handplanes

Hand planes today serve a peripheral purpose for many woodworkers, but in ages past (metal hand plane relics have been
found in Roman ruins), it was the primary tool for smoothing the face of a board and squaring its edges to that face. The
same plane could both jobs, but varying plane widths, lengths, iron (blade) angles and widths and shapes, all became
common improvements. It is probable that the first plane was nothing more than a chisel or other blade held in a slotted
block of wood by hand, with improvements coming quickly as the need was seen--maybe a wedge to more accurately hold
the iron in its slot, then a shaped wood body to allow a better grip, then a smaller mouth on the slot to make control better.
These are all maybes, and probably never will be known, but we do know the jobs today's planes, and those of the recent
past, do. We can smooth board faces, joint board edges, cut rabbets, and make moldings. We can work with or across the
grain, cut dadoes as well as moldings, and generally help ourselves to save set-up time and energy on short jobs. And
when a planer isn't large enough to do the full face of a board that must be flatted, a skilled plane user can do that, quickly if
not easily.

There is, and may always be, debate over metal planes and wooden planes, which is better, why or why not, and on to a
vast array of personal reasons, objections, observations and general talk. Wood is lighter. The extra weight in the metal
plane helps reduce chatter. Wood warps. Cast iron rusts. But basically, it comes down to personal preference.
Buying a hand plane today, whether wood or iron, is a different experience than it was in the past. In fact, in the past, most
woodworkers made their own planes, a somewhat involved job. For the most part, metal planes dominate the market, but
there are many good wood-bodied planes still around, some from larger makers (E.C.E. Primus, Kakuri and one or two
others), and some from individuals, such as Steve Knight (http://www.knight-toolworks.com/). They are lighter than cast iron
or bronze planes, can often be adapted easily to special uses--the Kakuri planes are available as smoothers, but also come
as radius, block and chamfer planes, something not readily found today in metal planes.

In some ways, there are more good planes available today than ever before. Companies like Lie-Nielsen, Norris (Norris
pattern made by Harris now), and a few others make planes on old patterns, often using better materials than were used in
the originals (Tom Lie-Nielsen, in particular, seems to have an enduring love affair with bronze, while ECE Primus planes
have metal adjusters for the iron built into the plane (they also make wedge lock models)). E. C. Emmerich often gives a
choice of the wood used on the soles of their Primus planes: lignum vitae is available as standard, while hornbeam is
optional.The bodies are usually quarter sawn European red beech, which is substantially more stable than our American
version. Clark & Williams is another maker of wooden planes, but they pattern their tools on those of 18th century
planemakers. Though power tools are used to do the rough shaping, everything else is done using traditional methods.
White Mountain Toolworks turns out two intriguing looking beech bodied smoothing planes, with tropical hardwood (cocobolo
in examples) inserts and soles. They use special Hock irons. Lee Valley (leevalley.com) produces a line of Canadian made
planes the equal of any on the planet, often taking older designs and making ergonomic and utility improvements that result
in a far better tool than the original.

The general run of planes today is probably better represented by the models put out by Stanley and, until recently,
Record. Record made an array of bench planes, several block planes, a rabbeting plane, and a circular plane. Stanley has
Bailey pattern bench and block planes, including smoothers, jack and fore under the bench category. There is also a
bullnose rabbet plane, a small trim plane, and a router plane. Their British division still produces
the bigger #271 router plane, too, along with a side rabbet plane and some others. Not too many
router planes are still out there--E.C. Emmerich produces one in beech, with three irons and a
great grip set-up that handles almost entirely differently than the Stanley. Lee Valley's Veritas
Tool division has recently released a fine router plane.

Next up, we find Tom Lie-Nielsen's offerings. Most Lie-Nielsen planes are patterned on
one or another of the old Stanley planes that Stanley no longer makes. There are usually a few
improvements--superb cherry handles, bronze castings, and often changes in mouth size or
depth that improve performance considerably. Years ago, I was loaned a Lie-Nielsen plane,
and immediately began lusting after one. Almost immediately. I had some planing to do on some cherry: it was after doing
the planing that my desire started to build. Take this in light of the fact that I do not make a religion out of hand tools. I
prefer the quickest and easiest way to complete any job well. But for a well-made, useful tool to also be beautifully designed
tips me over the edge--those features are common in Lie-Nielsen planes.

