56 Old woodworking tools: Basic plane types
Description
This article is from the Woodworking FAQ Collection 1, by multiple authors.
56 Old woodworking tools: Basic plane types
Bench Planes:
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I will list these in order of use, the Stanley numbering system
lists them in order of size from small to large.
Jack Planes:
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Jack Planes range in size from about 12" to 15" in length, and
their irons vary from 1 3/4" to 2 3/8" wide. These are used for
rough shaping of boards. Their mouths are left wide, and chip
breakers set back 1/16" or more from the edge of the blade. They
are made to remove large quantities of wood quickly. Their
blades are often radiused to facilitate this. The #5's are the
jack planes in the Stanley series. The #5 is the basic jack.
The 5 1/4 is a junior jack made for smaller hands, and for manual
training courses. The 5 1/2 is a the bigger version.
There is another common bench plane that functions similar to a
jack. This is the scrub plane. Scrubs are short, with narrow
(1 1/4" - 1 1/2"), sharply radiused blades. They have no chip
breakers, very thick blades and wide mouths. They are made to
hog off a lot of stock quickly. Stanley's scrubs are the #40 and
the #40 1/2. There a lot of European style wooden scrub planes
out there. These have no rear tote, but a curved "horn" at the
toe, where the knob would be on a Bailey plane.
A well tuned jack can, in a pinch, be used for a smoother, or a
jointer. They can do an adequate job in each, neither as well as
the dedicated plane. Some have suggested a relationship with the
saying "Jack of all trades" here.
Jointers:
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Jointers are long planes. They are used to flatten and joint the
faces and edges of a board with some accuracy. Their long length
lets them ride over valleys and slice off the ridges on a board.
They begin in size at 18" and go up to 24" in the Stanley line,
other types of jointers go all the way up to 30" or more. The
longer the plane, the flatter the resulting surface. The Stanley
jointers begin with the #6 at 18" long. It's serviceable, but
considered too small for many. It is attractive to those who
have a hard time with the bigger jointers. The #7 is Stanley's
standard jointer. It is 22" long and has a 2 3/8" blade. The #8
is Stanley's biggest bench plane. It's 24" long with a 2 5/8"
blade.
Smoothers:
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While the jointer leaves an acceptable surface on most woods,
finicky woods with difficult grain require a very precisely set
plane to be adequately finished. A tightly tuned smoother will
shear off a delicate, lacy shaving leaving a surface with great
depth and clarity. Such surfaces far surpass the results given
by abrasives, or even scrapers. There is a belief, propagated by
some major names, that the smoothing plane should be followed by
final scraping. I remain clueless as to the wisdom of this.
Seems like saying: "after washing the windows, rub the glass with
an oily rag."
Smoothers are smallish planes. The Stanley #3 is 8" long with a
1 3/4" iron, while the #4 is 9" by 2". Stanley made a #1 (5 1/2"
by 1 1/4") and a #2 (7" by 1 5/8"), but these are primarily
collector's tools and are priced accordingly. There is also a #4
1/2 that is 10" by 2 3/8". The shorter length of the smoothers
allow them to be used on problem spots where the grain may change
direction. In such cases, one may have to plane in many
different directions on one board to get an adequate finish.
The key to the function of a smoother is a very tight mouth.
Usually, the frog is set as far forward as possible on a Bailey
pattern plane. The best smoothers have mouths of around .007" in
width (that's seven thousandths) or less. Try for less than 1/64
of an inch. The chip breaker should also be set very close to
the edge of the blade. Again, 1/64" is a good place to start.
Remember, you are using this plane last, the board should already
be square and very flat. You will be removing from .0015 to
.005" (at most) with this plane. The finer the shaving, the less
chance of tearout.
Block Planes:
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Block planes are designed to shear off end grain. Perhaps the
etymology is connected to the butcher's block. Block planes have
the iron bedded bevel up, and have no chip breakers. Turning the
blade bevel up allows the bedding angle to be decreased, without
requiring the sharpening angle to become more shallow and thus
weakening the edge. Standard block's are bedded at 20 degrees,
while low angle blocks are bedded at 12 degrees. The lower
cutting angle allows them to shear without "bruising" the end
grain. These are very useful tools for trimming and fitting.
Many have adjustable mouths which can be closed very tight
allowing a delicate shaving to be taken. They can rival the best
smoothers. Avoid those that lack adjustable mouths. No matter
how much Mario Rodriguez loves his pretty Lie-Nielson bronze copy
of the old Stanley #103, it's still no rival for the lowly,
grungy Stanleys with adjustable mouths. Stanley made A LOT of
different block planes. The most common quality planes are
numbers 9 1/2, 60, 65. A lot of the others (but not all) are
junk.
If you find a #62, rejoice! It's one of the best tools Stanley
ever made. This is a jack sized plane with a low angle block
mechanism. It has an adjustable mouth. Sell it to a collector
and buy Lie-Nelson's primo reproduction.
There are tons of other types of planes. Many of these were made
for working various elements of fine joinery. Many of them have
been replaced by the noisey electric router. I won't go into
them here, but know there are dedicated planes of the following
types: rabbets, filletsters, ploughs, dados, side rabbets,
shoulder planes, skew blocks, edge planes, chisel planes, butt
mortise planes, scraper planes and routers. For a good
description of many of these, see Dunbar's book.
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