scrub plane recommendation?

[Mike Allen1010]

I cut, surface and dimension all my stock by hand and occasionally use rough sawn lumber.

I've read a number of posts here in the Cave and other places from people who highly recommend using a scrub plane to quickly level uneven boards and glued up panel's. I would appreciate any advice or suggestions about the best kind of scrub plane for this work.

Should I set up one of my Stanley #5 with a wide mouth and grind/polish a curved primary bevel on the blade, or is there something about a "dedicated" scrub plane that would be better? I think Lee Valley offers a dedicated scrub plane -- I'm not sure what other brands or perhaps vintage woodies might also be available?

Any suggestions about the width of the mouth opening, perhaps replacement blades and the degree of blade curvature would also be much appreciated.

Again, thanks a lot for the suggestions!

Mike

[Chris Griggs]

Should I set up one of my Stanley #5 with a wide mouth and grind/polish a curved primary bevel on the blade


Yes you should do this, the extra length over a scrub is beneficial. You can set a 5 or 6 up to be very aggressive. A lot of guys love the scrub and have lots of success with it. This is one of those things that folks will debate back and forth about. I would setup the 5 as your hog and then only buy a scrub if you feel like the 5 isn't getting the work done.

[David Nelson1]

Folks have been rehabbing # 5's to do exactly what your talking about. I didn't go that route just found an old # 40 after all it is a scrub. There are about 10 to pic from on flea bay right now ranging from 8.99 with 4 days left to 199.00. All look like good users. Might be a bit rough if you had to push a five all day to do what a 40 will do.

[David Weaver]

This conversation came up last year. A scrub is not a great plane for surfacing rough lumber, rather it's intended to thickness (edge or face) lumber.

I have had two scrubs, tried both premiums (LV and LN), and still have the LV scrub, but I have to admit that I do not use them - instead opting for a cambered #5. It is not set up to take a cut as deep and narrow as a scrub plane would be, but it does have significant camber.

A board has to have massive twist or cup and be thick enough to tolerate significant removal of corners or high spots to justify the use of a scrub, and you will find that they are very hard on the edges of boards across the grain if you don't relieve the far side of a board and use one across or diagonal with the grain.

People dimensioned rough lumber for hundreds of years before a scrub was marketed by stanley.

I would, instead of buying a scrub, buy a slightly thicker iron for your #5 and open the mouth some. Off the top of my head I don't know what radius I use on my 5, i never measured - instead go by feel. It is probably half as drastic as a true scrub iron, but it is still pretty drastic.

If you find yourself with lumber that needs a scrub just to prep the first flat face, I would start looking for different lumber supplier.

If you get good quality lumber, you'll find that you can often skip even the jack and go right to a plane with moderate camber (fore, try) and then joint the face of your boards and smooth them.

[Zach England]

I like the Veritas. It looks awesome sitting in my tool cabinet. I tried using it once. It was too much work. I am far too pusillanimous for that sort of thing.

[Chris Griggs]

I like the Veritas. It looks awesome sitting in my tool cabinet. I tried using it once. It was too much work. I am far too pusillanimous for that sort of thing.

I looked up the word pusillanimous - this was literally the first definition that came up....


Definition of PUSILLANIMOUS : lacking courage and resolution : marked by contemptible timidity

I like that the word contemptible is included in the definition;)

[David Weaver]

I like the Veritas. It looks awesome sitting in my tool cabinet. I tried using it once. It was too much work. I am far too pusillanimous for that sort of thing.

Your veritas scrub and my veritas scrub are probably similar in their immaculate cleanliness and low wear.

Maybe in 100 years, people can remark about how good of shape all of the "old scrubs" are in, similar to what we say about stanley 55s ("surprisingly, very few of the irons have ever been sharpened!!!")

[James Baker SD]

I have the LN scrub and I like it. I am not a powerful man and the narrow blade of the LN scrub lets me take a deeper cut than I could with a wider blade. I have used it for a variety of tasks including flattening a wide slab that was too wide for my planer (using a sled to make the planer behave as a joiner) to squaring a horribly out of square door frame when I was replacing the door to my shop. On the door, most of the work was reaching above my head so the light weight of the LN scrub was really appreciated.

