Which plane?

[Larry VanWinkle]

I am trying to decide which type of plane I need and then which manufacturer. I would mostly use the plane for flattening work, be it panels and boards (removing machine marks and surface preperation). Also I would like to use it to square up and clean up tenons. I do not know if one plane can do all of this and if so which one(s)? Being a newbie I see there is a lot to choose from - bench, smoothing, jack, block, etc. I have been looking at Lie-Neilson and Veritas but I just cannot decide. I am willing to spend some money for quality and reliability but I also want to spend it wisely. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

[David Weaver]

To get a plane that will be good at flattening and smoothing, I would get a #5 1/2 or a #6 sized plane. It doesn't really matter where it comes from. LN and LV would both be fine, and a well tuned stanley bailey would be OK, too - but it would have to be very well tuned. I would personally get a LN or LV as a first plane, because it sort of teaches you what level a bailey plane should be capable of if you fettle it enough. Without that, I don't think you can sort of "calibrate" your expectations high enough.

Cleaning Tenons is probably an easier job for a rabbeting block plane - Lie Nielsen makes a fantastic one.

I think if you try to find one plane that does both of those well, you'll not be happy with it. I would make that a separate purpose.

here's another tip once you get done with all of those - to do more serious flattening than a plane set up to be a smoother will be able to do (i.e., you'll need more camber), it would be useful to get a #5 jack plane and set it up as a jack. It doesn't need to have a super duper new high tech blade and chipbreaker - so you should be able to find one cleaned up and ready to go for $50. You'll want that to be a separate plane from the plane you first get to just remove saw marks and do smoothing because a plane set up with "jack" camber will not yield suitable smoothing results, and a plane set up to get suitable smoother results won't remove stock fast enough if you need to do serious flattening.

So I guess I'm recommending three planes.

The only reason I wouldn't recommend a #4 or #4 1/2 to take the place of the #5 1/2 or 6 is in case you want to do some light edge jointing - a #4 and #4 1/2 aren't going to be quite long enough to take that seriously.

I use a LN #6 as a smoother a lot - there's nothing wrong with using a larger well set-up plane to smooth.

[mike holden]

Your problem is that you want to do surfaces and get into corners. Most surfacing planes (also called bench planes) have a blade narrower than the sole (base), shoulder planes, and rabbet planes, have blades wider (by a very slight amount) than their soles. Perhaps a rabbeting bench plane would serve your purposes.

However, multipurpose tools wind up being "masters of none", and ultimately disappointing.

My recommendation is two planes - a block, and a record 5 or 5TS with the extra handle for shooting. But you will have to get the record second hand, they are no longer made. The TS stands for trade school and was designed as an all-around bench plane, it is also the subject of the book planecraft.

From there its a slippery slope to 7's, 4's, shoulder, router, etc.

Oh and dont forget a scraper - very important.

Welcome aboard and fasten your seat belt, its gonna be a bumpy ride!
Mike

[Bill Houghton]

Larry,

Variations of your question seem to show up every couple of weeks. The real question should be, "Where can I learn about what planes can do in the shop?" One answer is, "In books."

My two favorites are Woodcraft's "Planecraft" ($12), and Garrett Hack's "The Hand Plane Book" (a lot more, but your local library might have it). There are others, too. While you're in the library, check out the catalog for hand tool-related books in general, and check out everything you can find. Read them all. They'll contradict each other, either a lot or somewhat; that's fine, because the reality with tools in general and certainly with hand tools is that there are multiple ways to get the work done. From the advice whirling around in your head, try to make a judgment about what plane to buy first. Experiment with it - even to the point of buying some cheap wood from your local big box store and just fooling around with it (pine and poplar are probably the best "fooling around" woods for a beginner), or maybe making some little thing like a bookshelf or something for the garage, but more fancy than just butt joints and screws.

If others respond to this thread, you'll hear a different answer from each response, just like reading multiple books. Books will give you more detail.

[Doug Shepard]

The David Charlesworth (sp?) DVDs are another good source for plane technique questions.