Few planes cause as much confusion for today's woodworkers as the try plane. Depending upon who you talk to, what part of the world they are from or what text you are reading, this plane may be called the try plane, truing plane, long plane or jointer plane. In addition, some folks will recommend these planes be honed with a slight camber while others will insist on a straight edge. So why all the confusion? In my opinion, the confusion began from the naming conventions used by the manufacturers of the metal bench planes when they first appeared on the market.
I'm going to pick on Stanley for a minute only because they are the most common. Stanley identified their line of bench planes by number, #1 through #8. They also named these planes so that users at the time would be familiar with their intended use. The problem is, that Stanley based their naming of the planes only on a particular plane's length. Over time, the true meaning of what made a fore plane a fore plane and what made a try plane a try plane got lost. This is a common example of what can happen when people in a marketing position with little real knowledge of a subject are allowed to make decisions related to that subject.
I discussed Stanley's #5 and #6, and their shortcomings, in my blog on the fore plane. This time I'm going to pick on the #7 and #8. Stanley called their #7 (22") a try plane and their #8 (24") a jointer plane. They based these names on the relative length of the plane. In all fairness, the #7 does make a very good try plane and the #8 does make a good jointer, when they are set up correctly. This is where the confusion begins.
Peter Nicholson, in his 1845 text The Mechanic's Companion states that the purpose of the try plane is to "reduce the ridges made by the jack plane, and to straighten the stuff: for this purpose it is both longer and broader, the edge of the iron is less convex, and set with less projection...." On the other hand, the jointer "is principally for planing straight edges, and the edges of boards, so as to make them join together; this operation is called shooting, and the edge itself is said to be shot."
This makes things a little more clear in the distinction between the try plane and jointer. Nicholson does give lengths for these planes as well, but as with most measurements of the period, these are generalizations and not rule. A try plane and jointer plane could potentially be the same length. The true difference in these planes is in their purpose and therefore their setup.
As the try plane is for trying (or truing) surfaces after the jack (or fore) plane, it's iron is cambered, though less than the fore plane, so that it does not leave plane tracks on the surface, which is wider than the plane. The jointer on the other hand, while resembling the try plane in appearance and length, is actually a joinery plane, not a surfacing plane. It's purpose it to straighten board edges and especially to "make them join together" in an edge joint, hence the phrase "jointing the edge." With this in mind it makes more sense for a jointer to have a straight iron like other joinery or fitting planes (e.g. rabbet planes), not a cambered iron like the surfacing planes (fore/jack, try and smooth), because the iron of the jointer is wider than the surface being planed.
Now don't confuse jointing the edge with trying the edge. If an edge needs to be squared to a true 90 degrees (for example, the front of a case which will have a face frame applied), a trying plane actually makes this process easier. The plane can be shifted side to side to take a tapered shaving, with the thicker part of the shaving being taken from the higher edge. However, when making a joint between two boards, one wants a flat edge for gluing. This is the purpose of the jointer plane.
Jointed edges need not be a perfect 90 degrees if the two boards are match planed. When match planing, the money (show) faces of the two boards to be joined are placed together and the mating edges are planed at the same time. When planed together, the boards can be opened like a book and the angles of the edges will be complimentary to each other, resulting in a flat panel, no perfect 90 degree edges necessary. If you don't believe me, draw it out for yourself and see how it works (I may make match planing a future blog). A cambered iron cannot make this joint as well as a straight iron.
Hopefully, this clears up some of the confusion surrounding the try plane. You can see now that a #7 and #8 both can actually make very nice try planes or jointers. It all comes down to how you set up the iron.
This weekend, I faced, jointed and dovetailed the board for the top of the built-in cabinet that I'm currently working on. I took some pictures of the process I use for facing the board just to show a brief overview of the process.
This is a picture of the top board for the cabinet in rough sawn condition. I have rough cut it to length here to facilitate easier facing and jointing. The board is 4/4 poplar, 12+" in width and about 33" long. The plane I start with is the fore plane. The one pictured is about 17" long and the iron has a gentle camber. The cambering of the iron helps to ease planing and also keeps the corners of the iron from leaving tracks in the surface of the board (which it did anyway as the iron was just freshly ground and honed for this board and I obviously did not camber the edge enough). This plane is set to take a relatively thick shaving. However, it should not be so thick that you have trouble pushing the plane.