[James Baker SD]

Another thought. Put an ad on the classified page for "WTB scrub plane" and maybe one of those spotlessly clean LV and LN scrubs will make its way to you.

[Pat Zabrocki]

I use the 5 with a cambered blade but if you don't care for the heft of a 5, you could use a 5 1/4 too. Of course if you have to buy a 5 1/4 then you may as well buy the scrub but it is an alternative I would think.
pat

[Chris Griggs]

I use the 5 with a cambered blade but if you don't care for the heft of a 5, you could use a 5 1/4 too. Of course if you have to buy a 5 1/4 then you may as well buy the scrub but it is an alternative I would think.
pat

A scrub/foreplane is the one place I find corrugations to be nice for this reason. I use a 5C for coarse work and I think the corrugations lighten it up a bit - not sure about the whole reducing friction thing, but perhaps they do hold more wax than a not corrugated plane if you wax the sole. This is probably the only scenario where I like a corrugated sole.

[Trevor Walsh]

Short version, do what I do to fresh apple cider, "Jack it".

Longer and better version, I have the Veritas scrub which is a great tool, but recently I've been using a Millers Falls No. 22 (#5 sized Jack, Jeff) with a cambered blade and like that better. I don't have is set to take a huge chip, and the longer length is really nice. I've got a really good condition Ohio tools jack that I'm going to turn into my traversing/scrub jack. Then I'll sell the Veritas. Put that $100 to some better use.

[Chris Griggs]

Longer and better version, I have the Veritas scrub which is a great tool, but recently I've been using a Millers Falls No. 22 (#5 sized Jack, Jeff) with a cambered blade and like that better.

Isn't the MF No. 22 the equivalent of a No. 7, and the No. 14 the equivalent of a No. 5??? It was my understanding that the MF numbering system was based on their length. Just curious...

[Sean Hughto]

Different woodworkers will give you different answers as you can see from this thread. It's not because some are right and some are wrong, but instead is attributable to the fact that we tend to develop our own habits and abilities in our work. I use a good deal of wide rough sawn hardwood (maple, cherry, walnut, etc,.) stock. I would be lost without my 40 to true up faces. There can be a LOT of thickness to remove on a cupped or twisted board. The 40 aggressively removes the high spots and its narrow width is a benefit in pushing through deep cuts. It's not intended to be the plane that has a wide and long sole to register and produce flatness, but rather a tool to knock down the really high spots quick so that something like a 5 or seven can get to flat more easily and quickly.

[David Nelson1]

1+ what Sean said

[Paul Saffold]

I have a 4 1/4 set up as a scrub. It makes for a narrow cut with a heavily radiused blade, but that's an advantage for those of us with skinny arms when flattening something like white oak :rolleyes:. I also use a #5 with a cambered blade.

[john davey]

I found a LN scrub at a flea market for pennies so that is what I use. I have recently thought about cambering a blade in a no 5 and using that. I am 270lbs and I think I can get the extra width through the larger boards with the 5 and save some time.

[Mark Baldwin III]

I think that a scrub plane is one of the easiest planes to make yourself. No need to worry much about the mouth, or if there is some other flaw/error when you make it. I made mine around a replacement iron meant for an LN scrub. Mine is a Krenov style and can hog off pretty thick shavings with little effort. I constructed mine in such a way to allow more grip with the pushing hand and more area for the blade to bed on. It needs to be sturdy.

[Matt Sullenbrand]

You could also consider a wooden jack plane with a heavily cambered blade and an opened mouth. Wooden jacks show up all the time for dirt cheap. I switched to one of these a few months ago and have not used my #5 since. You might what to check out Peter Follansbee's blog for his opinion on fore/scrub planes. He probably does more work with these planes than anyone, not that his or anyone's opinion is the be-all end-all. Lots of different routes out there to the same result.

