Scrub Plane

[Dave Lehnert]

I have not ruled out making a scrub out of a #5 But If you were going to buy one. Would you get a wood body like the E.C. Emmerich or the Veritas scrub plane. Lee Valley free shipping and a $100 gift card has me looking.
http://www.leevalley.com/US/images/item/woodworking/planes/24p0701s1.jpg



Veritas® Scrub Plane




http://www.leevalley.com/US/images/item/woodworking/planes/05p3501_dsp.jpg

[Trevor Walsh]

I have the LV, it's nice to use, but I like the look of that wooden one, I think yo'd be fine with either and the E.C. would save you some coin to go towards something else. It's a rough work tool, and I think the wooden one might be real nice for that. I might consider selling my LV Scrub if your into that? I don't use it much.

[Dale Cruea]

I have never used a wooden scrub plane. I do have a LN scrub. A few months ago I made one from a #5 Stanley Bailey I had laying around.
I have not gotten the LN scrub out since.
My LN scrub gives me a lot of tear out. The #5 gives me very little. I can plane with the gran with the #5 never with the LN scrub.
I never changed the blade on the #5. It still has the standard blade that came with it.
The #5 seems to work better for me

[Paul Saffold]

I converted a 5 1/4 to a scrub. I'd spend the $$ on a tool you can't make or modify, or one that needs more precision than a scrub. Just my .02.

[Simon Frez-Albrecht]

I bought the Lee Valley scrub about a year ago, and hardly use it. I think you would do fine to buy almost any old plane and grind a radius on the edge and use it. Many times the radius that came on my LV is too much, I don't want to take that big of a bite. I ended up reducing the severity of it some.

The real advantage to getting a dedicated scrub is that they are a single iron tool, no cap iron. The tool is also frequently (or at least in my hands) used on dirty, rough sawn wood that can really wear an edge. The fact that it's single iron means that sharpening is much faster. All you have to do is unscrew the lever cap and pull out the blade, sharpen, and stick it back in.

[Steve Friedman]

I have never used a wooden scrub plane. I do have a LN scrub. A few months ago I made one from a #5 Stanley Bailey I had laying around.
I have not gotten the LN scrub out since.
My LN scrub gives me a lot of tear out. The #5 gives me very little. I can plane with the gran with the #5 never with the LN scrub.
I never changed the blade on the #5. It still has the standard blade that came with it.
The #5 seems to work better for me
I agree. I have not used my LN Scrub since I put a cambered Hock A-2 iron and cap into a Bedrock #5. That plane is so much easier to use than the scrub - it just sails through the wood.

I have read recently (don't remember where) that a scrub plane was originally intended only to be used on edges - not to flatten faces. That makes sense. With hindsight, I would try a #5 with a cambered iron before I got a scrub. Then, if I needed a scrub plane, I would consider a wooden one first. I have used the ECE scrub and loved it. I bought the L-N one because I couldn't resist the bling.

Steve

[Jack Curtis]

I have not ruled out making a scrub out of a #5 But If you were going to buy one. Would you get a wood body like the E.C. Emmerich or the Veritas scrub plane. Lee Valley free shipping and a $100 gift card has me looking.

I'd get the ECE, without question. I bought an old European woodie scrub, small, very light (this is important in scrubbing), and scrubs the wood like a champ.

Jack

[Mark Baldwin III]

I made my scrub plane, it's a Krenov style. IIRC Woodcraft carries scrub plane irons (that's where I got mine). You could also find a Stanley #40, which I believe is a nice plane.
They work great for roughing down the edge of a board, as well as thicknessing. You can take off lots of material very fast. I follow mine with a Hock jack plane, then either the #5 or a jointer. It's a good tool to have around.

[Bryan Schwerer]

I built my scrub plane from a Steve Knight kit. It is make of Purple Heart (The One blade, no chip breaker, planing Purple Popular Eater) has a 1/4" blade. I like it, it is light and does a great job removing wood. The only thing I don't like that handle is too close to the blade/wedge and makes it difficult to adjust.