I begin the facing process by planing directly across the face of the board. The holdfasts behind the board are secured to the bench top, not the board. The board is not fastened to the bench in any way. There is a planing stop on the left end that the board is butted up to and it is also butted against the holdfasts. I plane toward these stops, which keep the board from moving as I work. This setup allows me to change the position of the board very quickly without needing to unclamp the board or readjust a vice.
Planing across the board first serves to remove any cup from the face. I like to work the concave face of the board first. I find it easier to remove cup than crown. By planing across the grain, the plane only cuts the high edges, gradually bringing them down to the height of the center of the cup. I adjust the position of the board a couple of times to reach the areas that are blocked by the holdfasts. Once I am taking full length shavings across the board, I know the cup is removed. The length of the fore plane ensures this.
After I'm done planing across the grain withthe fore plane, I switch to the try plane and plane diagonally and along the grain to finish the job. Here I'm using a 22" long try plane. Again, the length of the plane aids in flattening the face. The plane will only cut the high spots until the board is flat. The iron of this plane is also slightly cambered, though less so than the fore plane as the try plane is set to take a finer shaving. I continue to plane end to end until I am taking a full length shaving from one end to the other across the entire width of the board. At this point the face of the board is flat.
I don't continue any further unless I'm working on a final show surface for something like a table top, which will receive a lot more scrutiny. In these cases, I'll make a few passes with a finely set smooth plane. In most cases, however, the surface left by the try plane is acceptable as is and requires no further work before applying a finish.
The final check with the winding sticks shows that the face is flat and has no twist. Following this process typically removes any minor twist in the face without constant checking, however, it is always good to make sure any twist is removed before you scribe your final thickness to the other face. If a board is badly twisted, I typically won't try to plane it out, rather I will save the board to be ripped down for smaller parts.
Once the board's face is flat and not twisted, it can have the final thickness scribed onto the ends and edges from this face. The process is then repeated on the other face with the additional step of doing the final try planing to the scribed line to ensure a board with consistent thickness.
The whole process of flattening this face (not the second face) took me a total of 8 minutes, including the time spent stopping to take these pictures. I didn't time myself to brag as I am not that full of myself and I don't think that this is really a major feat. Rather I firmly believe it is a result of the process and using the proper tools for the job. Our ancestors would consider this just another part of the process, as do I. The real reason I timed myself is just to demonstrate that working effeciently with hand tools is not as hard as it is often thought to be. Would I want to do production surfacing this way? No, but that's not the way I work. I'm not in a production environment.
Mostly, I tried to demonstrate the process for someone new to the craft who doesn't think they can do it without power. I hope this encourages these folks (and maybe even a few of the seasoned power users) to give it a try. With the right tools properly set up, there's no reason anyone can't do this.
Ask two woodworkers how to face (flatten a face of a board) a rough sawn board using only hand tools and you're likely to get three different answers. There are almost as many opinions on how to perform this seemingly simple task as there are different types of hand planes. Inevitably, at least one of those answers will recommend the use of a scrub plane as the first plane of choice. There has even been a video made recommending just this procedure. The common (mis)conception, usually originating from someone who doesn't actually perform this task with hand planes, is that one needs to progress from scrub plane to jack plane to jointer plane to smooth plane.
When I first started working wood with hand tools, I bought into this theory as it was the common advice generally spouted fourth on the hand tool message boards (my only source of information at the time). So I went out and found myself a nice old Stanley #40 scrub plane, sharpened it up and had at a piece of rough sawn stuff. When I finished "scrubbing" the face of the board, I was horrified at what I saw. The board had deep, narrow troughs and gouges all across it. It certainly was no closer to being flat than when I started.
I had hope, however, that the advice I had received on the internet was good advice and so I forged on, switching to my handy Stanley #5 jack plane. I used the jack plane across and diagonal to the grain and the board began to look better. Soon, I had removed all the deep troughs left by the scrub plane and replaced them with shallow waves from the slightly cambered iron of the jack plane. Feeling more confident, I moved on to the jointer plane, planing diagonal to the grain and then with the grain, finally bringing the board face flat.