[Derek Cohen]

Several years ago I wrote a review of the LV Scrub Plane in which I compared it with the Stanley #40 and a ECE-type woodie. The LV was by far my preferred scrub plane, mainly because I considered its extra weight and length to be a significant advantage, especially for hardwood. I did conclude, however, that I would have liked a longer plane still. I must admit that my view of the position of scrub planes began to change at this point, and I re-treaded a Stanley #5 1/2 as a scrub-jack (with a 5" radius blade). I have not use a traditional scrub plane much in the past 5 years. Instead I built a traditional 15" long jack plane and fitted it with the mother of all blades (a 3/8" thick D2 iron with a 8" camber), and find that this does all I need for fast removal of waste on the salvage boards I renovate.

Review of the LV Scrub Plane: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/The Veritas Lee Valley Scrub Plane.html

Current jack ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Planes/My planes/BuildingaJackPlane_html_ma7dc66e.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Trevor Walsh]

Chris, yes I mean a 14, and that could be true about their measurement system. I don't know why I was thinking about a 22, I don't own one and don't feel the need to.

[Bill Moser]

I've recently had the pleasure of having to remove up to 3/8" off of a few boards 4' long and up to 10" wide to get down to the thickness I wanted (note to self: next time, double check that both sides of your alaskan mill are set to the SAME thickness before cranking up the chainsaw). I have an ulmia (same as the ECE) scrub, and I think it works really well for this purpose. It's far lighter than the iron-sided planes (#40 & derivatives), but its (only) 1 1/4" wide blade can really hog off the wood fast. Usually, I'm using it at between 45 and 90 degrees to the long axis of the board, so the strokes are short and quick. It seems to me that in this way of using the plane, its better to have less mass rather than more. Also, the front horn allows me to flip it end for end, and use it in a pull fashion, which really helps after a while :)

[Chris Vandiver]

I think that a scrub plane is one of the easiest planes to make yourself. No need to worry much about the mouth, or if there is some other flaw/error when you make it. I made mine around a replacement iron meant for an LN scrub. Mine is a Krenov style and can hog off pretty thick shavings with little effort. I constructed mine in such a way to allow more grip with the pushing hand and more area for the blade to bed on. It needs to be sturdy.


Do you have photos?

[Bobby O'Neal]

Different woodworkers will give you different answers as you can see from this thread. It's not because some are right and some are wrong, but instead is attributable to the fact that we tend to develop our own habits and abilities in our work. I use a good deal of wide rough sawn hardwood (maple, cherry, walnut, etc,.) stock. I would be lost without my 40 to true up faces. There can be a LOT of thickness to remove on a cupped or twisted board. The 40 aggressively removes the high spots and its narrow width is a benefit in pushing through deep cuts. It's not intended to be the plane that has a wide and long sole to register and produce flatness, but rather a tool to knock down the really high spots quick so that something like a 5 or seven can get to flat more easily and quickly.


++++1

It seems like people have alot of expectations for a scrub that it just isn't suited to meet. I think the key thing Sean said was that it isn't about creating a flat surface. Its part of the series and process. I love mine. Alot of what I enjoy is how well it works with and for my other planes. Scrub and #5 are good buddies.

[Bobby O'Neal]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg0jUWJPweg



This has been on here before, I think. But its a great picture of what a scrub does best, I think.

[Archie England]

Different woodworkers will give you different answers as you can see from this thread. It's not because some are right and some are wrong, but instead is attributable to the fact that we tend to develop our own habits and abilities in our work. I use a good deal of wide rough sawn hardwood (maple, cherry, walnut, etc,.) stock. I would be lost without my 40 to true up faces. There can be a LOT of thickness to remove on a cupped or twisted board. The 40 aggressively removes the high spots and its narrow width is a benefit in pushing through deep cuts. It's not intended to be the plane that has a wide and long sole to register and produce flatness, but rather a tool to knock down the really high spots quick so that something like a 5 or seven can get to flat more easily and quickly.


