Wood vs Metal Planes, that is the Question?

[George Israel]

Hello Neanders,

I find myself intrigued by the simplicity and beauty of the wooden planes versus there metallic brothers. A very well known professional woodworker in my neck of the woods swears by wooden planes and thinks the metal versions are crap. What do you guys think, what are the pros and cons, is there a clear winner, or does it depend upon the application.

Thanks,

George

[Prashun Patel]

Boy, I'm surprised no responses yet.

There are good and bad wood planes and good and bad metal planes.

Personally I find the beauty of planes is that if you put enough sweat into tuning one, you can turn a 'piece of crap' into something that produces wonderful results.

The wood ones tend to be less expensive and are adjusted with a mallet instead of screws and levers.

[Sam Takeuchi]

Did he really say metal planes are crap? It seems like such an ignorant thing to say, especially for a well known woodworker. He doesn't have to like it, but I think that's a narrow minded thing to batch them altogether and disregard them.

The difference is quite more subtle. Generally wooden planes are lighter, can be shaped and customized to fit your hand if need to. Some people like the feel of wooden planes gliding over the wood, and surely there are many people use it for nostalgic reasons. They are easy to repair as long as body isn't cracked or split. Sole get chewed up easier than metal planes, so flattening and sometimes have to be re-sole'd, otherwise mouth gets wider, but it's not a difficult task and you can do it in a short period of time.

Metal planes are heavier, and some people prefer the weight (they call it 'heft'), and heavier the plane is, they claim, easier to let the plane do its work without getting stuck or knocked off track by a knot or irregularities. Also generally metal planes have blade adjustment mechanism and may be easier for some people to use lateral lever and depth adjuster than relying on mallet to adjust the blade. Once tuned up, metal planes will need little to no tuning up for a long time (that is a relative term, all depending on your use of course). Certainly outlast wooden planes when it comes to tuning up.

And then there's so called transitional plane. Kind of like a wooden plane and metal plane put together. I like transitional planes, because they are cheap, light and quite customizable. I don't particularly like regular wooden plane's use of wedge to hold blade. So without making a plane on my own, transitional plane is a good compromise for me, a wooden soled and bodied plane with contemporary mechanism.

In-fill planes are the reverse of transitional plane in construction. Metal sole'd plane with wooden guts. Some of the most highly regarded and praised planes are in this form. While I personally don't care for them, many skilled woodworkers do, and spend thousands of dollars to acquire one (yes, one).

There is no winner. It really depends on personal preferences. Something like woodworking isn't an exact science where there is an answer to everything. If woodie works for you, woodie is good. If metal planes works for you, there you go. As for me, I have no prejudice for any type of planes as long as they work well. I think most infill planes are ugly, but that doesn't make it true for everyone, whether I'm a no name or world renowned woodworker.

[Sean Hughto]

I like both kinds. The metal are easier/more convenient to adjust and are more durable. The wood planes have a great feel and you can make them yourself. Both varieties are capable of excellent work.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Wood planes are WAY cool....

[george wilson]

The finest furniture made in the cabinet makers shop in Williamsburg is made with wooden planes. The masterpieces in museums were made with wooden planes,if they are early. You have to know how to tune them,though. I used them for many years exclusively,and still have them along with my metal planes,self made and purchased.

[Brian Kent]

In June 2008 I started a thread called
"The Best Smooth Plane You Have Ever Used".

There were 40 responses.

14 were metal planes.
15 were wood planes.
11 were infills.

The best answer (I think from Steve Knight):
The best plane is one you have learned and tuned to it's max.

Brian

[Robert Rozaieski]

The best plane is one you have learned and tuned to it's max.


Yep. I've used both and they are both capable of doing the same caliber of work. It's really just about personal preference.

[Phillip Pattee]

If he has either one of these, and believes its crap, he can send it to me.:)

[Graham Hughes (CA)]

I own a couple dozen woodies (mostly moulding planes but a few bench planes) and about a dozen or so metal planes and as far as I can tell the most noticeable difference is that woodies are made of wood and metal planes are made out of metal.

Yes, I am being facetious, but the point here is that I don't notice that e.g. my #4 does a noticeably better job than the coffin smoothers I've remouthed. The fact that woodies are made out of the stuff we work with is convenient, although it's not really an ideal material for the purpose. There are very few low-angle wooden planes because the medium just isn't up to it. Adjusting them is sort of mildly annoying at first but is fairly straightforward afterwards.

I think I like my coffin smoothers and my wooden jack more than the corresponding Stanleys because they required so much more work to get tuned up (all of them needed to be remouthed and the jack needed a new handle made), and so I've invested more of myself in them. But I'm very happy with my #7 jointer, and have no great desire to replace it.

[harry strasil]

Its kinda like the farmer with John Deere Tractors that hired a man who had always used Internationals. No matter whether the JD's outperforrmed the IH's, the JD's were never anygood in his opinion. Its all a matter of preference for something that does the same job as another. I prefer Woodies and Transitionals by the way.

[Casey Gooding]

I have both and use both. A good plane is a good plane.

[Bob Strawn]

I have a Stanley Jack that has been machined to .0003 tolerances, blade, bed, sole and sides all true. I use it as a reference. No wooden plane will match that for long. They just can't.

