How Necessary is a Specialised Scrub Plane?

[D_W]

@D_W

Ref your "I can't imagine where a scrub would fit in for this kind of stuff..."

Supposing that the original rough boards showed a fair degree of cupping. Those are the circumstances where I would use my Nr 5 - configured-as-a-scrub. I'd chamfer the far edge and then get the worst of the cupping off while looking for the first practical opportunity to switch to the normal jack for conventional flattening.

I understand why you maintain that the first step is not strictly necessary but OTH I can't see that it is disadvantageous.

It's necessary obviously to plane in the direction of the grain with a wood using a jack, etc. As you're chamfering the back side of the wood, if you're planing with a jack plane along the direction of the wood, you're already done at that point with one side of the board, with the near facing side to complete. the job as it's done leaves a flat board that can be near finished with a try plane in a couple of strokes.

It feels like more work because you're removing a much greater volume of wood with each stroke, but the flip side of that is that you're spending a far higher percentage of energy removing wood, and less stabbing a small plane back and forth. If there's not much room for error on the thickness of a board, you don't need to lose width to create a large chamfer as there will be no blowout of wood. It works so well that it may be boring and seem to easy if you'd prefer to fight with the wood a little bit and separate the steps (removing the ears from any subsequent work that may need to be done).

There's no need to have the plane going across the grain to ensure flatness (most people in a short stroke like that will plane a board convex instead of cupped, anyway, leaving more follow up). Any significant issue with flatness laterally, along the length or diagonally can be seen just by lifting one end of the board up and looking down the face toward the bench (or squatting down and looking if the board is large and lifting is more trouble).

In dimensioning, efficiency is gained no matter how rough the work if the wood is planed cleanly and the balance of engaged full cut and pushing of the plane is skewed as far as possible in the direction of keeping the plane cutting through the full stroke vs. just keeping it moving. There's a step beyond this for efficiency in thicknessing, but not relevant here maybe and something one would only get into if looking at dressing 100 board feet of wood for a project - that is, trying to set most of the work up so that overlapping strokes are made and the length of the stroke is a full plane stroke without stepping anywhere or squatting or walking or anything else. strokes are made within reach, and then a step is taken to work another area with full strokes. if the strokes are short or we start walking around, things get slow.

This kind of thing is what makes planing like a brisk walk, and not a series of sprints and stops. The predictability of the work also allows you to disengage from examining every stroke but rather set a rhythm for the work and then you can observe what's going on instead of concentrating on plane strokes. As in, the plane keeps moving and you adjust on the fly while working, never breaking rhythm or getting stuck working through work you created for yourself (you'll notice that if you do a significant amount of work planing a cup off of the convex side of a board with cross strokes, or doing the same with the edges on the concave side, you're likely to have to address flatness in length to a significant degree following that. when the work is done down the length wherever possible, the face is completed all at once. But it will feel at a given instant per stroke like it's more work because the plane is continuously engaged (that's just a matter of physical limitation then to pick the brisk walk pace).

Just about everything in hand tool work is like this - including rip sawing or resawing, finding a pace that can be maintained and a feel that's optimal for tools removing material. There's no fighting, short strokes or stabbing anything, or getting surprise damage. It's nice that when everything is set properly that the predictability comes along with improving the volume of work done, and not at the cost of it.

 

[D_W]

You can put a 25mm radius camber on a blade which is 50mm wide but you wouldn't be able to use much more than the middle 15 - 20 mm of the blade. Waste of a good blade and using an unnecessarily large heavy plane.

Now, we're worried about wasting blades on $10 planes? If you have 2 inches of usable steel on a jack plane and a little more on a scrub plane, what's the difference? The sharpening process is more easily kept accurate freehand on a jack plane, too - and it's capable of controlling tearout with the cap if needed.

The wasting blade nonsense (which also comes up when people ask if they should use the left and right of a jointer to "save" the blade) is another modern theory - the idea that something hard to get (an iron that fits, when another plane would just be 10 dollars more) could create a problem later, and instead, we should create dozens or hundreds of hours of little problems to deal with to save, in theory, a few dollars.

