Best tool to take 1/4" off to flatten a table top?

[Zach Mershon]

I'm a beginner woodworker in the glue-up phase of making a coffee table from douglas fir. Since it is dimensional lumber from Lowes, it has the rounded edges. What is the best tool to take off about 1/4" to make this top flat and smooth? I have my little Stanley #4 plane, but it seems like it would take forever to accomplish this task with the little shaving it puts out. If I have to purchase a new tool, I'm fine with that :) .

Do need a scrub plane or just something larger like a jack plane? Or do I need to just buy a (gasp) power tool such as a random-orbit sander?

Thanks for any advice?

[george wilson]

I certainly,at my age,would do the bulk with my Bosch electric plane. It has been a great tool. Used it to install a house full of doors. Works fine. Might save the last little bit for hand plane. You DO have to be careful when using one of these,as it is easy to get carried away and take off too much. I only paid about $152.00 at Lowe's,IIRC.

I WOULDN'T even CONSIDER sanding 1/4" off. You may never find the table top in the huge dust pile!! To say nothing of breathing the dust.

[Darius Ferlas]

oops, wrong recommendation (edited out)

[Bill Bukovec]

I would use a scrub plane followed by some type of smoothing plane. (Number 4 or number 7).

I had a scrub plane for years before I used it. I think it's a lot of fun. Now I wish I would have used it sooner.

Next time you can plane the edges to remove the roundness of each board before glue up.

Goos luck and keep us posted.

Bill

[Mark Roderick]

Definitely a scrub plane. That's what it's made for.

Then a jointer plane or jack plane.

Finally a #4 smoothing plane and/or sandpaper.

[Frank Drew]

If I understand what you have there: You could cut the table at the glue joints, joint those edges square and reglue. No surface wood wasted.

[David Weaver]

I'm a beginner woodworker in the glue-up phase of making a coffee table from douglas fir. Since it is dimensional lumber from Lowes, it has the rounded edges. What is the best tool to take off about 1/4" to make this top flat and smooth? I have my little Stanley #4 plane, but it seems like it would take forever to accomplish this task with the little shaving it puts out. If I have to purchase a new tool, I'm fine with that :) .

Do need a scrub plane or just something larger like a jack plane? Or do I need to just buy a (gasp) power tool such as a random-orbit sander?

Thanks for any advice?

Have you glued yet? If you haven't, you will want to orient the boards so that they plane agreeably. It's a pain to find out once they're glued that they are oriented different directions and the only way to plane them easily is straight across.

An old jack, woodie or metal should be easy to set up to hog wood off of douglas fir. The hogging part will be an enjoyable job.

[David Weaver]

I WOULDN'T even CONSIDER sanding 1/4" off. You may never find the table top in the huge dust pile!! To say nothing of breathing the dust.

The top of the table would probably look like a topographical map of the pigeon hills in PA, too.

[jamie shard]

I would use a #6 with cambered blade (8" radius) and take cuts that overlap. You'll take off about a 1/32 to 1/16 with each pass and the long length of the plane will keep the surface fairly flat.

The problem with a scrub plane for this application is the tracks are so narrow that it is easy to take off too much in some areas and not enough in others. Scrubs are better for when the starting surface isn't anywhere close to flat.

Hope this helps!

[Andrew Pitonyak]

you will want to orient the boards so that they plane agreeably. It's a pain to find out once they're glued that they are oriented different directions and the only way to plane them easily is straight across.

Now how is it that I know this? Oh yeah, I remember now.....

[Tony Shea]

I agree that if you wanted to do this by hand that a jack plane with a heavy camber of some sort would be your best option. I think the scrub would be a bit small and narrow for the job. Not really it's intended purpose, typically used to hog wood off the edge of something much narrower.

But after saying that, my shop certainly gets plenty of use out of the lunchbox planer and power jointer. I do find myself flattening at least one side of many of my boards by hand but once flat my power planer takes down to dimension very quickly and accurately. But to each his own.

[Joel Goodman]

How about just putting a heavy camber on the plane that the OP has already and taking diagonal cuts, keeping an eye on things with a straight edge. After that resharpen with less camber and smooth normally. Of course a 5, 6 or 7 would help with the added weight and length to keep things flat. By the way, set the frog back for a more open mouth with the cambered blade. It would have been better to joint the edges properly prior to glue up. The alternative, non neander and totally cheating is to have a shop with a wide belt sander flatten it for you.

