Which of these planes for this job?

[Ken Platt]

Folks -

I'm working on a largish tabletop, and want to try to use some slabs that I have had milled which are too large to work on my power tools. So, I'd like to try flattening and jointing by hand.

I have an assortment of smaller planes (smoothing, etc.), but this will be my first big bench plane. I'm looking at the Veritas line, and am just not sure whether the #6Fore or the bevel up jointer will work better or - probably more important - be easier for someone who's not all that great at his planing technique. (Hopefully, this will be an opportunity to get better at it)

LV has two different fence arrangements for the bench planes. One is a magnetic fence which according to the catalog goes on any of the bench planes. The other is screwed on, and looks to be attachable only to the bevel up jointer.

So, if I could get some advice on how these two will differ in use and which might be better for this use, that would be great. Thanks -

Ken



Link to Fore plane:http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=47298&cat=1,41182

Link to bevel up jointer:http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=52414&cat=1,41182,52515

[Robert Rozaieski]

For flattening and truing the face, you ideally want two planes set up slightly differently. First, use the fore plane with a heavy camber set up to take a thick shaving and plane across the grain to rapidly remove the rough milling marks and also remove any cup in the boards. Then use the jointer plane with a slight camber in the iron and plane diagonal to and with the grain to remove the scallops from the fore plane, remove wind/twist from the face (use winding sticks to help you detect this), and do the overall flattening of the face.

The jointer plane is also used to plane the edges straignt and square to the face, IF it needs to be square. If it's just a table top, it doesn't need to be perfectly square, unless it's part of a rule joint, or some other kind of joint. Plane it as close as you can by eye and then don't worry about it. No one is going to put a square up to the edge of your table top to see if you planed it square.

As for the planes you link to, I'd get the jointer. Jointers must have a sole much flatter than a fore plane, and tuning up a long jointer plane can be a challenging task if you have little experience doing it. Fore planes on the other hand are for rough planing and therefore don't need to be pretty or particularly flat. The best fore planes are light weight, with thick heavy irons and wide open mouths, capable of removing wood quickly and passing thick shavings. Wooden jack/fore planes are unmatched for this task in my opinion. And you can get a good useable wooden jack plane for $10 or less just about everywhere you turn.

If you only have room in the budget for one plane, get the LV jointer as it will be much more useful to you since it sounds like you do most of your stock prep with machines. However, if you can swing the LV jointer, I'm betting you can shell out another $10 for an old wooden jack plane to use for the initial rough planing. Having both planes will make the job go MUCH faster and easier.

When you're ready to do the deed, here's a video of the process I did for my personal web site (the planing of the rough sawn board starts at about 8:14).
Planing Rough Sawn Stock by Hand (http://logancabinetshoppe.weebly.com/1/post/2010/01/episode-13-porringer-tea-table-part-2.html)

It's part of a series of videos I did on building a small table from start to finish.
Tea Table Podcast Series (http://logancabinetshoppe.weebly.com/podcast-porringer-tea-table.html)

[John Toigo]

I use a Stanley #8 with a cambered blade cross-grain for flattening followed by a smoother. Seems to work well for me.

[Pam Niedermayer]

I'm partial to wooden planes and particularly enjoy using a C&W 30" jointer and/or the ECE Primus, both of which are preceded by a simple wooden scrub if the surface is unruly. Then a shorter jack may be needed, in which case I use either an HNT wooden or LN LA (I'm told the LV LA Jack is also a great plane). All of this is followed by wooden smoothers, Japanese.

Pam