St. James Bay scrub plane.

[Dave Lehnert]

Been kicking around the idea of a scrub plane. I have read past post about making your own etc.... Kind past that point.

Ran across the St. James Bay scrub plane. Anyone own this plane and / or have a photo to share. Photo on the web site is kinda hard to tell quality, size etc.....
Also, Are they sold as a kit or finished tool? I was reading some past post about kits but see nothing about kits on the web page.

[Bill Houghton]

I've purchased a few items from St. James Bay, and found quality good. Don't know whether the scrub is a kit or a plane, but there's not much to a scrub; hard to imagine even a kit would be difficult to complete. But ask.

I made a butt hinge mortise plane a few years ago, and it's occurred to me that it wouldn't be hard to make a scrub plane using the same approach. You'd basically be making a Krenovian plane with a huge mouth. I used a maple lever cap with a T-nut, but, were I doing it again, I would just tap the maple itself (coarse threads). Start with a Lee Valley or Lie Nielsen replacement blade and go from there.

[Brian Kerley]

If you have any questions about St James Bay stuff, just call him up. DON'T EMAIL. He may or may not have a plane on hand. The site is more representative of the things he can make, not necessarily what he has on hand.

[Steven Lee, NC]

I have the plane, I'll try and get some pics of it when I get home tonight. When I ordered it he didn't have any on hand and had to make one for me, by the time I got it, I had forgotten I had ordered it :p but this was at least about 6-7 years ago.

At the time I thought about going all neander but by the time I got it I had decided to use power tools to save me time. I didn't have that much time for woodworking and didn't want to spend it prepping stock. I used it once to try and staighten a board that had a ton of twist in it just to see if I could. As far as I could tell it worked really well and I was hogging off nice sized chips. Didn't really take alot of effort to adjust as I didn't really care if I was pulling off super thin and even shavings. One mistake I made was I used it on the knots. I posted my experience on this board and learned I should have avoided the knots.

I'd be willing to sell mine if there is any interest. I still prep stock with power tools and only use a scaper / sand paper for cleaning up tool marks.

[Michael Francisco]

I'd be willing to sell mine if there is any interest. I still prep stock with power tools and only use a scaper / sand paper for cleaning up tool marks.

Greetings Steven- I might be interested in your St James scrub plane. Been looking at the Pinnacle and haunting for any deals I might find to round out my arsenal.

Thanks in advance,

Michael

[David Weaver]

A dilapidated continental smoother off of ebay for about $25 makes a fantastic scrub plane.

Something like this.

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Usually have to glue the horn and sharpen the iron.

Years ago, I bought into the whole premium all planes thing. I had a LN scrub at one point, then the veritas scrub because a friend had it and I thought it was nicer because it was heavier. Now I don't have so-called scrub, but I have a couple of very rank set jacks that are wooden. One is an economy japanese plane japan woodworker used to carry for $60 and the others are vintage planes. I can remove more wood with any of them than I could with the little metal scrubs, and do less damage doing it. I also have a continental smoother set up as a roughing plane, and it's excellent for the job.

The only thing where the heavy metal scrubs are really useful is in stuff like hard maple, but not much hand tool work is done with large amounts of hard maple.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Dave

The question that should have been asked first is, "what is it you expect to use the scrub to do?" While this may be self-explanatory to some, the tool is misunderstood by many.

For most work I believe that a jack plane (or foreplane) with an 8" cambered blade is preferable to a scrub plane with a 3" cambered blade. the jack will remove a lot of waste very rapidly from mildly twisted boards or boards that need to be thicknessed. It will do so without the very rough finish a scrub plane leave.

Scrub planes are better for the cases where a lot of waste needs to be removed. If you want to remove 1/2", use a scrub. If you only want to remove 1/8", use a jack.

Scrub planes are short (9-10" long) while jacks are about 15". The longer length of the jack helps maintain flatness.

I rarely use a scrub these days. The jack is the mainstay.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[David Weaver]

I can't think of a situation where I was leaning toward using a scrub over a rank set jack. I don't know what my radius is on my jacks, but it's pretty small compared to most folks - probably something more like 5-6", so maybe I really have a foot in both pools.

My most commonly used jack plane is a rank set funjii (cheap japanese plane) that is about 10 inches long, though if pushing, the two wooden jacks I have are about 15" long. I'd like to set up a continental smoother for jacking.

I don't know, I just never found favor in working with the metal scrubs, but I'm quite sure that the average stuff we work over here leaves me with a different impression than you may get from something 1 1/2 to 2 times as hard. If I had to work that stuff (that does favor more weight for hand, elbow and shoulder comfort), I may reverse course.

I never really like to remove 1/2" from anything harder than pine!!