+1, too

I start logs or splits quite often from a chain saw. The scrub plane excels in knocking down those cut lines that would take a plane much longer. Scrubs take consistently deeper cuts, and being narrower do so much more easily. With that said, I start on cupped or twisted boards with a #5 or 6, using cambered blades. My 40 never (or rarely) gets used on surfaced lumber.

[Harry Goodwin]

I have an LV scrub I reaally like and use. Most of its use is bringing down edges fast with out a jointer and not enough to set up the table saw.

[Zach England]

You guys are hardcore.

[Niels Cosman]

My 1900-1930's no.40 stanley does the job and never have wanted anything else (although thankfully I have small hands). I have a hock blade it it.
I also use a #5 with a cambered blade as my fore plane. The 40 takes the REALLY big bites when if the board is really out of whack and the #5 does the course flattening. The 40 gets used on maybe 30-40% percent of the boards (maybe less). Is it necessary? probably not. Is it really useful and speed up work? absolutely.
It also is great for all sorts of other hogging operations where a plane smaller than a #5 is helpful.

[Mike Allen1010]

Thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts and experiences regarding scrub plains.

This is one of the things I love the best about the Creek; the opportunity to post a question and quickly learn from and benefit from the collective knowledge and experience of everyone here. I feel like I save myself tons of trial and error and will be able to move forward much more quickly to acquire the tools and build the skills to do the work I want to do.

Thanks again to everyone who responded!

All the best, Mike

[Pam Niedermayer]

I think that a scrub plane is one of the easiest planes to make yourself. No need to worry much about the mouth, or if there is some other flaw/error when you make it. I made mine around a replacement iron meant for an LN scrub. Mine is a Krenov style and can hog off pretty thick shavings with little effort. I constructed mine in such a way to allow more grip with the pushing hand and more area for the blade to bed on. It needs to be sturdy.

I agree, way easy to make I found out after I bought a horned wooden version for cheap on the bay. When I examined it I kind of kicked myself for spending anything on it, but darned if it doesn't work like a charm.

Pam

[Greg Ladd]

I really enjoy using my LN scrub. I recently used it to help flatten some badly twisted hickory. It took some effort but it was enjoyable and ...quiet.

Greg

[steven c newman]

One could just walk into Harbour Freight and buy a Windsor #33 plane for $10 or so. Regrind the edge of it's iron to a 3" radius. One then has a VERy hungry, #3 sized SCRUB PLANE.

No such store nearby? Order one on line. There is something about this little plane that just says....Scrub Plane.287928The wood here is rough sawn Black Walnut. This plane will never,ever pretend to be a smoother, but excells at be a scrub plane.

[Pinwu Xu]

I think that a scrub plane is one of the easiest planes to make yourself. No need to worry much about the mouth, or if there is some other flaw/error when you make it. I made mine around a replacement iron meant for an LN scrub. Mine is a Krenov style and can hog off pretty thick shavings with little effort. I constructed mine in such a way to allow more grip with the pushing hand and more area for the blade to bed on. It needs to be sturdy.

You may want a scrub plane, made by LV/LN/Stanley

One can use a mouth-opened #5
Or one can find a beaten up wooden smoother/jack, put camber on the blade, and be good to go; these old wooden plane may even have thicker blade; and it's most definitely lighter in weight

HTH

Pinwu

[Derek Cohen]

Three years on. Not much change - I still use a wooden jack with an 8" camber for most waste removal. However a couple of weekends ago, demonstrating building a table, I used my LV scrub to taper the legs. The alternative would have been a drawknife. The scrub is more controlled. In the end this was rapid work.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Weaver]

Tapering a leg is probably similar to the edge type work that the scrub plane was supposedly developed for.

I don't know what radius I have on my jacks - probably something closer to 5", which might be why I don't have much regard for a scrub plane. My favorite harshly cambered jacks have all been cheap ones, though. An old scioto beech plane that was $15, a continental plane with a wide open mouth that was $10, and a japanese fuunji plane (to mix it up) that was $60.