I was so proud of myself that I flipped the board over and went at the other side with the scrub plane, and repeated the whole process until that face was flat. When I was finished, I was sweaty, but proud that I had dressed a rough sawn board. The problem was that I had taken a 4/4 board (about 1+" thick) and turned it into a board that was just over 1/2" thick!
This got me thinking about the whole process I'd read about online. Did I do something wrong? No, I set up my planes like I had read and followed the process I had read. So was something wrong with the process? Maybe I'd better do some more research.
Fast forward to today, and I now know better than to touch the scrub plane. In fact, I sold it soon after that experience when I read some better information. The problem was in fact the use of the scrub plane. Most of my facing time and effort was spent removing the damage I had done to the board caused by the use of the scrub plane. Because it left such deep hollows, I had to spend a lot of time and remove a lot of material with the jack plane. This of course results in a much thinner board and a lot of unnecessary work.
There are a lot of theories about the intended use of the scrub plane. The modern scrub plane appears to be modeled after an older continental European plane commonly used to quickly remove a lot of stock from a board. Chris Schwarz wrote an article on his theory of the scrub plane's origination. It is a well thought out article with a lot of historical evidence to back it up. After reading it, and from my experience facing a lot of lumber with and without the scrub plane, I do agree with him that this plane was NOT designed for facing rough lumber. You can read Chris' article here.
When you look at historical texts on the craft, such as Joseph Moxon's 17th century text Mechanik Exercises, or Peter Nicholson's 1845 version The Mechanic's Companion, you see no mention of the scrub plane. In the traditional English system, there was no scrub plane. Reading these texts further reinforced what I had learned the hard way. The first plane used in the process of facing the stock is the fore plane (also called the jack plane in Nicholson's text). According to Moxon, the fore plane is so named because it is used be'fore' the other facing planes, which are the try (or jointer, more on this in another post) and smooth plane.
Now there are those who will criticize my use of the scrub saying that it is not meant to plane the entire face, only to remove the high spots, which would be identified with a straight edge. This is a weak arguement in my opinion. I've tried it that way as well and it takes a rediculous amount of time to constantly check for high spots and only plane those areas. The use of the fore plane, which is twice the length of the scrub plane, takes care of this problem. The fore plane's length is a major asset and it's secret to quickly bringing the face of a board to relative flatness.
Because the fore plane is 16" - 18" long, it rides over the low spots and only takes a shaving from the high spots, no checking necessary except to make sure the face has no wind (twist) with a pair of winding sticks. You do not, however, need to constantly check for high spots. When you take a full length shaving from end to end and edge to edge, your board face is flat. With a slightly cambered iron, the plane leaves shallow waves, easily removed with a few passes of the try plane. If the surface is acceptable after the try plane, you are done. If you need an ultra smooth surface, such as for a table top, you can follow the try plane with a few passes from the smoothing plane.
Stanley made two sizes of what may be considered a fore plane, the #5 and the #6 (or the #605 and #606 if you prefer the bedrock series). They also made several transitional planes in these sizes. The problem as I see it with these two planes has to do with their relative sizes & weights. The #5 size, which Stanley called a jack plane, is 14" long. In my opinion, this is a little short for a fore plane, but will do in a pinch. The weight of the #5 is good for a fore plane however, as it is not too heavy when using it for extended periods of time taking thick shavings (jack/fore planes should not be set up to take super fine shavings, as some would have you believe). I have used a #5 as my fore plane for years, however, I now prefer a wooden fore plane, for reasons I'll discuss in a second.
By contrast, the #6 size, which Stanley called a fore plane, is the perfect length for a fore plane at 18". The problem with the #6 is it's weight. At about 8 pounds, this plane is down right exhausting to use as a fore plane for any more than a dozen or so strokes. And anyone who says that the plane's weight is an asset has not used it for taking the thick shavings typical of a properly set fore plane for any length of time. I had a #6 and tried it out as a fore plane. I quickly reconfigured it to be a short try/jointer plane as it was simply too heavy to use as a fore plane.
