The essential scrub plane?

[Cameron Wood]

In FWW June 2000, Anthony Guidice writes about squaring stock with hand tools.

He says:
"The scrub plane is the most crucial plane in the mix, yet it is the most overlooked and misunderstood. A scrub plane flattens a board; that is. it takes out the twist, warp, and bow. A jack plane can remove high spots left by the scrub plane, but you can't flatten a board with one. A jointer plane can square an edge and remove the last high spots from the face, but it can't flatten a board either. A board can be flattened only with a scrub plane."


Comments?

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

change the words can't with less efficient and he has a point. I only break out my scrub to roughly dimension or roughly flatten. I use my no.5 to flatten the board and usually only the no. 5.
of course its always possible that I have woodworking superpowers... (I really don't)

[Rob Luter]

I agree with Assaf. I use a #5 Jack Plane set to a coarse cut for truing up twist, cupping, warps, etc.. I have a couple cutting irons for it. One has a very aggressive camber and one a less pronounced camber. Which one I use depends on how much stock I need to hog off. I wouldn't complain if I had a dedicated scrub as they are much lighter, but I'm fine with what I have.

[Warren Mickley]

No, Guidice is not right. The term "scrub plane" entered our vocabulary around 1890, well after the hand tool era. Stanley developed the plane for carpenters.

The jack plane was the traditional roughing plane in the English and American shops. I think a wooden jack plane is more comfortable to use than a metal jack plane.

The French had a plane similar to the scrub plane, called the riflard. However, Andre Roubo does not mention this tool in his three volume treatise on woodworking.

[Tom M King]

I've used a Scrub plane enough to know what it can do. I used it a few times for squaring up a beam, but not more than a few times. I use Jack and Try's for flattening much more than the Scrub. The only reason I would have used the Scrub for flattening the beams I was talking about was that it was in my hands anyway. I used it more for scrubbing old wood before putting a good iron in it.

One big trouble with people writing, and talking on youtube, is that a lot of it comes out of their head in theory alone, with little depth of experience behind them.

The weathering on this one is from my sweat, and the wear at the mouth is from use. I bought it new.

[steven c newman]

Hmmm...wondering what this guy would say on this subject?
505357
I guess I could have asked him last Saturday.....but didn't know this question was being asked...
YMMV


The Woodwright's Shop....."Hand Plane Essentials" w/ Chris Schwarz and Roy Underhill.

BTW: My Scrub plane is a Great Neck C-5 Jack plane...with an 8" radius Camber...and a BIG mouth opening.

[David Carroll]

I have several old wooden jacks and a new (only 10 years old) C&W one. I agree with Warren, I find the wooden ones to be a lot easier, they're lighter and the wood body slides through the stock easier. "Slicker" is the work I would use to describe it.

That said, I did buy a second-hand LV scrub plane and have used it. It's nice. I use it mostly for carpentry work renovating my old home. leveling surfaces prior to plastering and knocking down high spots so molding or flooring will lay flat, etc. There may be nails present and I don't feel so bad nicking the LV iron.

DC

[Mark Rainey]

I agree with the critiques of Anthony Guidice's comment.. That said, I enjoyed his book "Tables" and made several tables from the book. He does refer to hand tool techniques frequently and although it is apparent he is not expert in the area, he does utilize them.

[Jim Koepke]

Sometimes you feel like a scrub… Sometimes you don't…

If you have lumber that is fairly flat and possibly surfaced, you likely won't need to employ a scrub plane.

If you have a piece cut on a chainsaw mill you may want a scrub to knock down the high spots.

505364

This plank needed to have a couple of sides worked so it would go straight through a bandsaw.

Then there are smaller pieces needing to be tamed.

505365

For many years it didn't seem like a scrub plane wasn't needed. Along came some rough cut lumber. A #5-1/4 plane that came pretty beat up from a bum deal on ebay was fitted with a cambered blade. Its use was like an epiphany. Now there are three planes in the shop set up as scrub planes and a fourth can be used as a scrub as fast as the blade can be changed.

505366

From the top a #5, #5-1/4 & a #40. The #40 was purchased from one of my favorite antique mall vendors since it was at one of those prices that can not be refused. All three planes were had for less than $70.

They do not get used on every job, but when a lot of material is to be removed in short order, they are the ones one wants on the bench.

jtk

[Mark Salomon]

In one of his many articles Chris Schwarz recommended a #6 with a pretty severe radius.