The reality is that few on here will ever work a new plane blade to the slot. If someone works enough to do that, they're entitled to buy a new one. I went through all of these fallacies early on, everyone does. You have to grow out of it.

The average sharpening probably removes about one thousandth of an inch unless there is edge damage (which we generally avoid on planes that get sharpened a lot). On a jack plane, you need to put in a solid half hour of high heart rate work to even think about needing to resharpen. If we allow for some chipping, we're then suggesting that an average plane iron would last around 800 hours of high heart rate work with no pause. This would probably be enough for a professional woodworker for a decade.

The real reason we don't put a more drastic camber on an iron to match a 3" radius is that it's not productive. The shaving is only thick right at the center and then tapers off quickly. the volume is poor, and if you get more than the width of cut, you're wasting energy tearing wood at the sides of the cut, which is like walking in sand.

Jack planes are generally 4-5 pounds wooden, sometimes a little less. They have nearly no friction compared to any metal plane and the length and width give control. The weight allows you to take a heavier cut than something like a bismarck without momentum issues or issues beating up hands, elbows and shoulders.

Next myth......

 

[D_W]

I measured my oft-used jack plane ( a plane set to work well on things like soft maple, cherry and beech. It's fine for pine, but the more drastically set plane may be of use if I built a lot with pine ).

the iron is 2 1/8" wide. As it's set (which is just off of using it last, not theoretical or a contest to make the thickest shaving), it goes below the sole of the plane by about 44 thousandths, and 1.45" of the iron is peeing out of the sole of the plane.

Shavings come out thicker than the depth of cut, so some factor above that would be the maximum thickness of the shavings - perhaps just under a 16th of an inch (which corresponds to my guess of being able to work within about a 16th of an inch of a marked line.

It would not be possible to push the plane if the iron was projected out far enough to get the corners into the cut, but this is what's wanted.

the lateral part of the plane sole provides accuracy across the width of planing, it's not "wasted" width not used.

We're not comparing shavings here, of course, as I'm working cherry generally with some figure or grain issues in it and not pine or fir. I can plane enough in a shop session to sharpen this jack plane three times without any issue (an hour or two of continuous planing), generally working boards with the jack plane and try plane (anything left to do after the try plane is better left done later after ensuring the dressed wood doesn't get bumped or scratched handling it around the shop, but the try plane usually leaves a near finished surface except around knots or birdseyes or such stuff.

I've only ever set the cap iron on the jack plane for quartered curly cherry (which is a bear to rough plane - far far worse if the curl is strong than figured maple).

Not sure I've ever measured the jack before - you sharpen by hand and make tiny incremental changes when efficiency seems to suffer due to poor function.

This is boring for a beginner and nondescript because it depends on the material being worked, but it's where efficiency comes from.

One other issue not being addressed here is interrupted cuts. I know from test planing irons to gauge wear that there is a huge step up in effort and iron dulling when you start planing interrupted cuts or dealing with significant tearout. The better a plane is able to keep in a continuous cut, the longer the iron will last and the longer the person pushing the plane will last.

 

[samhay]

What you're referring to as a jack and a scrub plane in continental europe are practically the same thing (in length).

Not being familiar with the European wooden planes, I had missed the fact that length is essentially the same for these.
What length do you recommend for a wooden jack plane? I expect this may be somewhat shorter than I had imagined and the distinction I had made between a jack and scrub plane may be somewhat blurred.

 

[Droogs]

If you are a bench joiner working dry wood, you do not need a scrub plane. Your fore or jack is all you need. If you are working cloved or wet wood the a scrub is excellent to get stock to where you need it to be while working it when wet (which for some hard woods they are more like butter than stone) before leaving it to dry and then working on it for timber framing or even architectural work.

My opinion anyway

 

[D_W]

historically, I think most were between 14 and 17 inches. I like a 16 or 17 inch jack plane, but am a planemaker, so I can be picky. One that's 14 or 15 inches long works fine, too.

mine is in the front here compared to ECE's jack (I refitted this plane for someone - the one in the back - it's also around 17", and made an XHP iron for it. I'm guessing that the one in the back gets used mostly for finished work, it's not my plane. It's surprisingly comfortable to use given how crude it is, though, but that's owed to the proportions being appropriate).

its' uncommon for my bench to be this clean, but usually when you're working on planes, you have to get some stuff off of the bench or they get beaten up or dropped while making them. I've dropped three, including the one in the front of the first picture - the handle flew right off of the plane across the shop.

