opinions please

[charlie spencer]

I make tables as a hobby and the greatest difficulty is often flattening wide boards. These are too long and wide for a jointer and a planer sled is problematic because of the necessary floor space ( I have a 15" Powermatic planer). I come to Neanderthals for a recommendation on a handplane. Scrub, jack or other?

[Jim Koepke]

Charlie,

Welcome to the cave by the creek.

If you ask a dozen Neanders how they would do this, you could get two dozen answers.

So, take it all with a grain or two of salt and remember that it is all just our individual opinions.

I am not sure if one hand plane will do a complete job. I have seen a demo of a #8 being used on a board being flattened.

Most would suggest a scrub or jack plane to dimension rough wood and to start knocking down any twist or high spots.

The full process of taking a board from rough to ready is usually done with a trio of planes, a jack or scrub, a jointer and a smoother.

There are some that will use one plane like a #6 for all three purposes.

There is also the coalition of Low Angle Bevel Up users with a lot of good reasons for their choice.

A lot will depend on what you are comfortable using. Old #5 planes can be had fairly cheap if you do not mind doing a bit of work. The better the condition the higher the price tends to go. One of these can be set up with a bit of curve to the blade to make a good scrub plane. Some would prefer the #5-1/2 or #6 for this because of the wider blade and increased weight.

A #5 is a bit short for a jointer and a bit long for a smoother, but some do press them into service for these jobs.

The answer to your question also depends on what you are going to do to further finish your boards after you have brought them to flat.

If you then plan to do a lot of sanding or running them through a machine, then maybe one plane will suit your needs.

If you are going to buy an old fixer upper, it may be easiest to find a #5 as they are very common.

One caveat about buying old planes is to buy one that is complete. Replacement handles and other parts can cost as much as a complete fixer upper plane.

If you are willing to pay for a new plane, then we get into a lot of other ideas on what may be best.

Too bad you are not out here in the Pacific north west. I would invite you to bring a board or two and take a few planes for a test drive.

jim

[David Keller NC]

Charlie - you will need 3 planes if you want to go start to finish from rough boards to finished table-top: a fore-plane (a #6 is a good choice) that has a highly curved iron, a jointer (usually a #7 or a #8), and a smoother (lots and lots of choices here, but generally a plane that's 7" - 9" long).

A fore-plane is probably better suited to your application than a scrub plane because a fore plane (about 16" long) will flatten a wide, long surface like your tabletops more effectively than a scrub plane (which is about 9" long).

If you do your final finish work by sanding, then you can skip the smoothing plane.

[Tony Shea]

I would also agree that the best way to flatten a board is with a trio of planes as listed above. But depending on your situation this can become a decent expense all at once, especially if you plan to buy new (which would require the least amount of plane set up time and knowledge).

When I first started flattening rough stock by hand the first planes I picked up were a #7 Stanley (in great shape that required a little fettling and a replacement iron) and a LV #4 smoother. I took my #7's old iron and put a good size camber (curve on the edge of the blade) and used this as my fore plane. The plane had a good size mouth opening with the thin iron that came with the plane. I had decent results this way and was able to flatten really wide boards due to the extra length of the plane. Then I would install my newer LN blade that was sharpened with almost no camber and used this setup to run down the length of the board to true it up length wise. Then moved on to the LV smoother once everything was flat. The setup worked well for me but took much longer than it does for me having dedicated planes set up for each task. To replace blades while switching from across the board to lengthwise is a real pain in the butt as you have to adjust the tension screw as well as the lateral adjustment. And very often you will find you need to go back a step and need to replace the blades again. Not very effecient at all. But this is not why I became a woodworker therefore the setup did what I wanted.

Like has been stated, it all depends on your goals and how you want to get there. Sorry for being long winded.

[James Taglienti]

Charlie,

Are the boards you're trying to flatten rough, or have they been machined? Are they glue ups, or slabs?

If they have already been machined once, You may be able to skip the scrub or jack plane.

If they're roughsawn, you gotta start from scratch.

A decent scrub plane can be made with a cheapo #3 or 4 size plane.