[Judson Green]

Scrub planes are better for the cases where a lot of waste needs to be removed. If you want to remove 1/2", use a scrub. If you only want to remove 1/8", use a jack.

Scrub planes are short (9-10" long) while jacks are about 15". The longer length of the jack helps maintain flatness.

I rarely use a scrub these days. The jack is the mainstay.

Regards from Perth

Derek

The shorter length and aggressive cut can also quickly get you in trouble. Been using a scrub (Stanley 40) for only a little while but its very easy to get carryed away and remove to much material.

I like using it, makes a thankless task a little easier.

Stop frequently and reassess your situation.

[Sean Hughto]

FWIW to anyone interested in another opinion, I use my scrub all the time and wouldn't give it up. Especially for flattening slabs.

[Steve Voigt]

FWIW to anyone interested in another opinion, I use my scrub all the time and wouldn't give it up. Especially for flattening slabs.

I'd be interested in hearing why. Every time this comes up, you are the guy defending the scrub. How do you use the plane, and in what circumstances?
I'm not being a wise ass--I'm genuinely interested in understanding why you like this plane. My own experience has been the opposite--I built an 18" fore plane after I got dissatisfied with my jack, have reduced the camber to something like .040, and rarely take huge heavy cuts.

[Sean Hughto]

Perhaps I'll make a video the next time I flatten a slab. And perhaps you'll all tell me that I'm an idiot and should try you're ways. I routinely use mine successfully, and the jobs I use it for would take longer - way longer- with the other options I have.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Sean

In the situation you describe I may also prefer a scrub plane. It just depends on the thickness to be removed. A scrub has a narrow blade and cuts deeply with less effort. With larger uneven sides or small areas of highs, the scrub may suit better than a jack. I use it on recycled hardwood that is harder than usual and/or has paint spots or needs to be taken down a 1/8". However, for most work around a shop, where waste reaches a thickness of 1/8" or less, a jack is my preferred plane.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Koepke]

Funny thing about a scrub plane. My thought was they aren't really needed with most of the wood available to me. Lately been using a lot more stock that comes round as in fire wood from a tree and mill ends from the local saw mills.

Today had me using a beat up #5-1/4 with a rounded blade for peeling the fuzzy layer off of alder mill ends. There is also a Millers Falls #8 (Bailey #3) that gets used for light scrub work. Haven't set that one up specifically of yet.

There are a lot of options for scrub plane conversions.

jtk

[David Weaver]

Scrub or jack, I don't know. I took a picture of a junker plane that I got from Ricky's used....I mean it's not... I mean ebay. It's actually a good plane, and I wanted to get a whack at a french iron. All but one of my jacks are set up like this - the exception being a longer mathiesen jack.

These things are all over ebay for $10 + shipping, as long as you don't mind planing the wear off the bottoms, setting up an iron and regluing the horn. I like these better than a purpose made scrub because they're wider.

I really don't know why I get such terrible pictures with my phone, apologies for the blurriness.

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[Jim Koepke]

My beat up #5-1/4 being used as a scrub has been mentioned previously. Here are some pictures:

The work is held one way with the end vise and a piece of scrap and some wedges are used to keep it from moving sideways. Usually the wedges do not have to be tightened any more than a squeeze of the fingers.

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This plane was a bad deal on ebay, but when you have lemons...

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Note the cracks at the sides of the back of the mouth.

For small stock the small size of the #5-1/4 works great for me:

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This goes pretty fast for getting rid of the saw marks and the cupping. It was followed up with a #5-1/2 and then a #4-1/2. Any other combinations are likely to end up with similar results.

The small blade on the #5-1/4 make it easy to push though a thick shaving. A wider blade would likely increase the effort needed.

jtk

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

The 5 1/4 always seemed like an ideal size to me for some of these jobs. Maybe I'll start to keep an eye out for one again. Thanks, Jim.

I've just been using my BU, LN jack with a heavily cambered blade for these tasks, but I've been lately swapping blades in it seems like more of hassle. I've been working almost exclusively with borg poplar lately, though, so I haven't been doing much heavy surfacing. But I've got a couple of projects in mind that mean getting "real" wood, which means working from rough again, so maybe trying something new is in order.

[steven c newman]

Have two jacks set up with the cambered iron. I also have that little HF Windsor #33 set up as a 3" R cambered scrub plane. About the same size as a #3 plane. It is about like a #40, that one can buy for $10.

The 5-1/4 I have gets used like a long #3 smoother plane. Very little, if any, camber to the iron. The Sargent #414c, and the Corsair C-5 are very good jack scrub planes. Corsair has a "Schwarz" 8" camber, the sargent a little less.

Seemed to work quite well283285Junior jack in the middle. Ohio Tool Co. 05c in front..