[Reed Gray]

I do have a scrub plane and don't use it much, but who knows, as I venture through learning to use hand planes..... If a board has minor bumps, humps and twists, I find it easier to set a 12 inch plane for a slightly deeper cut. I have seen a couple of people who take a 12 inch plane and put a much less arced profile on the blade and use that. I also have a toothed blade that I some times use, mostly because it doesn't tear out like a scrub plane does. The journey continues.... I did try to final dimension some boards for a project, and didn't do well, just short boards. Took them to the drum sander and then some very light passes with my planes to get rid of the sanding scratches. Next time will be better, which is the whole point.

robo hippy

[steven c newman]

Note to all the above: The way to properly use a Scrub Plane is ACROSS the grain...What Moxxon called "To traverse.."

[Cameron Wood]

I had what I guess is a scrub plane- very simple blade adjustment and a screw to hold the blade in position- like the bottom of three in Jim K's pic above.

I couldn't get the iron to stay in position, especially for a heavier cut. It's long gone now.

One plane has a modest curve to the iron, & a wide mouth. & is used a lot, but I mostly use power tools to surface rough stock.

[Jim Koepke]

Note to all the above: The way to properly use a Scrub Plane is ACROSS the grain...What Moxxon called "To traverse.."

Just as soon as someone says there is absolutely, positively, unconditionally only one 'proper' way to use a tool, some fool will come along and demonstrate that a scrub plane will also work going with the grain. Especially after traversing the face it can knock down a lot of the peaks to make a lot less work for the trying or panel planes.

jtk

[David Carroll]

Note to all the above: The way to properly use a Scrub Plane is ACROSS the grain...What Moxxon called "To traverse.."

I go mostly across the grain, but at an angle, maybe 15-degrees off perpendicular to the grain. I go this way all along the board in one pass. Then on my next pass I go 15-degrees off 90 the other way. This way I can keep track of the passes. I usually use dimensional lumber, S4S, so I am not really dealing with huge amounts of twist or wind, but I am often trying to thin the board down for drawer sides or whatever. I also tend to take a heavier cut when I am traversing in the direction of the grain as it reduces cross-grain tear out.

DC

[Tom M King]

They will work with the grain too, and you can take much longer cuts with the grain. It depends on what you need to do with it. It's fun to take long cuts with the grain, throwing shavings three feet in the air. We have some old Heart Pine beams in our house that I cleaned up with that scrub plane. They were filthy dirty, we were living in a tent, and Winter was coming. It worked well. I'll see if I can take a picture.

[David Carroll]

I think the only time I've used a scrub plane with the grain was relieving the back of crown molding to accommodate irregularities in the walls in old houses. It is fun.

DC

[Tom M King]

Here's what the beams in our house look like. I paid $15 a piece for them from a mid 19th Century train station being torn down. They were nasty, but we were in a hurry to get something to live in. My Wife was doing pottery then, and we decided to build a pottery shop first, back in the woods, and fix it up enough to stay there for a while. We've been in it for 43 years, raised two kids that are grown and gone in it, and it's been added onto three times since then.

This is Scrub plane only.

[Mark Rainey]

Nice pic Tom

[Axel de Pugey]

(...)
The French had a plane similar to the scrub plane, called the riflard. However, Andre Roubo does not mention this tool in his three volume treatise on woodworking.

Hi Warren,

I am afraid a Riflard has little to do with a Scrub Plane in my opinion. French woodworking culture and usage never had the equivalent of a Scrub Plane.
This is the reason Storck, Roubo and other famous French writers never mentionned anything like a scrub plane.

In France only two planes were used to prepare the stock, a Riflard which is a Fore plane and then a Varlope, which is a try plane (in my understanding of the English lingo).
A Riflard's average size is 57cm and a Varlope's is 68cm.
Under the Ancien Regime a woodworker was not even allowed to own any of these two tools, out of the 3 necessary "planes" he could only have his own finishing plane. Riflard and Varlope were owned by the master of the trade and workers (more likely apprentices) were borrowing them when needed, this was to ensure the workers could not go work on their own, i.e. outside the guilde.

Here is one of my Riflards
https://pic.higo.pm/bois/bouvets/wf_KA1_22_1825.jpg

On the other hand, our neighbours in Germany and the Low Lands had a tool much like the scrub plane, the very one we can see on Tom King's picture (I believe it could be an Ulmia, ECE or similar).

(if my post seems off topic again I will erase it, no problem...but even the chainsaw marks are gone with a Riflard on my side)

[Tom M King]

Yes. It's an ECE. I just used if for what I needed it for. I never even thought about what it was "supposed" to do. The iron will keep throwing wood in the air way after it starts to get dull.

