Favorite wood-body plane type

[Curtis Niedermier]

I'm thinking of buy and/or building a couple wood-body planes. What are your favorite kinds?

Krenov?

tapered blade without cap iron?

non-tapered blade with cap iron?

Something else?

[Gene Davis]

The Hock irons-with-plans in Krenov-style. Get the blades with their caps, look at the plans, decide whether you want to build as-drawn, or modify the shape.

I did a set of three, a block, smoother, and a long jack, with cherry bodies and wenge soles. Turned out well, and they work beautifully.

[Reinis Kanders]

Horn style with double iron, e.g. ECE or Ulmia work well and can be found used for relatively cheap, cheaper than Hock iron quite often.

[Kees Heiden]

The classic English style. Double iron of course! Tapered, laminated blade. Made from a nice piece of quartersawn beech. Mortised throat, no nonsence with glued laminations. A nice, shapely, but most important, comfortable handle off set slightly to the right. Or the coffin shape of course for a smoother.

[george wilson]

Agreed on the classic English style with a double iron,tapered blade. Especially the double thickness blades that the English called "gauged" irons. They were used in Norris and other premium planes,and some high quality wood body planes,like the smoothers that had adjustable steel toes ahead of the iron. I have posted one here before,that I made from a regular old smooth plane. They are hard to find,but are my favorite irons. They have chip breakers too.

Back when I was young and less experienced,of wanted a plane quickly,I made a few (I won't call them Krenov) planes that were glued up and had a cross bar. They are short cuts to having a plane,but not the best.

[Alfred Kraemer]

My favorite, multipurpose plane is a wooden jack plane with a tapered, laminated thistle brand/Auburn iron. I got a second iron soon afterward, when I saw a good one, an Ohio tool laminated iron. That purchase wasn't necessary, as the Auburn iron needs resharpening very infrequently. More than finding a good iron, finding a wooden jackplane with a good plane body, no splits, tight mouth, fairly square and flat, took a little bit of time.

Is there a functional difference between an American 19th century wooden jack plane and a British jack plane?

Alfred

[Mark Almeidus]

I would suggest you to try to build your own planes (jack or smoother), you cant loose nothing and it will be joyfull time doing it and even more using it. I have made 5 planes so far plus a radius sole plane. Atm I am making another smoother plane. I dont have to much wood material to do something so I use firewood to make planes. If you are interested in making traditional planes you can find some usefull info. David Weaver makes traditional planes. On his youtube chanel you can find the most detailed instructions on how to make traditional planes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qjHMwL-dj4
I would suggest if you try to make plane, use a double iron for jack or smoother.

[Bill White]

I'm with Mark.
Look at and study what David Weaver has to offer. You won't be sorry. Very simple, easy to understand, and his minimal approach is to be appreciated.
Bill

[Jim Matthews]

Double iron in a traditional "excavated" English style body is a joy when properly made.

For mere mortals such as myself, the ECE is an amazing compromise.
Once the fiddly tensioning mechanism is set, it adjust with a turnscrew
while having the same heft, feel and performance of a woodbody.

I consider the ECE 711 to be the best all around plane I've ever owned.

I have a handmade smoother that outperforms it for finish, but the hand
position of the ECE means that I can work at things for much longer
without tiring.

I've been through lots of wood body plane versions and wish I had
tried this style first.

Beware - if the ECE plane you're looking at is incomplete, the parts are unique and expensive to replace.

[ian maybury]

Happened on this video of HNT Gordon demonstrating his smoother in Australia. I just love the crisp tone as it cuts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWUiu6tCFRE Impressive too how controllable the blade setting is - in his hands it's nearly more convenient than a modern metal plane.

I spent much of my early youth trying to figure out on my own how to make an old coffin smoother much like this one work well http://www.theenglishwoodworker.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=249 - and while i could get it to cut OK i didn't know enough/have a clear enough understanding of what needed to be achieved to get really good cutting. A worn out and hollowed old oilstone didn't help either - which is perhaps why ther's something spell binding about seeing such a simple too perform like that.