[Michael Peet]

I like metal planes, so it would be LV or LN if money were no object. As it is, I made one out of an old #3 instead.

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Mike

[Jim McGee]

Jim Toplin has an artical in this months wooden boat magazine about how to turn a stanley number 5 or 6 into a fore plane. He curves the frount of the mouth in the same arc that he will sharpen into the iron.

[Larry Fox]

Interesting thread. I use my LM scrub plane much more frequently than I thought I would when I bought it. I have never used a wooden one but I can tell you that the LN one is a great tool and a blast to use and I would expect the LV to be the same.

[john bateman]

http://www.leevalley.com/US/images/item/woodworking/planes/24p0701s1.jpg
I received one of these as a Christmas gift. The iron has a pretty small radius curve, and the mouth is completely straight. So when I set the iron for a reasonable depth of cut, only about 1/2" of the width of the iron is doing any work.

Does this seem right?

[Tony Shea]

A picture would really help. But yes it does seem about right. What do you consider to be a reasonable cut? These planes are designed to take a bit more than a reasonable cut.

This is why I prefer a fore plane with a decent camber when removing stock from the face of a board, I can leave a flatter surface than a scrub but still remove a charge of wood. The extra width and length also aids in keeping the boards face true.

Your scrub is a bit more at home working the edge of a board where a significant amount of stock needs to be removed and a rip saw would not do well that close to an edge. This is an opinion though as there a many people who use the scrub to get your boards face somewhat true.

Oh, and I do try to find as many excuses I can to use my scrub as it is an absolute blast. There is no other plane I can remove as much stock and have little reguard at how pretty it is. They are just fun!

[john bateman]

I have the iron projecting about .01 of an inch.

And I sure hope it works on the face of boards, as I wanted to use it to get them reasonably flat quickly.

[Zach Dillinger]

I don't think I'd bother with a scrub plane. I use a 16" wooden jack plane as my coarsest plane and can thickness by hand very rapidly. Scrub planes, with their short soles, make it far too easy to plane a deep hollow where you don't want one. Do yourself a favor and get a fore plane rather than a scrub.

[James Owen]

I have the iron projecting about .01 of an inch.

And I sure hope it works on the face of boards, as I wanted to use it to get them reasonably flat quickly.

It should work fine, if perhaps a bit slow. I usually push the iron out about 1/8" +/- (perhaps a touch more) for initial flattening and stock removal, and then to about half that for getting to within about 1/16" or so of the required thickness. I follow up with a jack plane to remove the scrub plane troughs, a jointer to flatten, and a smoother to put the final surface on the face of the board; same sequence works for edges, too.

In reference to your earlier question: yes, about 1/2" to 3/4" is about right. The width of the troughs my LN scrub leaves are roughly 3/4 " wide, but I set the iron for a pretty coarse cut. A coarser cut will remove more wood faster, but also requires much more effort. For starting out, I'd suggest finding a depth of cut that lets you plane with reasonable speed and effort in the wood you're using -- the depth of cut will vary with the species of wood: on softer woods like walnut or mahogany, you can take a coarser cut, but on harder woods like oak or maple, you'll want to take a bit lighter cut -- and get used to what the plane does. After that you're comfortable with the plane and have a good feel for how it cuts, you can adjust for finer or coarser cut, as you determine works best.

[john bateman]

I don't know if this pic helps:

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[James Owen]

It looks like you can go a bit deeper than what you have showing (as best as I can determine from the photo). Try about 1/16th inch or so for starters and adjust coarser or finer from there. Don't hesitate to experiment with it. The iron is easy to set/adjust, and about the only thing you can really do "wrong" is to set it too coarse to be able to move the plane; other than that, try different settings and see what happens.

For me, one of the fun things about a new tool is learning what it will do and how it wants to work.... When I first got my scrub plane, I ended up "playing" with iron depth settings quite a bit.