[Axel de Pugey]

That is exactly what this plane was supposed to do when it was made, no doubt about that.

[Rob Luter]

Just as soon as someone says there is absolutely, positively, unconditionally only one 'proper' way to use a tool, some fool will come along and demonstrate that a scrub plane will also work going with the grain. Especially after traversing the face it can knock down a lot of the peaks to make a lot less work for the trying or panel planes.

jtk

Yup. Paul Sellers has a few YouTube vids showing just that. He also has one that shows using a scrub plane (with the grain) to rapidly hog off edge grain to make a board narrower.

[Warren Mickley]

Hi Warren,

I am afraid a Riflard has little to do with a Scrub Plane in my opinion. French woodworking culture and usage never had the equivalent of a Scrub Plane.
This is the reason Storck, Roubo and other famous French writers never mentionned anything like a scrub plane.

In France only two planes were used to prepare the stock, a Riflard which is a Fore plane and then a Varlope, which is a try plane (in my understanding of the English lingo).
A Riflard's average size is 57cm and a Varlope's is 68cm.


In L'Art du Layetier (1782) there is a drawing of a short plane with a horn that Roubo calls a riflard. He says that it is about 1 pied, about 30 cm long. Felibien shows a riflard ​that is more like what you describe.

[Tom M King]

Sorry for off topic, but thought some might like to see our recycled interior doors too. Lot of unfinished wood in our house, but this is after 43 years. We intended to build a nice house when we grew up, but it beats a mortgage anyway. The Scrub plane was an essential tool. These came out of a 1913 house that I bought for $45 (for the whole falling down house-I just wanted the doors).

[steven c newman]

Actually it was a Stanley No. 5......the one he had the sides engraved ...that he also kept referring to as a Fore Plane....aka the Foremost plane

Most Stanley No.5s were 14" long....whereas a No. 6 is 18" long.

There WAS a fellow that took the Windsor Model No.33 and re-ground it's iron to a 3"Radius....and I even had one for a while.....Hungry little beasty...a #3 sized Scrub Plane....fine IF you happen to be doing ROUGH Sawn 1 x 6s....

However, I chose to use that Great Neck Corsair C-5 as my scrub plane...with the 8" radius. When I was doing a lot of large panels...I could also go across the grain...leveling any and all high spots....Then take a non-cambered plane and go with the grain...

Schwarz also recommended backing off the Cambered iron and then going at a 45 degree angle to level out the tops of the scallops left by the "Traverse Cutting"....Then Finally a Try plane to clean things up for the smooth plane.

I seem to recall that Horned Scrub was more of a German style....so it was not mention back in the day by a Frenchman. The English didn't use them, either, BTW...They simply were using Fore planes.

99% of the lumber I have been using (Ash) has either been skip planed, or we run them through a 12" thickness planer...

I have been known to use a WR #62 to "scrub" across un-even panels....not much use, otherwise...

[Axel de Pugey]

In L'Art du Layetier (1782) there is a drawing of a short plane with a horn that Roubo calls a riflard. He says that it is about 1 pied, about 30 cm long. Felibien shows a riflard ​that is more like what you describe.

Thank you Warren, that is super interesting and I admit I missed this drawing!

I originally wrote you an answer, but woke up in the night banging my forehead and came back here...

Tools from the Roubo period are quite scarce now and difficult to date, I believe I could have 3 or 4 (out of maybe 300 woodies) but it is difficult to be sure of the date as there was no official factories at that time. I am by far not a specialist of the Ancien Regime tools and none of mine has the shape of a german or low land scrub.

Now, the key to this strange animal of a plane you have mentioned is in the very title of the book. Roubo wrote this book specifically about the work of a Layetier. A the time, « woodworking jobs » are numerous and very well separated and defined, organised in powerful guildes. I don’t recall when this very specific job of Layetier started to disappear and I cannot check my books right now as I am abroad.

A Layetier’s job was solely to build boxes and crates for when one was buying something, sending a parcel etc. Before to be famous for his travel boxes, Layetier was the first job of a guy called Vuitton. So the Layetier was only building smallish objects, therefore not needing a normal size Riflard. It would be interesting to come accross this woody though...but very unlikely.

I am positive we never had a scrub plane in France.

Thank you for bringing this book back to my attention, I will re check it!

[Tom M King]

I said that the Scrub throws wood in the air without thinking about it. After thinking about it, I think that's pretty correct. It doesn't throw shavings. It throws wood.