[Andrae Covington]

Now how is it that I know this? Oh yeah, I remember now.....

Ditto.


If I understand what you have there: You could cut the table at the glue joints, joint those edges square and reglue. No surface wood wasted.

Hoping that you have not yet glued the boards together, I agree with this. A circular saw or table saw would get you inside the rounded edges in short order. Even using a handplane, I think taking the narrow edges down would go faster than trying to plane the entire top surface down. Plus you'll end up with straight edges for a tight glueline.

[David Weaver]

Why not use the current plane? Only because you can really use a lot of camber on softwoods with a jack plane, as long as there aren't large knots. I mean a lot of camber. A quarter inch off of hard maple would be a recipe for a scrub plane, but with pine and fir, a wider blade works fine.

The amount of camber you can put on the plane for softwoods vs. how much you would have to hone to get it off would be a lot of honing. It's a good case for having a spare blade around. you can take the plane and turn it askew then and really remove wood fast without having to resort to a scrub plane.

[Charles Goodnight]

I would use my big ole #8 jointer plane just because it would keep things nice and flat, and because I don't own a jack plane. Traditionally its the Jack plane or Try plane, followed by the jointer then the smoother. I have been reading that the traditional use of the scrub plane is not at all clear, but they are supposed to work well for hogging off wood.

The number 8s are often reasonably priced (around $50.00) on ebay if you are willing to do a bit of work cleaning them up. To see one of the great mysteries of life price out a #8 jointer and a #79 side rabbet plane on ebay. I just have no idea why those big jointers are so cheap.

[Patrick Tipton]

I use a Stanley #40 (scrub) to dimension pine seat blanks for windsor chairs and it works great. The blanks are typically about 22" square and I have the blanks sawn to 2" thickness. Finished dimensions end up at 1 5/8 or so, so there is a pretty good amount of material to remove. Since the blanks are cut wet, they usually have quite a bit of cupping after drying.

I start with the cupped side facing down (as it won't rock) and work the center until I get visually close to flat. I then use winding sticks (which tend to be scraps in my shop) and plane in a diagonal pattern across the grain - first from one side and then the other. Pretty soon, I have a nice cross hatched pattern that is basically flat. From there, a #4 or #5 will smooth the surface nicely without much effort. Longer jointer planes #7 etc. make it a little easier to get perfectly flat, but they are a lot heavier and can be cumbersome to use in this application. Use a marking gauge for desired thickness, flip and repeat (this time starting on each of the 4 high corners), paying attention to the gauge lines to ensure parallel sides.

Given the intended task, I would grind the corners of my existing #4 to make a pseudo scrub and clean up your table top. Use the diagonal pattern and things will stay reasonably flat. Once you have removed most of the excess material, go back and grind the blade straight across and finish it. These kind of projects will give you good experience with your grinder, sharpening and plane setup. I suspect you will find some learning curve here, but I'm guessing you like the challenge or you wouldn't be walking down this road in the first place.

Good luck,
Patrick

[Sean Hughto]

I think the scrub would be a bit small and narrow for the job. Not really it's intended purpose, typically used to hog wood off the edge of something much narrower.

I've heard this before, mainly from disciples of the Schwarz. It's completely contraty to my long time experience with the scrub. I find it sad when newbies take it as accepted conventional wisdom.

A scub is a great plane for initial thicknessing of faces. Scribe the line onthe edges. Scrub, and follow with a 7 as many have said. It will work great. Always has for me.

[David Weaver]

It is, and even more so on hardwoods where you can't take a big bite with a jack, especially a wooden jack.

What's odd on here is that you see things go back and forth, the one that gets me the most is:
"once you use a wooden plane, you'll never use a metal plane again"

Woodies are nice planes to use on stuff like cherry and softer, and smoothing I guess they work fine on most things.

I don't think anyone who is a hard core "woody only" fanatic would work with hard maple. It's a jarring experience with a deep cut. Where's the barf smiley on here? That's what it makes me feel like. Nor do they tolerate working through large knots.