One builder of primarily wood planes goes on and on about how many more planes were available to workers in the mid-
1800s. Most workers back then made their own, or bought one from a local toolmaker, who could, and would, vary any part
of the tool to satisfy a customer (or friend, or both). Today, you can make your own, or you can take what you find of the
many manufactured by others, whether wood or metal.

Checking Quality
Most of the features that show good quality or better are fairly obvious: good fit, good
finish, sturdy design, top materials. But if you don't know planes, you might miss some
necessary features.

1. Look for a small mouth. The smaller the plane's mouth, the lower the possibility of
tear-out. The toe, the edge just in front of the front of the blade, may be of the type that can
be moved back and forth, so that you can adjust the mouth relative to the thickness of the
shaving youwish. That's the adjustment for coarse or fine shavings.
2. The sole itself needs to be highly finished, whether iron or wood, and must be as close to totally flat as possible. This
usually has to be achieved after purchase on Stanley and Record planes, and may need to be carried out on older planes.
On wooden planes, flattening the sole may be a recurring job. Much depends on the type of wood use. Lignum vitae and
iron wood are going to need flattening less often than beech, though companies like E.C. Emmerich use quartersawn beech
to reduce wood movement.
3. Let use determine sole length. If you're jointing or smoothing long boards, you want a long plane so it stays up out of the
dips and gives you a truly flat, smooth surface.
4. Obvious, but...make sure the shape of the sole matches the shape of the iron. If you have a straight iron, the sole must
also be straight. If the iron is convex, then the sole must be convex, concave if concave and so on.
5. The tote, or rear handle, should fit the hand well. A poor fit on any handle must be corrected, because the bad fit raises
blisters on hands.
6. The knob, or front handle, probably will be either a horn type (European pattern wood planes, among others), or a ball
type (American metal planes). On newer planes, such as the new Stanley Bailey patterns, the ball is of molded plastic, and
the mold seam is not removed. You can either remove the seam, buy a new handle set (for example, the Woodcraft 12378
set of rosewood replacement handles fit any Stanley or Record plane from #4 through #7), or turn yourself a new handle out
of whatever wood you prefer.
7. Cutters can be a sign of several things: a single iron is often a sign of a cheap plane, but it's just as often a sign of a
design where a back iron isn't workable--for the latter, the iron's pitch must be higher. A double iron has the top curling iron
serving as a chip breaker, so that shavings break and curl upwards, reducing or eliminating splintering and tearout. A
double iron also helps cut down on blade chatter.

Other features that may be present include a spur cutter in front of the iron, which is handy when you're rabbeting across
the grain. The spur's sharp edge slices fibers so the cutting iron doesn't tear fibers. A skewed iron--set at an angle in the
body, instead of straight across--eases slicing action when planing across grain, which helps reduce tearout.
Cutting edge shapes vary according to plane uses. A straight edge is fine for smoothing and rabbet planes. A slight curve
works for jack planes, and scrub planes may have a strongly convex edge. The convex edge allows thicker shavings, which
means more material is removed more quickly.

Plane Types
For those of who have done very little with planes, the above sounds particularly complex, I'm sure. It isn't really, but it does
get more complex as the plane types mount up. Even today, with very few specific types of molding plane still made, it's
possible to confuse people with nothing more than the array of planes put out by Tom Lie-Nielsen. At this time in its
corporate life, Lie-Nielsen is listing 33 separate planes, each with at least a slightly different job to do (except for one case
where a second version of the beading tool in bronze is also made in more decorative white bronze). It's then possible to add
in the various beading planes and molding planes that are still available, Stanley's router planes, Stanley's side rabbet
plane, Woodcrafts manganese bronze hollowing plane and palm plane, the Rali, some Clifton planes that do not work exactly
the same way as some others, and the various planes to fill similar jobs from Emmerich and others who make wood planes.
It's a complex arena, with lots of twists and turns, but we can simplify it all by realizing that planes are made for the simple
process of removing wood in one spot or another on a board or glued up part made of boards.

Add raised panel planes to the above: they're still made, usually in wood bodied models, and are interesting to use. Plow
planes cut grooves with the grain, on edges and faces of woods. Inletting planes are used to rout places for hinges and
locks. Fillister planes are the wood plane terminology for spurred rabbeting planes, while the toothing plane roughs the
surface to provide tooth for a glue. E. C. Emmerich also makes a stop rabbet plane to pare the last few inches of a stopped
rabbet cut. The Emmerich circular plane has a flexible sole and can clean up convex or concave surfaces.
Planes might be broken down into categories of use: some are used to shape, size and surface wood; some are used to
make joints.