[Warren Mickley]

I believe we are in agreement, Axel. Workers in France, Britain, and America prepared timber without scrub planes before the Industrial Age.

The notion that "A board can be flattened only with a scrub plane" is preposterous.

[steven c newman]

And that is completely... BS....:rolleyes:

Have scrub many a rough sawn board, and a few wayward glue joints over the years....The intent was never to actually "flatten a board>>" merely to remove the high spots, cups and bows...twisted boards, were the realm of longer, wider planes, like a fore plane. Really do not give a Tinker's D about 18th century stuff....more concerned about getting the next board(s) that come into MY shop as flat and ready to mill as I can.

Oh, and a Jointer Plane ( Gluing Plane as it was called) has no business being on the face of a panel...period..

Sorry people...I deal with Iron Bodied Planes....wooden bodies stay on the shelf..

BTW: what is the difference between a Stanley No. 40 and a Stanley No. 78? The 70 can also be set up as a bull nose.....otherwise, the bodies are about the same size...too narrow and too short to be much more than a Scrub plane...

The "Horned Plane" was from Germany...and came to America with the German Carpenters....who also carried Bow Saws on their shoulders. Irish folk like me? Were too busy digging ditches and Canals....to be a Joiner...

Some of us "woodworkers" are NOT stuck in the 1700s....something to consider, eh? ( those who don't LEARN from the past, are bound to repeat it, as the saying goes...at least in the era I work in,,,we have electric Lights....Warren still has to use Candle Light?

[Axel de Pugey]

We agree indeed Warren!

Now as Steven is opposing wood and metal, I will insert another coin in the machine.

I recall reading few years ago that Stanley, looking at the immigrant workers and their scrub woodies, released the 40 to be mainly used on the edge of the boards. This was to take a lot of material quickly prior to use a jointer and probably instead of a saw when there was not too much meat to take off. Again it was supposed to be only the edge of a board.

I do not know if there is anything of that time documenting it.

Apparently Anthony Guidice had a really different point of view!

[Mark Rainey]

And that is completely... BS....:rolleyes:

Have scrub many a rough sawn board, and a few wayward glue joints over the years....The intent was never to actually "flatten a board>>" merely to remove the high spots, cups and bows...twisted boards, were the realm of longer, wider planes, like a fore plane. Really do not give a Tinker's D about 18th century stuff....more concerned about getting the next board(s) that come into MY shop as flat and ready to mill as I can.

Oh, and a Jointer Plane ( Gluing Plane as it was called) has no business being on the face of a panel...period..

Sorry people...I deal with Iron Bodied Planes....wooden bodies stay on the shelf..

BTW: what is the difference between a Stanley No. 40 and a Stanley No. 78? The 70 can also be set up as a bull nose.....otherwise, the bodies are about the same size...too narrow and too short to be much more than a Scrub plane...

The "Horned Plane" was from Germany...and came to America with the German Carpenters....who also carried Bow Saws on their shoulders. Irish folk like me? Were too busy digging ditches and Canals....to be a Joiner...

Some of us "woodworkers" are NOT stuck in the 1700s....something to consider, eh? ( those who don't LEARN from the past, are bound to repeat it, as the saying goes...at least in the era I work in,,,we have electric Lights....Warren still has to use Candle Light?

Steven, you can get a bit tetchy. The reason we discuss historical practices in the Neanderthal forum is the learn the best methods for hand work today. Those methods are being lost. The hand tool methods of the past came from generations of woodworkers perfecting their craft in a preindustrial world. Their techniques were efficient and practical. Warren and Axel help us make sense of the historical practices so we can continue the tradition.

[Mark Rainey]

Apparently Anthony Guidice had a really different point of view!

Yes, Axel apparently he did. But I don't think Anthony would stick to that point of view. He was a practical woodworker who wrote some good books for an audience that mostly used power tools. He encouraged hand tool use but did not pretend to be an authority. I have not seen anything from him in years...he may not even be in woodworking.

[Axel de Pugey]

Ho right, Many thanks Mark I appreciate you gave me a bit of context there.
I never came accross this name before and looked a bit when I discovered Cameron's topic, without much success.

Your description of Anthony Guidice shows laudable efforts from his part and I will then check if I can access his work.

The scrub plane is a tool that always brings a lot of dicussions and passions, strangely enough...even on French fora even if this tool is new to us...people see them in hands of US youtubers and think they absolutely need them.

I guess customs and work habits were really different from regions to regions and woodworkers from Boston were maybe not using the very same tools than those from Virginia. At least in France, habits, tools and their names were different, making things a bit hard for us today to figure sometimes.