New to Hand tool woodworking

[Kent A Bathurst]

My favorite plane is my L-N #62 low-angle jack. I have two irons - one at 30* + 12 = 42* for shooting endgrain; one at 40* = 12 = 52* for shooting edges and general planing.

I admit that I also later got a L-V shooting plane with 2 irons; O1 at 27 plus a PMV-11 at 38. The mass and skewed blade of the L-V are remarkable.

If I had only had the LN 62, I'd be fine with that. Just got greedy.

Also - I'd suggest a block plane. Too many good choices for me to advise, but I have LN rabbet block and 140 skew, ratty vintage Stanley 60-1/2 with Hock iron - iron worth more than the plane, and a Keen Kutter K220 just because [Tom Busey refurb]. Can't come up with a plausible excuse that even I will accept for an LN 102, but I'm not done trying. No need for all of these. But, yeah.

[Reed Gray]

To me, part of the journey to becoming a woodworker, is learning how to set up the tools and use them. I think everyone should buy an old junker hand plane and restore it so that it actually works. It gives you a better understanding of how the tool works. You will have to tweak just about any tool you get, just to make sure it works the way you want it to...

robo hippy

[Jim Koepke]

To me, part of the journey to becoming a woodworker, is learning how to set up the tools and use them.

Reed, your post reminds me of a fellow woodworker I met many years ago at a Portland Tool Event. He had ordered a Lie-Nielsen plane that he couldn't get to work as he expected. He was going to bring it back to the Event the next day to have them help him set it up. He was afraid he would mess up the plane if he made any adjustments.

Anyone who has taken one apart, cleaned it and put it back together wouldn't have any fears about changing an adjustment.

jtk

[Robert Hazelwood]

Any Cons to the Jack rabbit plane used as a general use plane/ shooting board plane that i'm not thinking of?

I have this plane and while its a very nice piece, it is probably both my most expensive and least used plane. The few times I used it, it was as a giant shoulder plane basically, to true up a tenon or breadboard end. It's really good at doing large cross grain rabbits, cleaning up big tenons, etc. Too big for smaller joints though (it will work but you'd wish you had a smaller tool), which are far more common.

Rabbit planes aren't much good for surfacing/truing boards because there is no sole to the side of the blade to maintain flatness of your workpiece perpendicular to the stroke, and the corners tend to dig in. You could camber the blade I suppose, but then its no good for rabbits. You could buy multiple blades I guess but its a finicky tool to adjust with all of the set screws and such. Also the low angle bevel up blade is prone to tearout unless the grain is cooperative. You can sharpen the tip at a higher angle to mitigate that, but then its not much fun to plane cross grain or shoot end grain. So you need an extra blade and fiddle with changing it out from task to task. With a regular bevel-down bench plane you can set the chipbreaker close and plane just about anything without tearout.

I think it was Derek Cohen who did the review years ago showing it used as a shooting plane. You basically screw a flat board into the side using the threaded holes for the fence and use that as a temporary sole to run the plane on. It works ok but after setting it up initially I never used it for shooting because I learned I could shoot end grain just fine with a sharp #4 and not have to bother with converting the JR from whatever setup it was currently in. I'm pretty sure Derek uses a shooting plane, not the JR, in the projects he posts. I don't think I have seen the JR used in his posts outside of that review.

I'd only recommend the JR if you need to do a lot of large scale rabbets/tenons.

I would suggest using one of the bench planes you have for shooting. If you really want to go nuts with shooting end grain then get an actual shooting plane with a skewed blade - its not that much more expensive than the JR. If you want to do rabbits on your dovetailed boxes, I'd suggest one of LVs smaller dedicated rabbet planes.

my main worry about not getting a 5 1/2 if i'm not able to find one would be can I make do with small boxes/ small furniture/ squaring up small-medium lumber easy enough with a No 4? At what size of board does it become beneficial to have a 5+ for squaring lumber?

I have a #4 and a 5 1/2 and use both regularly. The sizes aren't that different really in terms of what you can flatten. For small/medium boxes a #4 can handle it fine. It's more important to have a plane set for heavier shavings and more camber, and one that will do finer, with less camber. Could be two #4s, a #4 and a #5, whatever. If you are working with rougher lumber you might want one that can do really heavy shavings.