Turn around and pick up a 10 pound infill plane, and while you'll get tired using it, it bulls through the stuff like hard maple. Same with a metal scrub with a heavy iron. I think you get more tired with the infill plane more because of the wood that you're using and less because plane. You can dial them down to take big FAT full width shavings on pine if you don't have too much to remove, though admittedly some of the

I don't think I've ever heard anything about using a scrub just to knock corners on twisted boards and not to thickness, was that actually implied in writing somewhere?

[Jon Toebbe]

A scrub plane on softwood is an awful lot of fun. :D Work diagonally, overlap your strokes slightly, and grin like a fool as you beaver off thick shavings. You mentioned you're just starting out, though... You might get a bit more mileage out of a #5 or #6. Get two irons -- a heavily cambered one for this job, and a very mildly cambered one for use as a "pocket jointer."

David Charlesworth claims that a plane can reliably flatten a board up to roughly twice its length. Double a jack plane's length and you're talking about a large fraction of the size workpieces you're likely to encounter in a number of "typical" beginner projects. I'm using a Veritas Low Angle Jack plane as my "everything" bench plane, and have been very satisfied with the results/convenience so far. But my projects these days are small -- step stools, toy boxes for the kids, that kind of thing.

[Jon Agnew]

If you haven't glued up yet, I agree with those that say to saw it off. Much easier and quicker than planing 1/4"...though not as fun.

[Frank Drew]

If you haven't glued up yet, I agree with those that say to saw it off.

Even if he has already glued up...

If I understand the problem (and I might not), Zach either has glued up or is about to glue up some boards that have edges rounded over, so his glue joints have, or will have, little rounded valleys, features he doesn't want in his finished table top. Correct so far? Zach, are you asking about planing the table top (or individual boards) because you want specifically to reduce their thickness, or simply in order to eliminate the round overs? If it's the latter, then losing 1/4" of thickness of your top, by whatever method, is an awfully hard way to go about it, notwithstanding all the excellent suggestions on how to do it.

On another note, following up on Sean's comment, I've never thought of a scrub plane as intended for edge work; where does that idea come from (I think Sean already provided the answer :cool:)?

[george wilson]

I agree with you,Sean,and David. The scrub plane is NOT an edge plane.

[Frank Drew]

David Charlesworth claims that a plane can reliably flatten a board up to roughly twice its length.

Mr. Charlesworth is being much too conservative; if a board can be supported so it's not all floppy on your bench (or is stiff enough to be self supporting), given a long enough bench I'm not sure what the limit is on how long it can be and still be flattened with hand planes, but it's certainly many multiples of even a long jointer plane.

[Jon Toebbe]

Mr. Charlesworth is being much too conservative; if a board can be supported so it's not all floppy on your bench (or is stiff enough to be self supporting), given a long enough bench I'm not sure what the limit is on how long it can be and still be flattened with hand planes, but it's certainly many multiples of even a long jointer plane.
Of course you are correct. I should clarify: what David was saying in the PWW article I may very well be mis-remembering was that you basically get up to twice the plane's length "for free." That is, you don't really have to do anything special beyond taking full length shavings and covering the width of the board by overlapping. Longer than that, and you need to start paying more careful attention to convex surfaces. Find 'em and plane 'em until they're just a wee bit hollow.

The article was entitled something like "Precision Planing," and was mostly talking about using handplanes to perfect machine-dressed surfaces -- the "last mile" kind of planing that cleans up after the apprentice, be he sweaty, tailed, or you. :)

[Chris Griggs]

Yes, the Schwarz is likely where most of us heard that a scrub is not intended for face planing. He got the idea that it's intended use was as an edge or "ripping" tool from the descriptions in old stanley catalogues.

Deneb echos this notion in the LN video demonstrating their scrub plane.
http://www.youtube.com/user/LieNielsen#p/u/24/pieEY4DAdGk

But really, in use, who cares what any givens plane's intended purpose is. I happen to use a jack for my roughing because that's I have, but clearly scrubs work great for many people as do large wooden fore planes.

Regarding the original post. If he is willing/able to get two planes, I'd get a roughing (scrub/jack/fore) plane and also a 6,7, or 8.

However, I think a No. 6 with two irons, one heavily camber, could do all his surface prep just fine.