As far as shorter goes with these kinds of things, there's a practical limit as the plane itself needs to have a certain length for the handle, the toe, and the territory used by the bed. The second plane is 15" (the person who traded me something for it wanted 14, but they have big hands - I think it's a bit odd feeling without much heel, but their plane and not mine).

I believe most of the mathieson jack planes that I've found (which is what mine is a copy of) are 16-17", and if you're going to do flat work that needs to be accurate, it's a very good size. They're never that heavy (just checked the mathieson that I copied - it's 4 pounds, 6 ounces at 17" with almost no friction. Any lighter, and a western pattern plane becomes a bruiser (try using a coffin smoother to do rough work for an hour - your hands, elbows, and shoulders will hate you) with problems maintaining direction.

As far as the euro planes go, I just don't know enough about what was commonly made and where they used their short planes vs. long planes (and have a sneaking suspicion that they did a lot more early work by hand with wet wood as some of their roughing planes are punishing to use on dry wood - the horned type without any wood for the web of your hand and fairly square rears - ouch. I've gotten several planes like that with a lot of use on them - they're being used by someone with no nerves, or more likely, someone doing initial rough work on wet wood that doesn't have as much hand clanging stuff in it.

It's really hard to know why planes were the way they were without knowing what they're making and how they're used. People were never as stupid as modern folks like to make them out to be, and finding out the context of the work usually solves the issues.

What we do with seasoned wood and generally making cabinets and furniture from medium to large size - generally fits well with English pattern planes. If we start doing things like trying to use japanese planes in that context from rough to finish, it's not a great experience. If we use single iron planes pitched at 50 to try to work #1 common lumber now that's not very good, it's also absolute torture. BTDT, and have kept a set of planes of that type to faff with if I ever come across a mythical perfect first growth clear straight pine tree.

 

[billw]

Taking 3mm off hardwood in one pass sounds like something pretty bloody hard to me!

 

[G S Haydon]

" If you're talking about just roughing up reclaimed fir and soft redwood beams, nobody here is likely to be doing anything of the sort."

David, that is the only time I've used a scrub. I think Jacob is mainly saying the same.

I do fully agree that Jack and Try are the best combination and in the method you describe.

I always find the amount of planes here Pictures of English joiners workshops very interesting. Was it staged? Perhaps the amount of planes on the bench is staged but there are loads on the wall. I have theorised that perhaps they were set a bit more fine or rank as required.

 

[D_W]

I could see having 5 or so bench planes per serious worker. I'd have to get out the seaton chest book to see if seaton had a jointer, but after building one at 28" long, I have to admit I almost never use it. OK, I never use it (my try plane is 24", which is on the long side, and the one "made" plane that I still use, which is probably a griffiths, that one is 22.

A full sized jointer is nose heavy and tiring.

I probably dumped out a bunch of thoughts above that someone would only go through if they were hand dimensioning a few hundred board feet a year - I've hand dimensioned somewhere around 300-500 board feet a year the last couple of years.

I have nothing against playing in the shop. I just made an iron out of stainless and several others just to test them against O1, but I wouldn't advise that my playing with steel had anything to do with what creates productivity working (and productivity creates flow/rhythm, which creates less thinking and more enjoyment),

 

[Jacob]

" If you're talking about just roughing up reclaimed fir and soft redwood beams, nobody here is likely to be doing anything of the sort."

David, that is the only time I've used a scrub. I think Jacob is mainly saying the same.
........

