage for your much more moderately cambered foreplane to start the process of brining a surface to truth.

 

[Jacob]

...

I believe that you do not need length in a scrub plane. The main point is to get down past rough sawn surfaces to clean wood, PERHAPS doing a little flattening and easing out of humps along the way . It's possible you might even make a swale deeper. We're talking about an opertion taking less than fifteen minutes time, if even that......

Agree. I had to look up "swale" it's not a common word in the UK - "shallow depression".
I wonder if the scrub is better known in USA and northern Europe because there's more green woodwork, or log cabin building sort of thing, going on there, as compared to UK? It'd make a neat job of crossover housing joints in rough timbers for instance, after starting off with an axe.

 

[Trafalgar]

...

I believe that you do not need length in a scrub plane. The main point is to get down past rough sawn surfaces to clean wood, PERHAPS doing a little flattening and easing out of humps along the way . It's possible you might even make a swale deeper. We're talking about an opertion taking less than fifteen minutes time, if even that......

Agree. I had to look up "swale" it's not a common word in the UK - "shallow depression".
I wonder if the scrub is better known in USA and northern Europe because there's more green woodwork, or log cabin building sort of thing, going on there, as compared to UK? It'd make a neat job of crossover housing joints in rough timbers for instance, after starting off with an axe.

Hard to say for sure but one could certainly be put to good use in log building and timber framing since joints are dressed locally rather than the impracticalities of four squaring an entire two thousand pound timber.

 

[Jacob]

Scrub next to a no3

33mm and 44mm blades

150 year old bit of 8" joist - tough pitch pine by the looks of it.

Blade fully out cuts a channel but had to widen the mouth to make this possible. First cut difficult but after that it's quite easy because you are scraping the sides and not digging out the whole trench. So it's fast and most of the cut is in the clean wood and will miss grit etc. in the surface

10 seconds with the blade set back a bit. Full blade won't do the knots but less depth makes for a very easy and fast cut.

10 seconds going the other way

20 seconds with a 5 1/2.

Impressive the sheer quantity of wood you can lift off in a short time. Tight camber leading to narrow deep cut, is the secret. Light weight makes it faster - the cut is easy but for speed you have to wang it to and fro quite energetically.

Come to think - it cuts very much like a big roughing out gouge on a lathe

 

[GazPal]

I've just got lucky with some plane buying which means I have an excess of wooden bench planes. Maybe now is the time to make one into a dedicated scrub, I've looked into it and there seem to be two favoured sizes, roughly a No. 4 or a No.5, with an iron between 1 and 1 1/2" wide. Just wondered if anyone with some experience of them has any advice before I start.

Thanks,

Carl

I believe that you do not need length in a scrub plane. The main point is to get down past rough sawn surfaces to clean wood, PERHAPS doing a little flattening and easing out of humps along the way . It's possible you might even make a swale deeper. We're talking about an operation taking less than fifteen minutes time, if even that.

If you're starting with stock seriously over planned thickness (you will probably find yourself in this situation relatively rarely, or should at least) then you can certainly use a scrub to knock off the bulk. Otherwise you are just setting the stage for your much more moderately cambered foreplane to start the process of bringing a surface to truth.

100%

 

[Jacob]

Yes.
The general idea that a scrub is where you start planing a sawn board is wrong in that the scrub finish is likely to be much worse than a rough sawn finish. It's only for ripping off a lot of material.
Schwarzy suggested it'd be good for board edges but an axe is better, followed with a cambered block plane . One handed and good for scribing. Mines a 220.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello

As has been said on a post before, Schwartz is incorrect. Scrub planes were and are used to flatten rough stock. There seems to be a difficulty in understanding the difference between smooth and flat. A crooked board can be smooth, but will rock and roll all over the place when put on a flat bench. A scrub can be used to remove the crook so the board will lay without rocking on the flat bench, but won't make the board smooth. Once flat, a jack removes the scrub marks and other bench planes make it smooth. Once this flat reference side has been established, the other side can be gauged to thickness and parallel to this edge then planed to the gauge lines. The scrub may be used again, if a lot of material is to be wasted, or more humps need to be flattened. This has been largely superseded by machine planer/thicknesses, but scrubs do still have there uses, especially to hand tool aficionados , who like to do all the work by hand. The scrub planes primary use remains the same, even if some have forgotten. It may be handy for paint removal as some have suggested, but it was not designed for this, and a drawknife is much more useful for edges.

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

As has been said on a post before, Schwartz is incorrect.

A bit exaggerated. He can use it on an edge if he wants to.

Scrub planes were and are used to flatten rough stock.

Not as a rule - normally a jack. It'd have to be very rough to need a scrub, inspite of Veritas's over enthusiasm; The scrub plane is the tool of choice for major stock removal, the first step when flattening rough stock by hand. Not true - should be a jack. Don't forget, they are trying to sell them.

.There seems to be a difficulty in understanding the difference between smooth and flat..........

I don't think so, but thanks for your painstaking explanation! A sawn board would have to be exceptionally distorted to need a scrub plane. You'd wonder what thickness you would end up with.

The scrub planes primary use remains the same, even if some have forgotten.

It's the scrub itself which has been forgotten - virtually unknown in the UK until reintroduced by LV and /or LN

.., and a drawknife is much more useful for edges.