Which brings me to what I now use, a traditional wooden fore plane. Mine is 17" long but weighs less than my #5. It has a thick tapered iron and is just a joy to use. I actually enjoy facing lumber with this plane, a task that previously was just a chore. If you like the idea of a longer lighter weight plane like this, but you are terrified by the thought of learning to set and adjust the iron on a traditional wedged plane like this (it's really not that hard), try a transitional. These are lighter than their full cast iron counterparts but still maintain the Bailey style adjustment and iron securing mechanism.
In a future post, I'll go through the facing of a board using the fore and try plane. However, in the mean time, if you have been using a scrub plane for this task, try it my way and see what you've been missing. I can now take a 12" wide by 36" long board and face it (one face) with my fore and try plane in about 5-10 minutes, a job that took 30-60 minutes before when I used the scrub plane.
I haven't done any planing of the built-in the last couple of days, but i have spent a little time in the shop. I just got a new addition to replace the Sargent 1080 combination plane I sold. I never really liked the combination plane much. It was finicky to set up, the skates were thicker than the fillets of the bead irons so it wouldn't cut beads without binding, it was heavy and really is not an optimized tool for any of the tasks it claims to be able to do. As they say, jack of all trades but master of none. Plus, these things just have way too many parts to get lost.
I know that there are folks out there who love their combination planes, but I am just not one of them. I instead decided to go with this beauty.
It's a plow plane made by Bensen & Crannell, Albany, NY. It was probably made in the early 19th century, but has some features of 18th century plows, such as the wooden depth stop, as opposed to the more typical brass depth stop, and a fence attached to the arms with wood screws rather than the more common through bolts and diamond shaped brass inlaid nuts.
I cleaned it up, lapped, ground and honed the iron and took her for a spin. WOW! This is what a plow plane should be. The only problem it has is that the wooden thumb screw that holds the depth gauge at the specified height has all but one of it's threads sheared off, making it useless. However, because this type of depth stop has no shoe like a brass depth stop would, it really won't be used very often anyway as it can't be used until the fence is set a good inch away from the skate. When plowing the more typical grooves like those to accept drawer bottoms and raised panels, the depth stop would not contact the wood anyway as it would be off the edge, so in most cases I'd be working to a scribed depth.
The fact that the depth stop is so far from the skate leads me to believe that this was likely a joiner's plane and not a cabinetmaker's plane. Joiners would need to make grooves much further from the edge of the board, such as those for entry doors and window sashes, therefore, having the depth stop further away from the iron wouldn't be a concern. In addition, this plane doesn't have all the brass customarily found on cabinetmakers' plows. Still the plane will function quite nicely in my cabinet shop. I have no worries about working to a line.
It did only come with a single 1/4" iron, however, since this is the most used size in my cabinet work, that's fine for me. Plow plane irons are easy to find and add later anyway. I think I'll just use it as is for now. Even though the wooden thumb screw is not functional, it stays in the plane. If I feel the need later, I'll try to carve a new one as suggested by Stephen Shepherd. It looks to be a 7/16" screw with about 12 tpi so this will have to be hand carved as I don't know of any thread boxes on the market that come in this size. Suppose I could make one, but I have furniture to work on!
The one thing that does puzzle me is that the screw appears to be the original length as the end is smooth and has the same patina as the rest of the plane. However, the screw in it's current length is too short to reach the depth stop block. I am not sure if there was originally a floating filler piece that would be pressed up against the block by the screw or not. There was a cut off piece of #2 pencil floating in the hole between the depth stop and screw when I took the screw out. It was apparently put there by a previous user to do just that, but this is obviously not original. If you have any thoughts on this or if you have a plane with a similar depth stop you can look at for me, I'd appreciate your comments.
Over the last week and a half, I have begun working on a built-in cabinet for our living room. This has been the largest and most daunting project I've taken on to date. Planing 12" wide by 8' long boards is no easy task, and is made especially more challenging when you have a 7' workbench. Notice the pile of shavings building up on the floor (sorry for the blurry picture). This isn't even half of them.