After some experimentation, you'll find the settings that let you:

1) Remove wood efficiently. For initial scrubbing -- depending, of course, on how much wood you have to remove in the first place -- you'll generally want to remove as much wood as possible per pass, so you're not there all day; once you start approaching your final thickness, you'll want to reduce the amount of wood removed per pass, so you don't over-thin your board. And, you have to take into account that you still need to run a jointer and a smoother over the board, as well. I usually stop scrubbing when there is about 1/16th inch or so between the bottoms of the scrub plane troughs and the final thickness line on the board.

2) Plane with minimal or no tear out. Depth of cut affects this somewhat, but in my experience, it is the direction of cut that affects tear-out more. Planing directly across the grain (this is somewhat counter-intuitive) tends to give the best results in many/most woods. All of this depends on the wood you're scrubbing. Some woods take to a scrub plane well, others are more resistant and require some test cuts to figure out what thickness of cut and which direction of planing will give the best results.

3) Have a reasonable effort to move the plane. You'll have to determine what you think a "reasonable effort" is, of course, but as a rough rule of thumb, it shouldn't be a lot more effort than pushing a moderately coarse cut with jack or jointer plane through a tougher wood like oak. Otherwise you end up really wearing yourself out.....

Play with and experiment with your plane on some scrap wood. That will give you a pretty good idea of what it likes and how it wants to be used. After a short time of using it, you'll be comfortable with it and know intuitively what to do. You'll find that a scrub plane is a really fun tool to use, and will remove wood in a hurry....or you can set it for a very light cut and put a subtle or not-so-subtle texture on a board, for a more rough-hewn effect.

[Tony Shea]

You're scrub certainly can be used for initial flattening of a board. My earlier post just suggests that this step isn't always neccessary for everyone. I personally don't use my scrub at all for this purpose anymore as the size is not my preference. Where it does excell on board faces is when you have some really high and low spots, typically a board that has significant twist. And don't let anyone tell you that a board with a fair amount of wind shouldn't be used, ive never had problems with them when the board is at equilibrium MC. The scrub is small enough to attack these real high spots effeciently. Just is not in my method of work anymore since falling in love with Jack planes.

The iron does look a bit over cambered for a scrub (too tight a radius). But it is hard to tell for sure. But it will work, and will be able to take real heavy cuts with such a camber. After successive sharpenings I would try to work the camber a little straighter, not too much but more gradual than what it looks to be.


It should work fine, if perhaps a bit slow. I usually push the iron out about 1/8" +/- (perhaps a touch more) for initial flattening and stock removal

That's a bit excessive to start flattening a board with. A touch more than an 1/8"?

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I think part of it depends on what you're doing - if you're thicknessing a wide board down a quarter inch, or remedying a seriously out of true board, or hacking a away a lot in each stroke on the edge of a board too wide, a big camber like that can be helpful - if your boards are closer to where you want them, a coarsely set jack plane might be a better solution.

Working across the grain is very helpful, but remember to either leave your boards wider than needed or chamfer the edges - everything can be going fine and then a huge piece splinters off. A deep knife line at your desired thickness helps fight off this spelching too, but you'd be surprised a how large a piece can jump off - always after you're ready to take one more pass. . .

I don't have a scrub, but I've set up a jack plane pretty darn coarse - work across the grain, I could see an 1/8" projection being viable if the blade is narrow like a scrub. I've had boards where I want to knock off a 1/4 to a half inch but don't have the ability to resaw something maybe 12-14 inches wide. Hitting it coarsely across the grain made things a lot easier. A waste of wood? Maybe, but cheaper than getting a better bandsaw, and lot better use of my time than resawing that by hand or ripping it, resawing, and regluing.

[James Owen]

.....That's a bit excessive to start flattening a board with. A touch more than an 1/8"?

Sometimes it is...depends on the thickness of the board and how much has to come off. Most of my scrub plane usage is on rough-sawn boards that have some minor twist. For those kinds of boards, I've found 1/8" +/- works pretty well for initial wood removal.....

[george wilson]

Nothing wrong with a wooden scrub plane. Wooden planes are self lubricating,too,and they usually don't break if they get dropped. I can't remember ever dropping a plane,but it certainly could easily happen.