Axe and block plane if on site (scribing) without a bench, otherwise bench and long plane, but draw-knife or scrub if there is a lot to remove which wouldn't be easier done with a saw.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Jacob,

Just listing a set of preferred uses for a thing, does not make it so. I am not denying the scrub might be used for other stock removal purposes; and in fact suggested that people use them in different ways. But quoting an author who is not correct in his assumption does not win a discussion. A scrub was designed for flattening out bow and crook etc. quickly before the jack is employed. You could just use the jack from the start and a heavily cambered blade jack with the necessary wide open mouth, is in fact a scrub by a different name. There is tons of antique furniture with subbed backs and bottoms (ooh err,) which testify the use of the scrub as a roughing tool in the days when highly finished areas in furniture that were hidden, we're not as fussed over as they are by some now. This is often misinterpreted as the work of an adze, which it was not. Feel free to use your scrub for what you like, or, like most of us, feel there is little need for such a tool, when you have a surface planer and thicknesses, but do not argue that it's function is something that it is not. There is much correct information on the web and in books as to the use of the scrub, which you might like to read before you post spurious opinion.

Mike.

P.S. of course veritas and L N want to sell tools, but no one makes people buy them.. It is nice to be able to, should we want to, if we have a need for them and know what they are for. Antique restorers could find a use for a scrub when making replacement parts for period furniture. I know of a maker of Shaker furniture who likes to use a scrub to do drawer bottoms, jjust as shaker craftsmen did.

 

[Jacob]

So exactly which of my suggested uses of the scrub are incorrect? Are they also spurious?
Where is the "correct" information written? Where do I argue argue "that it's function is something that it is not"?
Yes I know there is tons of antique furniture (and joinery) with signs of well cambered blades being used. Whether they should be "correctly" have been called scrubs is another question. I've photographed them, and adze marks, and can tell the difference.
Why did the scrub plane disappear from the UK if it was so common? There are very few identifiably "scrub" planes turning up here as compared to the continent and the states it seems. From your description of their widespread usage they should be as common as jacks i.e the most common plane found. I recently bought a large box of assorted woodies, I've now got about far too many. Not one is in any way usable as a scrub. They are/were a rarity here. I've owned dozens of planes and seen hundreds. I'd never seen a "scrub" until I bought a new one.

It always makes me laugh a bit this notion of "correct" information as more often than not it turns out to be a fabrication e.g. the 1/6 and 1/8 "correct" bevels for DTs, one of many popular myths.

You do say some odd things: ..quoting an author who is not correct in his assumption does not win a discussion... I was disagreeing with him about his use of the scrub if you bother to read, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it was not "correct". In any case discussions aren't won or lost, they are merely discussed.

PS they feature hardly at all in the books, though Ellis has "Single iron jacks are used for rough "scurfing" as a preliminary operation on extremely rough or dirty surfaces" which is pretty much what I've been saying they are for myself.

 

[woodbrains]

Yes.
The general idea that a scrub is where you start planing a sawn board is wrong in that the scrub finish is likely to be much worse than a rough sawn finish. It's only for ripping off a lot of material.
Schwarzy suggested it'd be good for board edges but an axe is better, followed with a cambered block plane . One handed and good for scribing. Mines a 220.

Jacob,

This is what you are wrong about, I cannot believe you forgot what you just said a short while ago. The function of a scrub is EXACTLY to remove material from the faces of rough sawn boards before using other planes. You might not think it is a particularly useful plane, nor one which found much favour in the UK ( although did in continental Europe and the US at certain times) but this is its function and bitchin' about it will not change the fact. Look, many people use cars to attract members of the opposite sex, but a cars function is a conveyance, arguing anything different is foolish, even though many have successfully ( for a short while at least) found girl/boy-friends in a car.

Mike.

 

[Trafalgar]

Pragmatically, the use of a scrub implies a pretty good bit of working room with regard to the board as it lies on the bench and planned, finished thickness. It's easy to get carried away and have scallops below one's planned thickness. When it's close, you have to put a longer plane on the board and one with much less camber and aggressive cut.

You really shouldn't scrub a 4/4 roughsawn board if 7/8ths is the finished thickness you'd like to achieve.

 

[GazPal]

Without any need for machineguns at dawn

From my experience: Scrub/roughing planes generally saw use when preparing weathered stock after seasoning and where it was in need of re-surfacing/refreshing before use. Before widespread mechanisation, work generally revolved around the use of rough sawn billets, planking, etc. and hewn stocks of timber direct from the saw mill, unless ordered from merchants. Pre-mechanisation was the period when scrub planes saw most use, although smaller shops such as boat wrights and site workers - timber framers - still carried them if necessary.

Stanley's iron bodied #40 & Record's #400.1/2 arrived a little late in the game and although they're occasionally still handy to have around, scrub planes aren't really a necessity and haven't been since between the war years. Record discontinued their scrub plane circa 1943 and would doubtless have continued production if there'd been sufficient demand for them here or elsewhere in the Commonwealth.

If using a scrub plane; Quite often a section of timber would be scrubbed clean to expose potential defects or spot check timber quality before machining. The timber would then be sawn - removing minimal material and to save wear on the planer blades - to expose clean timber and was dimensioned depending on our needs. Scrub planing is labour intensive and not cost effective in professional workshops where timber supplied tends to be of a reasonable quality.

 

[Jacob]

Yep. Ellis; "Single iron jacks are used for rough "scurfing" as a preliminary operation on extremely rough or dirty surfaces" but IMHO not for routine planing of sawn boards.
I suppose there is a clear dividing line between a scrub and the others i.e. the tight radius and the single iron. But we had a box makers (?) plane a bit back, with a single iron but normal camber, so intermediaries are possible.