[David Weaver]

Regardless of how the catalogs advertised them, they are ideal for taking a deep cut, which may not lend them to face jointing, but for thicknessing if you don't have power tools they are very useful.

They must not have been a necessity, though, because they came out later than a lot of other metal planes. At the same time, I don't think people regularly thicknessed really hard woods by hand if they could avoid it.

Every once in a while, you run into a very old piece of wood that's 16/4 or something and is so twisted or cupped that it's a logical choice for at least knocking the corners off the board. The only downer about scrubs and anything that cuts like that is if you don't run the edge off the far side of the board first, you'll certainly break it out planing, so you have to be careful with them near a finished edge.

[David Weaver]

Just watched the video from LN and see deneb said the exact same thing about the edges. And here I felt good about knowing that by experience via ruining something. :mad:

[Chris Griggs]

Regardless of how the catalogs advertised them, they are ideal for taking a deep cut, which may not lend them to face jointing, but for thicknessing if you don't have power tools they are very useful.

They must not have been a necessity, though, because they came out later than a lot of other metal planes. At the same time, I don't think people regularly thicknessed really hard woods by hand if they could avoid it.

Every once in a while, you run into a very old piece of wood that's 16/4 or something and is so twisted or cupped that it's a logical choice for at least knocking the corners off the board. The only downer about scrubs and anything that cuts like that is if you don't run the edge off the far side of the board first, you'll certainly break it out planing, so you have to be careful with them near a finished edge.

I totally agree, it doesn't really matter how it was/is marketed. I don't have a scrub (yet), but there are definitely situations where one be nice.

I think its good that you made the distinction between flattening and thickening. My jack works great for taking the twist out of a rough sawn board, but when I want to take more than 1/4 off a board to bring it to a specific thickness, I sure wish I had a scrub sometimes.

I ideally would have three roughing planes, a scrub, a jack, and a big wooden fore plane. Each would shine depending on the situation/wood.

[David Weaver]

I totally agree, it doesn't really matter how it was/is marketed. I don't have a scrub (yet), but there are definitely situations where one be nice.

I think its good that you made the distinction between flattening and thickening. My jack works great for taking the twist out of a rough sawn board, but when I want to take more than 1/4 off a board to bring it to a specific thickness, I sure wish I had a scrub sometimes.

I ideally would have three roughing planes, a scrub, a jack, and a big wooden fore plane. Each would shine depending on the situation/wood.

I'm assuming you don't have the woodie fore yet. I have a wooden fore/try sized plane that you could have for the cost of shipping. It needs a little help with the wedge (i.e., someone needs to make a new wedge for it - the wedge in it has dried and is narrow for the slot), but it's usable as is and has a nice butcher double iron. I've been debating what to do with it, I have two nearly identical planes and I'm looking for an excuse to not try to find someone who wants to "buy" one and pay shipping (wooden planes cost an awful lot to ship vs. what they're worth, they're a pain to sell unless they are pristine, but that doesn't bely the fact they're useful).

It also had a run in with a dykem container that broke overhead, but most of that can be washed off with denatured alcohol.

[Chris Griggs]

I'm assuming you don't have the woodie fore yet. I have a wooden fore/try sized plane that you could have for the cost of shipping. It needs a little help with the wedge (i.e., someone needs to make a new wedge for it - the wedge in it has dried and is narrow for the slot), but it's usable as is and has a nice butcher double iron. I've been debating what to do with it, I have two nearly identical planes and I'm looking for an excuse to not try to find someone who wants to "buy" one and pay shipping (wooden planes cost an awful lot to ship vs. what they're worth, they're a pain to sell unless they are pristine, but that doesn't bely the fact they're useful).

It also had a run in with a dykem container that broke overhead, but most of that can be washed off with denatured alcohol.

Thanks for the offer David but I'll pass this time (though it is quite tempting). I don't have a real shop so even a plane takes up valuable real estate in the corner of my house where I keep my tools stacked. I'm making a concerted effort to keep things to minimum of what I need these days (an almost impossible task :)) and a woody is one of those nice to have but not required tools at the moment. I'm sure someone here will take it off your hands for jus the cost of shipping. That's a good deal by any standard.

