Rededicated No 4

[Tom Bender]

Today I reground the iron on a No 4 to make it a scrub. Never had one. This is really going to change how I flatten stock.

Used a white wheel to grind to a 7" radius. This might be too much, time will tell. And shaped the cap to match, well maybe to about a 10" radius. Didn't open the mouth, will see how that goes.

[steven c newman]

Too late now..but....there was no need to reshape the cap to match.....merely move the cap back a bit, is all.

[Jim Koepke]

Today I reground the iron on a No 4 to make it a scrub. Never had one. This is really going to change how I flatten stock.

Used a white wheel to grind to a 7" radius. This might be too much, time will tell. And shaped the cap to match, well maybe to about a 10" radius. Didn't open the mouth, will see how that goes.

If there is too tight of a radius on the blade it will be difficult to set the cap to not trap chips and also get a minimal cut. (A smaller size for the radius means more blade protrudes beyond where a cap can sit fully across the blade.)

Shaping the cap iron to match blade camber helps to rebalance the blade adjustment. If one doesn't have a spare cap iron it will be difficult to switch the plane back to a flat Jack.

My cap irons/chip breakers have not been reshaped. My camber is light enough to allow for minimal adjustment though it be all the way in on the adjuster.

Currently four of my planes are set up as scrub planes. Of course the #40 wouldn't be good for much else. Besides it there is a #5-1/4, #5 & #5-1/2 set up with cambered blades just for the heck of trying them all.

Used the #5-1/4 today to flatten a piece of alder firewood to make a sign.

jtk

[Michael Bulatowicz]

I expect you’ll like the results. I reground the iron on my no-name #4 to make it a scrub plane after a number of futile attempts at tuning it to work as well as my Stanley Bailey type 11 #5 (which I also rehabbed and tuned myself). The #4 works great now as a scrub, not that I have used other scrub planes to say how it compares to anything else.

[Stephen Rosenthal]

Years ago I bought my first of many LN planes, a #4 smoother. Didn’t need two #4s so I converted my Stanley into a scrub. Didn’t totally reshape the chip breaker but did knock off the corners a bit more than I normally do. Works really well. You’ll need to file open the mouth to get it to work like a true scrub plane.

[steven c newman]

Hmmm...Stanley #40 never had a chipbreaker, to begin with,

A Scrub plane's job does not include see-through shavings.....
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As they usually go across the grain. Kind of hard to make a "full width shaving", ain't it.

The plane pictured is a #5 sized Jack, with a factory sized wide mouth. Chipbreaker stops at the irons corners, iron has an 8" camber. Almost due for a sharpening..in a couple years.

[Joe Tilson]

A friend of mine gave me a #5 which was supposed to be a scrubb. The person he got it from tried to make it work. The mouth is way to big, but I worked on it, and put a 4" radius on it. Man the chips flew, nice big chips, then after three strokes I was done in. Me thinks about a 7 1/4" radius will do just fine. Good luck with your setup.