Shoulder plane or smoother ?

[James K Peterson]

After trimming/adjusting a bunch of mortise and tennons with chisels and a block plane. I'm leaning toward getting a new LV medium shoulder plane before I get the LV BU smoother. I've been getting by ;) with my LV BU jack (actually the jack is better at smoothing than my old No4).

I was thinking about just getting a 50deg BU blade for the jack and the LV medium shoulder for now (about the same price) instead of the BU smoother.

What do you all think?
Thanks
James

[Zahid Naqvi]

the shoulder plane is really valueable for "truing" M&T joints, I use mine quite a bit. While the LV BU jack is used as a smoother by many WWers. I don't own one, but I have used it and is better than most dedicated smooth planes out there. Probably surpassed only by some of the best smoothers. So yes add a blade for the BU Jack and buy a shoulder.

[Sean Kinn]

Well, since I have the BUS and the medium shoulder plane I can comment on this.

I would get the medium shoulder plane first, if a lot of your projects have tenons to fit/trim. I went through the exact same experience trimming tenons by hand with chisels and a block plane. I then splurged on the medium shoulder plane for a queen size bed project. All I can say is, I don't know why in the heck I didn't get the shoulder plane sooner. It makes it so easy to perfectly fine tune the cheeks and shoulders. I've also used it quite a bit to clean up edges I rabbeted out on the table saw for small box lids.

The BUS is a great smoother, but as you mentioned you've already found that your LV jack is a better smoother than your old #4. The BUS's design also restricts it to smoothing only, thus making it a very specialized tool. I love mine, but with money being a little tight now I find myself questioning its cost/benefit.

[Michael Faurot]

I was thinking about just getting a 50deg BU blade for the jack and the LV medium shoulder for now (about the same price) instead of the BU smoother.

What do you all think?


I hereby bestow my blessings upon your purchase. :)

Seriously though, if you need a shoulder plane now, more than a smoother--it makes sense to me.

As for the 50 degree blade, I purchased that for my BU jack awhile ago and it's been fabulous when working with difficult grain.

[David Keller NC]

Well - this is sort of like asking "jointer or planer" (oh wait - this is the neander haven, I meant to say "tenon backsaw or panel saw" :D). In my opinion, you need both, at least if you make furniture with traditional joints.

While it's true that a jack plane will do a fine job smoothing a panel after a jointer plane (or a jointer and planer), it's too darn long for smaller parts. One of the purposes of using a smoothing plane is that there's less work involved in smoothing a part that doesn't require absolute flatness. The jack will ride over low spots, and so to get a shaving off of every bit of the surface to achieve a good finish, you have to take more passes.

While that's no big deal if you're working on something small, for a significant piece of furniture that will significantly increase the work. If you're using a jointer/planer to rough out and square your parts, for example, you can often skip the jack or fore and jointer and go directly to the smoother.