Skew Block Plane Right-hand or Left-hand?

[Niels Cosman]

Hey Fellas,
I was wondering if anyone had experience with skew block planes and had a preference for right or left handed models. Is one more useful or more comfortable for a right handed person? does anybody have and use both?
The reason why I bring it up is that the handedness seems a little counter-intuitive. From what I gather it appears that a left-handed model would be nicer to use plane on the right side for say trimming a tenon shoulder with a bench hook. A right-handed model would seem more natural for cutting a rabbet in edge of a board hanging over the front face of the bench like using a plow plane.
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Niels

[Jim Koepke]

My thought on these is to get the fullest function, eventually both should be acquired.

jtk

[Johnny Kleso]

If right handed you want the left side open..
IE: your tuning a tenon you have board in left hand and plane in right..

[phil harold]

I am confused

I skew my block plane every time I use it...

if I am tuning a tenon I use a rabbet plane

;o)

[Niels Cosman]

If right handed you want the left side open..
IE: your tuning a tenon you have board in left hand and plane in right..

Ok cool. That's what I had thought and what got the gears turning (grinding) in the first place. This seems to be one of those situtations were both ARE actually useful.

Thanks for the mental hand-holding :)

phil: lol

[Matt Radtke]

It also depends on how you hold the relative to the workpiece, ie, lever cap parallel or perpendicular to the ground. Schwarz makes an observation about this with a 95, but the same basic principle should hold with any fenced and skewed plane.

http://blog.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/Use+The+No+95+Trimming+Plane+Upright.aspx?utm_sour ce=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+woodworkingmagazine+%28Woodwo rking+Magazine%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

[Jonathan McCullough]

I have the Lee Valley version, and use the one that has the opening on the left part of the plane the most. I think it's intuitive to push a plane like that from the outside to the center, so for a right-handed person like me, that would be the one with the opening or "rabbet" part on the left. If you're cleaning up a long rabbet though and using the plane more like a 78 or a plough plane, you'd want the opening on the right side. Mostly I've used the first one in cross grain to make a rabbet for dovetail joints, cleaning up broken saw horns, and even tenons, though I think a shoulder plane is better for that. The Veritas version is really well made, well worth the price.

[Jon van der Linden]

It all depends on the grain of the wood. If you're planing end grain, then you get to choose which direction is most comfortable. Any other grain, and the grain direction will dictate which plane you should use.

[Brian Ashton]

I bought the the right hand plane that is used one handed with the left hand... I bought it thinking that I would most often use it with two hands as it's more a speciality plane that is used to finely tune something so more precision is needed... The left holding the knob to steady it and the right at the back driving it forward. But I find I use it equally with one hand as I do two. So now i have to get used to using it left handed - not a real big deal for me but you'll have to take that into consideration if you buy the right handed one.