[glenn bradley]

The best tool? A tablesaw before glue up. Being a Neander is one thing, being a masochist is another. If you really want to plane of that much material by hand, +1 on those recommending grain orientation prior to glue up.

[Zach Mershon]

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions guys.

The thing is, this project has some interesting limitations as it is being built in a closet in my Brooklyn apartment with whatever materials I can walk home from Lowes on foot. So space, noise, dust, and materials are all a bit tricky. But I still love woodworking!

To better explain the table top: 2x6 dimensional lumber is being glued up face-to-face (not edges, sorry for not clarifying) much in the same style as a top for a workbench (my inspiration). So far it hasn't been much trouble to get the seams tight, but once that is finished there will still be the little valleys created by the rounded edges on top (see attached photo). This is what I will need to flatten.

So it sounds like I'm in for a long workout with a larger plane than my #4, or resorting to renting a power tool such as a belt sander or a power planer.

Am I reaching the right conclusion?

Someday I'll have a real shop and be able to do it right from the beginning, planing the boards before glue-up. For now I don't have a bench or even a way to hold the boards to plane them individually (I'm counting on the weight of the final table to allow me to plane the top). This is just a hobby for a beginning woodworker trying the get the best result I can from what is realistically available to me.

Thanks for all the help so far. Great community.

-Zach

[Joel Goodman]

How big is the top?

[Jim Koepke]

Zach,

Welcome to the Creek and the amazing questions that tend to occupy our existence.

You do not list a location in your profile. There may be a Neander or other SMC member in your area that has a planer or sander to solve your problem. I know of a person in my area that has a sander that will handle stock up to 54" wide. I would suggest asking him what he would charge if your were in the southern Washington area.

My other thought on this is the possibility of this being taken care of with the coating material. I am not even sure if I am thinking of the right product, but my memory seems to think Varithane was something that could be poured on if one wanted a very thick coat on something. It would only have to be made thick enough to fill in the valleys and then a bit above. For a coffee table, this could work. It wouldn't be a good solution for a work bench.

Just for fun, you might consider searching on > decoupage <.

jtk

[Zach Mershon]

How big is the top?

This finished top will be 24" x 44"

Thanks for the suggestion, Jim. My only concern is this thing is going to be heavy when it's finished and with no car that makes things difficult! I'm going to get it as flat as I can, and then will look into the possibility of using many coats of some sort of finish to get me all the way there. Thanks!

[Erik France]

Not sure what your budget is, but as a couple others mentioned a No 6 might serve you well. You'll probably get more use from it than a scrub. I flattened the top of my bench with a Woodriver No 6 and an older Stanley No 3. They're all I had at the time. I didn't have to take off as much, but the surface area was ~3 times the size as yours. Most of the top work was done in an afternoon. The wider iron of the No 6 would be a plus. I've seen the No 6 refered to as a 'fore' plane, some suggest it's short for before. I'll use mine for removing a bunch of material quickly.

I don't have a scrub yet. I want one, but I just haven't been able to justify the cost. I'm sure the want will overcome the cost eventually...

[Andrae Covington]

..My other thought on this is the possibility of this being taken care of with the coating material. I am not even sure if I am thinking of the right product, but my memory seems to think Varithane was something that could be poured on if one wanted a very thick coat on something. It would only have to be made thick enough to fill in the valleys and then a bit above. For a coffee table, this could work. It wouldn't be a good solution for a work bench.

Just for fun, you might consider searching on > decoupage <.


...I'm going to get it as flat as I can, and then will look into the possibility of using many coats of some sort of finish to get me all the way there.

Might look into "bar top" finishes, which would be some kind of self-leveling epoxy finish.

I've never used them but here's an example from rockler: MirrorCoat Bar/Tabletop Finish (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=21371)

[David Keller NC]

Zach - So a slightly different solution. Since you don't have power tools, the space to use them, nor the dust collection to deal with their leavings, a hand plane is going to be the way to go here.

Most of the suggestions to use a #6, a jointer, etc... are based on the typical need to not only plane the surface off of something, but also to keep it reasonably flat (within about 10 thousandths of an inch) while doing so.

But in your case, this is less of a concern - a table top doesn't have to be absolutely flat as you would want when prepping the edge or face of a board for a joint or for glue-up.