One thing you might like about a 5 or larger compared to the 4 is the longer toe which makes it a little easier to get a clean start on the end of a board. When you're beginning that can be tough on a #4 or smaller, but with some practice you will get over that. I wouldn't get hung up on a 5 1/2....you are much more likely to see #5s for sale in good condition.

[Mike Allen1010]

My favorite plane is my L-N #62 low-angle jack. I have two irons - one at 30* + 12 = 42* for shooting endgrain; one at 40* = 12 = 52* for shooting edges and general planing.

I admit that I also later got a L-V shooting plane with 2 irons; O1 at 27 plus a PMV-11 at 38. The mass and skewed blade of the L-V are remarkable.

If I had only had the LN 62, I'd be fine with that. Just got greedy.

Also - I'd suggest a block plane. Too many good choices for me to advise, but I have LN rabbet block and 140 skew, ratty vintage Stanley 60-1/2 with Hock iron - iron worth more than the plane, and a Keen Kutter K220 just because [Tom Busey refurb]. Can't come up with a plausible excuse that even I will accept for an LN 102, but I'm not done trying. No need for all of these. But, yeah.

Kent, great to hear from you-seems like it’s been a while. I always enjoy your practical thoughts about real world woodworking. Thanks for posting.

Best, Mike

[John C Cox]

I will pile on with the advice that hunting and restoring old rust is a hobby of its own. There's nothing wrong with it, per-se, but it does consume time and effort.

Rather than going cold turkey on power tools, I would suggest a hybrid approach like James Krenov adopted. Incorporate hand tools where they make the most sense in your work flow, then work into more use. As an example, I resaw using a bandsaw unless the work is fairly small. I do all my jointing by hand. I do most mortise stock removal with power drills or a router and finish the holes with chisels. Most tenons are done with hand saws and chisels, and so forth.

As for the shooting board and special shooting plane... I typically don't use a dedicated product. Shooting is done with a finely set #4 or #5 plane on my workbench. Often, defects in the joint can be remedied by the clamping/work holding configuration during the shooting process. The plane will tend to cut most heavily where the clamps hold the wood and shallower farthest from the clamps.

[steven c newman]

Can always follow along on one of my build-along threads....The Dungeon Woodshop is a Hybrid Shop.....some days it is mostly hand tools....other days it is all power tools..whatever fits the tasks I am trying to get done...

Been so LONG since I even used a Chuting Board....have no idea where I stashed it.

Go and check out the one called Lumber Run.....

[Melvin Feng]

one simple tool that I didn't see mentioned is a card scraper. They are relatively cheap, and you can buy a set with curves too. I use a carbide burnisher, but I saw a fancy small one recently that had indentations to make rolling the hook a bit easier. I will say that it took me quite a while to learn how to do it with a standard burnisher.

I am one that had quite a bit of fun restoring old hand planes. I initially did it to save money, but eventually really enjoyed the process, and then I spent more money to replace the blades with hock blades and caps than I spent on the planes themselves, and now I have a pretty good selection and they are a pleasure to use.

for dovetails, I like having a separate dovetail chisel with the acute side edge bevels, it makes it a bit easier to get in to clean up the dovetails for me. I just have one, I think in 3/4". I also have a crank necked chisel for helping to clean up glue squeeze out from joints. For sharpening, I went with the 400/1000 diamond stone and then strop. I did later add more, but that is what I started with.

I assume you have a bevy of clamps too.

have fun!

[Jim Koepke]

I assume you have a bevy of clamps too.

One of my neighbors does a bit of buying and selling for fun. He bought a truckload of old clamps. Maybe from a school or something as they were all covered with glue drippings. I bought a bunch from him. With those and the ones already on hand, it is getting close to the point of possibly having too many clamps.

f All Clamped Up.jpg

There's a few more to spare.

jtk

[John C Cox]

The card scraper is a tool I can't live without. I will second (or third) the motion of getting at least 1 good chisel with extremely fine side bevels for sneaking into corners. For a long time, there was nothing on the market for this, but now several makers offer quality chisels with fine side bevels for when you need that.