The challenge here is moving the boards more than anything. Planing them isn't difficult, just time consuming. In my case I would plane 2/3 of the board, then shift it down on the bench and plane the other third since the board is a full 12" longer than my bench. The benefit of doing this by hand, however, (in addition to the cardio workout) is that there is no need to plane both faces before you glue up your panel. This is possible to do with power tools too, you just have to think outside the box.
In the case of these two panels, the side facing out is planed, the side facing the wall is still in the rough. Working this way saves a lot of time. Why plane both sides twice? I planed one face of the 12" wide board, then planed one face of the 8" wide board. The two flat planed faces were placed together and the mating edges of the boards were match planed (planed together at the same time). This results in complimentary angles when the boards are mated and all but gaurantees a flat glue-up. Once the glue has dried, some light planing cleans up the first face and then the panel is flipped and the rough face of the panel is planed.
Even panels this size, while difficult to move around, can be sucessfully glued up with minimal fuss using this technique. The added benefit is less planing and you also save final panel thickness as you are not planing away any more material than necessary. I don't know what the final thickness of these panels will be, but I don't really care. It will not be important in the final piece.
This weekend I finished up another shop appliance that has been on my list of things to make for a long time. Ever since the first time I watched John Alexander's "Make A Chair From A Tree", I've wanted to make a shave horse. I put it off for a long time as I was of the impression that I needed to make it from green riven stock and not having access to cheap green stock (or the tools to rive it), I put it on the back burner. However, after successfully building a saw bench in a similar style from common construction lumber and using it for several years, I decided to give the shave horse a go without using rived green oak. I am happy to say, that it worked out fine and I only spent $2 on it.
The bench is made from an old slavaged fir 2x8 that I held on to because it was surprisingly knot free for construction grade lumber. I ripped and planed it down to about 6" wide, which for now feels like a good width for working without discomfort to the backs of my legs. Time will tell how this width works out. The work platform is made from an offcut of the same 2x8. The legs are the only part I spent money on. They are made from a construction grade spruce 2x3. The stud had surprisingly few knots and those that it did have I could work around by putting them at the bottom or cutting them off. The studs were ripped to 1-1/2" wide, planed square, then shaved roughly octagonal with a draw knife. The tapered tenons were shaved with spokeshaves until they fit snuggly in the taper reamed mortises and then the 8-sided legs were shaved a little more with spokeshaves to clean them up and make them a little rounder. The legs are friction fit in the tapered mortises without wedges.
The remaining parts were made from some leftover kiln dried oak I had from other projects. The uprights are made from a length of 1x3 red oak. I bored holes in the top, middle and bottom for the clamp, pivot pegs and treadle respectively. The clamp bar is a piece of 2x2 (actually 1-1/2" square) red oak with a v-notch cut in it and holes bored in each end for 3/4" oak pegs cut from oak dowel stock. The pivot pegs are again 3/4" oak dowel stock inserted into holes which I bored into the sides of the bench. The pivot pegs are pegged to the bench to keep them from coming out of the bench. The treadle is a piece of 1-1/4" yellow pine closet rod. I used pegs throughout to hold everything together. I used no glue at all in the assembly.
Here you can see how everything is held together. The clamp block and treadle bar are pegged outside the uprights to keep them attached to the bench. The uprights are not pegged to the pivot pins, but the pivot pins are pegged to the bench. At the front, the pivot block for the work surface is a piece of oak through tenoned through the bench surface and held in place under the bench with another peg. I guess this is technically a variation on a tusk tenon. The work surface is notched around the pivot block and pegged through its end with one long oak dowel through the work surface and pivot block. The bottom corners of the work surface and the top face of the pivot block have been rounded to allow the work surface to pivot freely. The work surface is held at the proper height with a wedge of maple from the firewood pile and is adjustable in height by moving the wedge forward and backward.
I'm really happy that I finally stopped procrastinating and built this shave horse. It will be a very nice addition to the shop and along with my current saw bench will be able to be used as a pair of saw benches for very long stock, which until now has been difficult to handle in my small shop. The fact that it only cost me $2 isn't bad either! Making tools and appliances for the shop is a great way to use up cutoffs that may otherwise end up in the fire and add a much needed tool to the shop. Not to mention, it's a fun way to pass your shop time when you don't have an immediate project in the works.
Now to get started on those built-ins!
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