I have a couple of wooden planes, that 'talk' to me. I can feel the grain and feel what the blade is doing. No great skill or practiced thing here, and I am not bragging about a rare or mystic power either. Quite a few folk feel this, the first time they push a good woodie. For me, no steelie matches that.

As far as adjustment goes, when I started out, I hated adjusting woodies.

I persevered, and constantly removed the blades to touch up the edge and put them back, despite the time and irritation. It did not take long before the backlash in the tightest of metal planes became a much larger irritation. After you get used to tapping a blade into position, adjusters are more of an irritation.

I prefer a wooden plane. But some of their metal brothers sure are nice to have handy. Sometimes a metal plane seems to let you just do, what takes finesse on a wooden plane. Sometimes a wooden plane will let you finesse what would be a bit out of reach for a metal plane.

Bob

[David Keller NC]

Well, all "feel" questions aside (and I consider that important - one of the reasons that I have and use wooden antiques, modern woodens, modern metals, antique metals, antique infills, and modern infills), there is a reason that metal planes outlasted wooden plane production in this country.

Much, if not most, of the market in the 1800's and early 1900's for planes were for carpenters and joiners, not furniture makers. These folks took their tools to the job site, with the attendant extremes of temperature and humidity. Under these conditions, a wooden plane tends to "move" (i.e., go out of true) - something a metal plane is not subject to.

A wooden plane must therefore be trued and flattened much more often than a metal plane (which also goes out of flat, but much, much more slowly - usually after many cycles of temperature fluctuation). This flattening and truing simply uses up wooden planes. It's fairly rare to find a wooden plane from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that's in near new condition, but it's very common to find a metal one in that good a shape.

However, most of this consideration is meaningless in a modern, humidity and temperature controlled shop. I've bought several wooden planes that are in daily use in my shop, and once I waited a couple of months for them to come to equilibirum with the ambient humidity in the shop, they required truing once and once only, and never again. In one case, this is "no truing" for 6 years, and it's a smoothing plane made of beech that much be pretty close to flat to work well.

[Jim Koepke]

I have been able to use a metal joiner to flatten the bottom on some of my wooden body planes. It doesn't work the other way around.

I have a few wooden body planes that really feel nice to use, but the wear factor is worrisome. For round over work on a thin edge, some of the wood bodied planes are much easier to use than setting up a combination plane for the job.

My other consideration for wood bodied planes is the ability to repurpose them. I have a wide rebate plane I want to make into a panel raiser when the time comes. There is also a narrow one that will turn into a dovetail plane.

jim

[Ben Davis]

I throw this out there.... I've yet to see a set of metal moulding planes that people actually LOVED. You hear ever so often about people making or purchasing a full or half set of hollow and round side escapement planes. I never get the same feeling that folks love their Stanley combination planes the same way. Maybe it's because if you're going to pay $5,000 for a set of planes you're going to tell someone about it. Just a thought though!

[george wilson]

After mastering the setting of the blades of wooden planes,and using them for many years,I actually enjoy setting their irons more than screwing knobs on metal planes. It is very satisfying to give a few quick taps to a wooden plane iron,and get it cutting gossamer shavings.

[George Israel]

That is what he liked. The speed of it all which allowed him to work fast and accurately. He is a professional so if there was a better tool for the work I'm sure he would use it. It seems to me that metal planes were introduced not to improve quality, but to make money since you could create a a mold and make many more planes in the same amount of time that it took to make a wooden plane. The possible exception would be the English Infill designs which of coarse are extremely expensive and labor intensive.

[Chris Friesen]

It seems to me that metal planes were introduced not to improve quality, but to make money...

There are some exceptions.

A metal shoulder plane will chatter less than a wooden one because the blade is clamped and supported much closer to the mouth.

You can't really make a low-angle wooden plane, the bed becomes too thin for proper support.

I think it would be hard to make tiny instrument-maker's planes out of wood. The sections would just be too small for strength.

It would be hard to make an all-wood plow plane. The skate would be very fragile.

[harry strasil]

This is my favorite thumb plane for relieving a sharp edge among my Demo Woodies.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/thumbplane.jpg

quarter is for size comparison.

I have a metal thumb plane in my basement shop tool chest I use often too.

An even smaller one is the dowel fluting plane I made to go with the dowel box shown with it. the plane has a V cutter and a V bottom to make small narrow flutes in dowels after driving thru the dowel plate for blind holes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/dowelboxandfluttingplane.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/dowelplatesmall.jpg

[Sam Takeuchi]

Tiny instrument maker's plane is no problem. Here in Japan at least, you can pick up a wooden 10mm blade, 1-1/4" sole length miniature planes at neighborhood home centers. And they come in various sole shapes. I have a flat soled one and I use it quite a bit...but I prefer Ibex silicon bronze instrument maker's plane of the same size. I can imagine even a smaller wooden plane. I don't know what kind of wood the body is made from, probably oak of some kind, quite sturdy for something so small. So far the smallest plane I have and use. So woodie miniature plane is a no problem.

[george wilson]

I have made violin planes out of boxwood that work just fine. The very low angle wooden planes are a problem,though.