Bench Planes
Bench planes are designed to smooth stock.The family of bench planes includes smooth, jack, fore and jointer types. The
smallest are the smooth (also smoother, smoothing) planes, which range from 5-1/2" to 10" long. Jack planes may be 14" or
15" long, while the fore plane is identical to, but shorter than, jointer planes. Fore planes tend to run no more than 20" long
(and not smaller than 18"). Jointer planes are, obviously, longer, starting at 22", and going to 24". Each size has a particular
use. The smoother is used to smooth smaller surfaces, and to clean up around and in spots where the bigger planes don't
fit. The jack plane at 14" or so in length is classed as "jack of all trades" planes, able in a pinch to smooth small surfaces,
and go on to clean up and smooth larger surfaces. Some toolboxes got by with those two, but most had three bench planes,
with the larger surfaces more easily cleaned up with a fore plane (18"-20" length) or the 22" or 24" jointer. The reasoning is
fairly simple. Small planes tend to follow surfaces, so on large surfaces with dips, they'll simply smooth the dips out, instead
of removing them. The longer planes can't get into areas that need smooth, but don't need elimination. The variation in
sizes comes about because of the variety of possible sizes and shapes of wood objects.

Bench planes, finally, are used only with the grain. Other types of planes exist to make cross grain
cuts.

Block Planes
Block planes are short planes with low angle irons--most of the time. Usually, block plane irons
are set at 20º or 21º. Some special block planes have irons set at an angle of 12º. For softer woods,
21º or 20º works fine on end grain. The even lower angle of 12º is for harder woods. Block plane
cutters are beveled on the top edge--bench planes irons are beveled on the bottom edge. No top
iron is needed--there are no long shavings to break up when cutting end grain. There's a major
change with the Number 62 block plane, which is neither low angle--set at 35º--nor particularly small
(most block planes are 8" or shorter) at 14" long.

Combination Planes
Very few new combination planes can be found these days, but in their heyday, they were a replacement for plow and dado
planes. The original combination plane hit the market in 1871, from Miller, and was dubbed the Number 45. These planes
also lifted the by-then-seldom-used beading planes out of the toolbox, and slowly supplanted the moulding planes, too.
Stanley until recently made a version of the combination plane, with 18 standard cutters, and seven available as options.
These toolscut to 3/4" deep, and have spurs--retractable for along the grain work--for cross grain work. Today, these are
used more to make a statement about the user's belief in handwork than as a really practical way to produce molding,
dadoes and beading.

Scrub Planes
Scrub planes are sometimes classed as bench planes, and fit moderately well there. Bodies are 9-1/2" to 10-1/2" long, and
the irons will be either 1-1/4" or 1-1/2" wide. The Stanley 40 and 40-1/2 are excellent examples, as is the Lie Nielsen 40-1/2
replica (the 1/2 designates a plane that uses a 1-1/2" wide iron). The main difference between the scrub plane and the basic
bench plane is in the size of the mouth: scrub planes have large mouth openings to allow loads of waste to get through
easily. The iron is also usually thick--the Lie-Nielsen uses a 3/16" thick iron--and single. Use the scrubbing plane, with its
curved iron, to gouge out the surface, cutting with the grain, or at a moderate angle. The surface that results will appear
gouged, and be round: this is one step in sizing a piece of wood, or in removing problem spots…the surface may be warped
slightly, weather, or just right from the mill and rough sawn.

Today, scrub planes tend to get used very little unless we're working on a board or assembly that is too wide for our power
planers. There are other uses, though: quick and easy bevels on solid wood drawer bottoms, and whatever else you have
around that needs a lot of material removed in a hurry.

Router Planes
Router planes used to do much of what powered routers do today. They still do it with slightly more effort, but much less set-
up time, and are very handy for clean-ups, and touch-ups on machine routed areas, as well as for cutting their own patterns.
Stanley currently makes two inexpensive router planes, with the little 271 useful for fine work such as inlays, small hardware
installations, or for cutting out backgrounds in carvings and lettering. The Number 71 cuts rabbets, dadoes, stop dadoes or
any other grooves that need smooth, level cuts. The 71 comes with three irons, and the irons are adjustable by screw. The
iron can also be moved on the plane body, so it works as a general cutter, or as a bullnose cutter. E. C. Emmerich also
makes a router plane, in wood--beech--it measures 9-1/2" by 4" and is large enough to provide a good, solid grip. It also
includes three blades, though here the blade is held in one position only. These planes are meant to take only light shaving
cuts.

