Shoulder plane? Plow (plough) or combination plane? Jointer plane?

[Michael Bulatowicz]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your response and advice as well. It seems that the overwhelming majority of respondents are suggesting that I go with the combo plane; it is indeed a tool that should serve me for a lifetime, not that this would fail to describe any of the tools I am considering. Based on the responses and perspectives so far, it appears that the shoulder plane is the least likely to be frequently used in the long run whether or not it saves time on this project.

[John Isgren]

I will be the contrarian and say go with the jointer plane first. If your stock is not square none of the other planes work well. You can find fully restored vintage from one of several vintage tool dealers that will completely stand behind their sales.

i also chose the plough plane over the combo since for what I needed it for, grooves and T&G it seems to require less critical set up than a combo plane.

[Warren Mickley]

Michael, I dropped the thoughts of owning a shoulder plane when I realized that this was not a historic plane from the hand tool era. I look to this era for efficiency and quality in my work. I use wooden rabbet planes which which can take either a light cut or a heavy cut when making a rabbet. Also a fillister (fenced rabbet plane).

Before I bought a combination planes I had several plough planes that I made after Roubo's design. They make a groove of one width, one distance from the edge and use the depth of the groove as a stop. Although they are not versatile, like the universal plough, they make a very high quality groove. This open mortise design is particularly fast to make. If you want to make one I would have some additional comments.


roubo plough 2.jpeg

We don't do much tongue plane work in furniture making. One use is for backing boards, which are generally rather thin. We don't use a tongue plane in frame and panel construction.

[Paul Bent]

Michael, I dropped the thoughts of owning a shoulder plane when I realized that this was not a historic plane from the hand tool era. I look to this era for efficiency and quality in my work. I use wooden rabbet planes which which can take either a light cut or a heavy cut when making a rabbet. Also a fillister (fenced rabbet plane).

Before I bought a combination planes I had several plough planes that I made after Roubo's design. They make a groove of one width, one distance from the edge and use the depth of the groove as a stop. Although they are not versatile, like the universal plough, they make a very high quality groove. This open mortise design is particularly fast to make. If you want to make one I would have some additional comments.


roubo plough 2.jpeg

We don't do much tongue plane work in furniture making. One use is for backing boards, which are generally rather thin. We don't use a tongue plane in frame and panel construction.

Warren, I would love it if you would share any additional thoughts on the making of the plane.

[Warren Mickley]

Paul, this plough has an open mortise. It is helpful if the the mortise is very slightly dovetailed (on the upper side away from the iron). This keeps the wedge from popping out. Maybe 5 or 8 degrees.

The wedge pictured is pretty fancy, but it doesn't need to be. A plain wedge will do the job. The part of the wedge near the cutting edge is a little hard to see in this illustration. The wedge continues almost to the mouth, but it is cut away on the outside to encourage the shaving to exit on the right side of the plane. The stock is also a little cut away for the same purpose.

The stock is made from a solid piece. The dotted line in the end view shows the depth of the mortise, but it should be slightly deeper than the width of the skate portion of the stock. The iron needs to be slightly wider than the skate portion so there is a little clearance on each side. I made my first plough 45 years ago; I was shocked at how well it worked.
roubo plough 2.jpeg

[Jim Koepke]

I haven't yet attempted to make a tongue, let alone fit a tongue and groove together; I'd imagine making a tongue wouldn't be terribly different from making a tenon, and fitting the two would be basically like a mortise and tenon. Based on what I've seen in videos, the process would certainly be faster with a more specialized tool. That said, . . .

The making of a tonuge and a tenon or very different even though a tounge could be seen as a long or running tenon and the groove as a running mortise.

Here is an image of some blades from a Stanley #45:

Sash Blades.jpg

The lower four blades are for cutting window sash. Above are beading blades and two match or tongue cutting blades for the tongue half of a tongue & groove joint. The groove is cut with a standard plow blade.

it appears that the shoulder plane is the least likely to be frequently used in the long run whether or not it saves time on this project.

My side rabbet planes get used more often than my shoulder plane. My shoulder plane was used today, but it was to cut the fuzz off an end grain edge of a cross grain rabbet. My side rabbet planes were also put to use on the same project.

jtk

[Michael Bulatowicz]

Hi Warren,

Thanks for the help and the diagrams with explanation on the wooden plough. As I mentioned in my original post, I am still a beginner, so the following may sound like a dumb question: for frame and panel construction, then, would one typically plough a groove the same width as the panel similar to how I matched my grooves and dados for shelving and dividers in my previous efforts?

[Michael Bulatowicz]

Hi John,

Believe it or not, I always appreciate the inputs of contrarians with well-reasoned points of dissent.

I certainly can’t argue against the stock needing to be flat and square: I have a lot of flattening and squaring to do. Could I expect a fully restored #8 to be nicely flat? I spent quite some time flattening the soles on my #4 and #5, and I have no reliably flat surface large enough to flatten anything larger.

With skill that I may not have in sufficient quantity, it was already pointed out that my #5 should be able to handle the flattening and squaring. It has also been pointed out that I should be able to build a relatively simple and quick non-adjustable wooden plough for this project. If it’s as simple to build as it looks, it’ll probably save more time than it takes.

Thanks for your advice.

[Michael Bulatowicz]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the additional information and advice. In your opinion, given the wooden plough information from Warren (which appears that it would suit my needs for this project even though it wouldn’t be anywhere near as versatile or durable as a combination plane) and your own use of various planes, would my money be better spent on a combination plane or a jointer?