After some time using all of these, as little as holding the finest edge is important and as much more important that it is to have a tougher edge that doesn't nick, I think I like the planes with irons a bit softer the best for heavy work - they don't chip as much and are super easy to grind and sharpen. They are irons I probably would find a bit soft for a smoother, but I can recall troubling over nicks in 62 hardness new premium scrub blades and have no such issue with a couple of older irons. The cheap japanese plane iron is a bit soft for a japanese iron, too, but it suits the task just fine.

[Matthew Hills]

Yes you should do this, the extra length over a scrub is beneficial. You can set a 5 or 6 up to be very aggressive. A lot of guys love the scrub and have lots of success with it. This is one of those things that folks will debate back and forth about. I would setup the 5 as your hog and then only buy a scrub if you feel like the 5 isn't getting the work done.

My heavily cambered #5 is my favorite plane. It is a junker #5 with a repaired front knob and I put in a Hock blade. No idea if that has made much difference -- that was the first blade I had on hand that I put that significant of a camber on.

As I said, it is my favorite plane. Previously I'd been very frustrated with flattening and getting rid of twist. Setting up a plane for this type of cut is huge.
Also, the #5 feels very light -- I can move fairly quickly traversing the board and knocking down the high spots.

Matt

[Daniel Rode]

Great idea. I think I'm going to stop at HF at lunch. I mostly do dimensioning with a 6" power jointer and a 13" planer but there are times when I want to remove a twist before jointing or when the board is too wide. A cheap "roughing plane" would be nice to have and $10 is cheaper than a second iron for my junker #4.


One could just walk into Harbour Freight and buy a Windsor #33 plane for $10 or so. Regrind the edge of it's iron to a 3" radius. One then has a VERy hungry, #3 sized SCRUB PLANE.

[Jim Koepke]

A cheap "roughing plane" would be nice to have and $10 is cheaper than a second iron for my junker #4.

If you have a little extra time at lunch drop in on Home Depot. They carry replacement blades for a #4 at $3.

jtk

[Daniel Rode]

$3? Holy cow, I can afford 3! Lunch, however, appears to be a loss today....

If you have a little extra time at lunch drop in on Home Depot. They carry replacement blades for a #4 at $3.

jtk

[Adam Maxwell]

If you can take >1/16" cross-grain chips with a your jack or bastardized smoother, then you can call it a scrub plane. Until then, not so much :). The previously mentioned German jack/scrub is my preference, with a 1-1/4" blade and 2" radius on it. Super lightweight and agile, and more akin to carving with a drawknife or scorp than planing.

[steven c newman]

That Windsor #33 does those 1/16" chips with ease. About the same size as a #3. Handles are very solid. Iron is 1-7/8" wide, and the mouth opening is 1/4"! Lightweight, and easy to adjust the cuts. HUNGRY little beasty. As in the photo above, it will go crossgrain at will. I did grind a 3" radius on the bevel.

[David Weaver]

If you can take >1/16" cross-grain chips with a your jack or bastardized smoother, then you can call it a scrub plane. Until then, not so much :). The previously mentioned German jack/scrub is my preference, with a 1-1/4" blade and 2" radius on it. Super lightweight and agile, and more akin to carving with a drawknife or scorp than planing.

I'm not sure if I can take a 16th, but it would interesting to see what the total volume removed was. Cross grain isn't a great test because it's so weak, a jack has no trouble in my experience removing a lot of wood cross grain (even if the camber isn't really significant), but moving with the grain might be where a scrub would be better? I don't know, though, I never worked a volume of wood faster with a scrub than I could with a very rank set jack (my jacks have not been that much different than your german scrub - I get the sense I use more camber than most jacks, but I've always added it freehand and have no clue what the camber actually is), and a jack will leave a flatter board than a scrub - which is probably why there is a history of jack-type planes and scrubs were invented long after machine planing was the standard.