Rabbet, Dado and Other Groovy Planes
There are almost as many rabbeting planes out today as there are bench planes. These are still exceptionally useful tools,
working to clean up rabbets, both bottom and sides, and,, in some cases, working to clean the bottoms of dadoes. Today,
rabbet planes are used for finish cutting in areas where the table saw or router gives less than perfect results. They are
also very handy when you don't have time to set up a saw or router, giving a precise fit quickly, with about one minute of set-
up time. And it feels good to do it that way, too.

Rabbets are nothing more than ledges cut into the sides and ends of boards, whether with the grain or across it. Rabbet
planes are not complex for the simple reason that they don't need to be. All rabbet planes have irons that are flush with the
sides of the plane body, on both sides, though the rabbet mouth may extend to only one side. There may also be a spur, or
nicker, extending out front of the iron, and flush with the plane's side. The spur cuts the wood fibers before the blade gets
there, smoothing the path of the heavier-duty cutter, or iron, in end grain cuts. Rabbet planes often have skewed irons, as
well. The plane body can't be skewed, because it's looking against the shoulder of the joint. The skewed iron makes cutting
easier, while also providing a larger path for the shavings coming off the cut.

Plow Planes
Plow planes are groovers, plain and simple. They're designed to cut a groove of a
specific width--or larger. Such grooves are used to hold drawer bottoms in place, or
otherwise hold panels in frames. Most plow planes in earlier days came with irons of several
widths, starting from a narrow 1/8" and going up past 1/2". The plane has a fence to maintain
the groove's distance from an edge. he fence seems to have been the part that fascinated
old-time plane makers, and the variations In ways of securing them on the plane, holding the
desired distance and other features are legion…or nearly so.

Dado Planes
The dado plane looks a lot like a rabbeting plane, and, in fact, is a specialized kind. Nickers and their spurs are on the
outside edges of the plane, ahead of the plane iron. Most dado planes have depth stops, and skewed irons (because
skewed irons cut crossgrain better). The sole is usually narrower than the plane's body.

Match Planes
These are also called tongue and groove planes. One plane is designed to cut a groove,
while the other cuts a tongue. They were usually sold in matched pairs so that the tongue
would fit the groove. The groove cutting plane, when made of wood, will have a steel sole,
to reduce breakage problems, while the tongue cutting plane probably will not.

Miter Planes
Miter cutting planes are handy even today--they make the ideal tool for "creeping" up on a perfect miter joint. Miters, are
those angles formed in corners when both sides are cut to angles other than 90 degrees. Mitering joints with planes works
extremely well on moldings where profiles have been cut. The miter plane allows the profile to match, or flow, around the
corner better than any other tool. Miter planes differ in purpose (they are all designed to cut, or trim, miters, though). The
frame miter is used on small items such as picture frames, while the case miter plane is used on end grain boards, even
plywood, used in casework. The edge miter works with the grain on longer boards in casework or coopering. Normally, miter
planes are used with shooting boards to maintain an accurate edge. While most of us consider 45 degrees the angle for a
miter, other angles are also used. You can make up shooting boards to suit any angle you need, or choose, to use for your
miters.

Shoulder Planes and Chisel Planes
Shoulder planes are a form of rabbet plane, but are used to clean up tenons in mortise and
tenon joinery, and, sometimes, to cut the tenon to size. The plane may have its iron set back
into the body, or set at the front, in a "bullnose."

Chisel planes have absolutely no sole in front of the iron. They are hard to control because
of this, but work very well for getting into tight spots, and for removing dried glue, and trimming
plugs. If your dovetails have a habit of being proud of the board the chisel plane also trims them.

Just for You
Somewhere in that array are the planes you want--or need. There are some missing, too, because it is literally impossible to
list all types ever invented or used. Some were made in small numbers and are hard, or nearly impossible, to find these
days, while others just weren't all that useful to start with, so disappeared in a rush. What remains, at least historically, are
the most useful planes of the bunch.