Your #4 is probably set up to take a very fine shaving, as it's typically intended as a smoothing plane. You can use the same plane to accomplish this task - you could grind/hone a much larger camber (curve) to the front of the iron so that it will take big, thick shavings. But then you're likely to want to return it to smoothing plane status, which will require re-grinding/honing. That'll use up your iron in short order.

So - you might consider purchasing a replacement blade for the plane, and put a big camber on this replacement blade, then drop it into your #4. Presto - you've a way to hog off big, thick shavings, and convert the plane back to a smoother that will take off very thin, full-width shavings just by dropping a different iron into it.

[Zach Mershon]

Thanks for the link, Andrae. I'm sure I'll be back here asking finishing questions once I have the top as flat as I can get it!

And David, thanks for the education. This may sound like a dumb question, but is the difference between my #4 and a #6 just that the base is longer and the blade is honed differently? (I know it's also a bit wider). I've never used anything other than my #4 so I'm having an unsure time imagining how a #6 would feel to run across the wood and if it would give me what I'm looking for.

Otherwise, it sounds like a nice cheap solution is a replacement #4 blade. Increasing my knowledge of honing is a welcomed task.

[Jim Koepke]

The #6 being a longer plane than the #4 will be very different to use on flattening a large mass of wood.

A #4 is lighter and due to its shorter length will have a tendency to bob up and down like a row boat on heavy seas. The #6 will ride the hills and valleys with more stability.

The weight of a larger plane will also be an advantage as the mass will be harder for a small piece of wood to stop.

jtk

[Floyd Mah]

Lots of interesting suggestions requiring a lot of sweat and planes that you might not have. I have a simple suggestion. Use a circular saw to cross the top with saw cuts, no deeper than 3/16". Go across the length of the boards since the other direction already has the furrows from the rounded edges. Be careful, because you will be making lots of cuts and it's easy to forget that you have a very dangerous tool in your hand and the repetitiveness of the task might lead you to lose track of that. If you make the cuts about 1" to 1.5" apart, then you can take a 1" chisel and chop out chips about 3/16" by 1" by 1.5". You'll probably have 40 cuts to make and 800 chips to collect, but it will be the quickest way to waste most of the top. If you are concerned that you might inadvertently take out too big a chip, then make more cuts so that the chips are smaller. Then you can easily plane down to the final dimension or use a belt sander. I bought a belt sander at Harbor Freight last week for $25. Fifteen minutes with some #50, #80 belts and you would be ready to finish sand it.

Also, I made a workbench about the same size many years ago, using 2 x 4 lumber. I was able to buy a #7 Stanley from Ebay and used that along with a #4 to flatten the top. If you plan to progress eventually to a larger workbench at some point, it wouldn't hurt to buy any of the planes mentioned, but the #7 spanned about 2/3's of the width of my top and was perfect for removing the high spots. The best thing about the #7 is that it is between a #6 and #8 in size, so I've never needed to buy a larger plane, and although I have a #6, it has a curved blade (came that way on Ebay), so it's useful as a large scrub plane.

[David Keller NC]

Thanks for the link, Andrae. I'm sure I'll be back here asking finishing questions once I have the top as flat as I can get it!

And David, thanks for the education. This may sound like a dumb question, but is the difference between my #4 and a #6 just that the base is longer and the blade is honed differently? (I know it's also a bit wider). I've never used anything other than my #4 so I'm having an unsure time imagining how a #6 would feel to run across the wood and if it would give me what I'm looking for.

Otherwise, it sounds like a nice cheap solution is a replacement #4 blade. Increasing my knowledge of honing is a welcomed task.

Jim's correct - a #6 is longer and heavier than a #4, so it's preferred for flattening larger surfaces.

However, my point is that you're not looking to flatten the top (at least not perfectly flat) - you're looking to hog off the rounded edges and then get a smooth surface afterwards so it's presentable as a table. That's a bit different than flattening a table top.

[Trevor Walsh]

I second (or fifth) the use of a scrub. I have the LV and love it. Historical accuracy aside I use it for both edge and finely set for face work. As the blade comes it works well in softwood, the camber is a bit much for hardwoods unless set fine. Seeing as you've got DFir to work with, scrub plane all the way. Then flatten with a jack and smooth.