[Sam Stephens]

i've got a victor stanley from my wife's gpa w/ a wide mouth. Stock iron w/ about a 3.5" radius -whatever our small dinner plates are. I prefer it to a jack w/ a more standard/modest camber b/c it's so much faster due to the increased stock removal per cut. a metal jack gets heavy after a while so the heavy camber is the deal-maker IMO. A typical scrub is more like a stanley #3 in terms of size -may be a thought to try. I primarily use the scrub cross-grain w/ a relief planed in the opposing side for blow out depending on the edge/face grain orientation. I generally only need a few passes before it's "flat" and time to move on to a jack/fore

Sam

[steven c newman]

Actually, I have two scrub planes. That Windsor #33, and a Corsair C-5. Both have some serious camber to them. The Corsair does have a frog that uses a single bolt to hold it, but it doensn't matter too much as a scrub plane. Never have had the frog move, anyway. When I was scrubbing down a plank of Beech for the leg vise's chop, I was taking off where the blank was rived off a larger beam. Grain was going up and down, with a long divot down the center. The Windsor went to work, and after a few minutes, board was indeed flat. BIG chips were flying off of the blank. went back with the Jack plane to get the "scoops" out, then a couple swipes with a #4 smoother. 287939287940Laid the jack down to clean away them chips. They might be a bit thick?

[Joshua Hancock]

I have also used this little gem from HF as a scrub, it is light weight has a short sole. However check them out before you leave the store. The QC is somewhat hit or miss with the #33. I had to look through about 4-5 of them before I could find one that was suitable (i.e. didn't have a huge chip in the iron)

[Winton Applegate]

HF
a pointless abomination from the pits of a demented imagination cum reality.
Back to Hades with you HF
BACK I SAY !
IMMEDIATELY AND FOR ALL TIME !

[Winton Applegate]

+1 for the LN scrub
I really like mine and I started out using # 5 Stanley Jack with lots of radius and wide open throat.

LN : made in America, lighter weight than the jack, seriously thick blade, much better steel than the . . . unmentionable, way nice to look at . . .
I would buy another in a heart beat.

[Adam Maxwell]

I'm not sure if I can take a 16th, but it would interesting to see what the total volume removed was.

One thing I used it for was this headboard in sapele. Once piece was S2S, and the other was rough (both 4/4), so had to remove 1/8" of stock from the larger piece after gluing it up. It only took a few minutes, and I didn't break a sweat.

http://maxwells.smugmug.com/Woodworking/Other-projects/i-SCttN2F/0/L/IMG_6744-L.jpg


Cross grain isn't a great test because it's so weak, a jack has no trouble in my experience removing a lot of wood cross grain (even if the camber isn't really significant), but moving with the grain might be where a scrub would be better?

You can use it with the grain, but the German jack is too light for that; I can't take as heavy a cut, and it tends to tear out badly if you hit some quirky grain. Going cross-grain is much less effort, and I use a fairly rank set #5 or beater Mathieson jack to knock it down after the scrub, of course.


I don't know, though, I never worked a volume of wood faster with a scrub than I could with a very rank set jack (my jacks have not been that much different than your german scrub - I get the sense I use more camber than most jacks, but I've always added it freehand and have no clue what the camber actually is), and a jack will leave a flatter board than a scrub - which is probably why there is a history of jack-type planes and scrubs were invented long after machine planing was the standard.

I used a rank set #5 for several years, and I thought scrubs were a crock, invented by people who didn't know how to use a jack properly :). Some people I respect still think they're a waste of time, but after using the German jack, I'm a convert. That might just be the way I work; that bed project was the first time I used mostly rough lumber, along with a lot of other firsts, and I didn't use electrons for any of it.

http://maxwells.smugmug.com/Woodworking/Other-projects/i-37kx4DP/0/L/IMG_6738-L.jpg

I will say that if you're working machine-thicknessed lumber, I'm still inclined to think the scrub is largely a waste of time, especially since it's super easy to overdo it. It's definitely not a tool of first resort, at least if it's set up like mine.

[Winton Applegate]

Adam,

Nice bed !
Way to go !