[Warren Mickley]

Hi Warren,

Thanks for the help and the diagrams with explanation on the wooden plough. As I mentioned in my original post, I am still a beginner, so the following may sound like a dumb question: for frame and panel construction, then, would one typically plough a groove the same width as the panel similar to how I matched my grooves and dados for shelving and dividers in my previous efforts?

For traditional frame and panel work we use stock that is about 7/8 thick and a groove around 5/16. The groove is often not quite centered in the stock so a nice moulding can be made on the front of the frame pieces. Probably a lot of workers in the 17th century had only one plough plane that made a 1/4 or 5/16 groove.

For flat panels we could make the panel the same thickness as the groove, but more often we make the panel slightly thicker and then make a shallow chamfer on the back so that it is thin enough to go in the groove. Sometimes the backs of panels are quite rough compared to the front. Typical thickness is 1/2 or a bit less.

For raised panels the sloping edges at the front are designed to fit into the grooves, but sometimes these panels are slightly chamfered on the back also. Usually a bit thicker than flat panels.

[Jim Koepke]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the additional information and advice. In your opinion, given the wooden plough information from Warren (which appears that it would suit my needs for this project even though it wouldn’t be anywhere near as versatile or durable as a combination plane) and your own use of various planes, would my money be better spent on a combination plane or a jointer?

If you do not need the ability to make tongue & groove joints, making your own dedicated plow plane would be a good experience and likely save you some money.

Finding a used jointer could be a big money saver.

Though as you are a new member, you may not be fully aware of my perspective is from the position of loving to hunt through piles of rusty old things and buying any old Stanley plane that looks to be worthy of rehabilitation. Occasionally other makers planes will be bought if the price is right.

A jointer is a nice plane to have for working on larger pieces. My recent Got Some Planing to Do post shows a lot of different planes being used to mostly do the same thing to what may be considered some "larger pieces" to plane.

If you are working pieces that are in the neighborhood of four to five feet or less, a jointer isn't an extremely important plane to acquire. There are some who claim it can all be done with a #4. Of course they do not say anything about the time it might take.

jtk

[Kurtis Johnson]

My go to chisels are a Buck Brothers 1" with ~17º bevel

Nice. My 1-1/2" paring chisel is an old Buck Brothers as well. Love it, but like I said, the width feels wieldy at times. (I also have an otherwise beautiful, super thin Greenlee at that same width, but it has a slight bow to it and I'm not sure what I think of that. I've not yet rehandled it to try it out.)

I wish I had collected a 1-1/4" because they're awfully expensive now. It's the perfect width. Seems a lot of others feel the same.

Sidebar: I have an E.A. Berg at nearly 1-3/4" which is beautiful. It was a gift. I'm not sure what one does with chisel that size.

and a Stanley 400 (?) style 1-1/4" chisel with no recollection of its bevel angle. The Stanley is a short chisel. It is kept with my 'butt' chisels. A chisel as wide as the tenon is long has advantages up to a point.

Baffled as to what this series is. Are they celluloid/ plastic handled?

[Jim Koepke]

[edited]
Baffled as to what this series is. Are they celluloid/ plastic handled?

They have wooden handles. The sockets have a rolled knurling at the top.

Stanley 4XX Chisel.jpg

They are not often seen for sale on the auction sites.

jtk

[Jerry Lowetz]

I recently did a project with quite a few mortise/tenons and I'm a methodical tester.
I got 2 shoulder planes, a new Stanley 92 (1 of 2 new stanleys, this one was actually good) and... some other thing. Both were well build, good tolerances etc. I used them a little but found a chisel worked about as well.

The Fastest way was to line 'em up and run over the tablesaw, then clean up with chisels of course. But sawing them, trueing with just a chisel of a large router plane wasn't that much slower, and much more satisfying.
A router or drill, even a hand drill, to gouge out the bulk of the mortise was also worth it. (or a powered router) Whatever method to set depth/near depth and get bulk out was certainly worth the effort, though either a mortise chisel or a normal chisel would work all the way. Personal choice really, though the mortise chisel was definitely stouter for more removal/greater chance of really messing it up.

Overall the 92 and other plane were pretty unnecessary, you could do as well with a sharp chisel. If you Really want one, the "Taytools 469225" shoulder plane was cheap on the bay and worked fine, and under $40.

I sawed the shoulders a little shallow, maybe 1/16-1/32, then cleaned up with chisel or a few, the shoulder plane.

Tenon Tongues were also easy to do with a chisel, though a router plane kept "plane" better. A few I did with a small router plane, and realized how little I'd be doing with a small router plane (oops, I got 2!) Just got a veritas router plane in the mail yesterday actually!

Properly sharpened planes/chisels are more important than lots of configurations IMO.

Now the tongue-in-groove, a plough plane would certainly be helpful there. I'd worry more about this than the mortise-and-tenon personally. Rabbet plane ,plow plane, even a router plane with the right blade (plow/narrow) seem good for this.

[Kurtis Johnson]

They have wooden handles. The sockets have a rolled knurling at the top.

Stanley 4XX Chisel.jpg

They are not often seen for sale on the auction sites.

jtk

The rolled knurling at the top is very unusual. They must indeed be more on the rarer side. Do you know when they were made? (Don't go looking, just curious.) Interesting!