Thank you Graham yes that is what I have been saying - over and over again!
And I guess that is why it is called a scrub - it's for scrubbing up bits of old timber.
What Lie Nelson or Veritas say their extravagantly expensive offerings are for, is of no interest to me at all. In fact LV don't what they are talking about (or are just over selling) Veritas Scrub Plane with HCS Blade.
and LN don't even know how to sharpen one! This deadly serious vid always makes me laugh;

 

[raffo]

I always find the amount of planes here Pictures of English joiners workshops very interesting. Was it staged? Perhaps the amount of planes on the bench is staged but there are loads on the wall. I have theorized that perhaps they were set a bit more fine or rank as required.

I was taught how to make those hats out of newspaper when I was a kid. I'm not 300 years old, but it was a while ago.

 

[D_W]

Thank you Graham yes that is what I have been saying - over and over again!
And I guess that is why it is called a scrub - it's for scrubbing up bits of old timber.
What Lie Nelson or Veritas say their extravagantly expensive offerings are for, is of no interest to me at all. In fact LV don't what they are talking about (or are just over selling) Veritas Scrub Plane with HCS Blade.
and LN don't even know how to sharpen one! This deadly serious vid always makes me laugh;

I guess we're down to scrubbing being something gainful on house/beam work. I have done very little of that and couldn't comment.

If that's the only place that it's gainful, it would be pretty useful to note in this thread as I doubt the average person approaching the topic is thinking of restoring a barn with hand tools, but they may be thinking of building some stools or cabinets out of rough wood.

I get the appeal of the scrub to people - it's about as simple as it could be. That doesn't translate into it being better for anything on a flat bench with dry lumber, though, but it can create an early instant thrill for someone.

as far as LN's sharpening videos, I've got a friend who does just as they say - he grinds a primary bevel on a king stone, which takes about 30 minutes. LN says not to use a power grinder and he doesn't like oilstones. That doesn't drive him nuts somehow, but who am I to interfere. I think LN has a lot of customers like that, and prescribing slow safe methods probably prevents them from receiving blue irons back from buyers who insist that the iron never got hot and they don't know how the blue got there.

The market of users is one of the reasons that I don't make and sell tools. I make tools, and would probably make almost entirely tools if there was a serious user market for them, but there isn't.

 

[Jacob]

I guess we're down to scrubbing being something gainful on house/beam work. I have done very little of that and couldn't comment.

It's simpler than you think. Scrubbing is useful on anything which needs a good scrub.
And the end use of some reclaimed timber could be fine furniture, if it fits. In fact very often reclaimed timber can only be used either as is, or reduced to much smaller pieces which fall between the knots, splits, mortice holes etc

If that's the only place that it's gainful,....

it isn't

....

I get the appeal of the scrub to people - it's about as simple as it could be.

No you haven't quite got it - the appeal of the scrub is that it does the job it's designed for, and anyway, being simple is generally regarded as quite a good idea

....
as far as LN's sharpening videos, I've got a friend who does just as they say - he grinds a primary bevel on a king stone, which takes about 30 minutes. .....

Takes about 2 minutes if you do it the normal way

 

[G S Haydon]

I was taught how to make those hats out of newspaper when I was a kid. I'm not 300 years old, but it was a while ago.

Demo needed please

 

[D_W]

It's simpler than you think. Scrubbing is useful on anything which needs a good scrub.
And the end use of some reclaimed timber could be fine furniture, if it fits. In fact very often reclaimed timber can only be used either as is, or reduced to much smaller pieces which fall between the knots, splits, mortice holes etcit isn'tNo you haven't quite got it - the appeal of the scrub is that it does the job it's designed for, and anyway, being simple is generally regarded as quite a good idea
Takes about 2 minutes if you do it the normal way

Jacob - I've probably used more types of scrub planes than you have. But I also have learned how to use a jack plane properly.

Nothing needs "a good scrubbing" if a proper jack plane is available, but something worked with a scrub may still need a jack.

I have my doubts about practical usefulness of the scrub in most contexts of carpentry as they've been around for something like 125 years and most of them have near full length irons on them.

My point is, Graham also mentioned something that was more like house timbers. The type was completely missing from work done when it was done entirely by hand, and so far, we haven't heard the context of the "bismarck" (likely green wood, another thing that it's fun to talk about but almost nobody uses).

the definitive answer to the question at the beginning of this thread is, a scrub is not necessary. If it gets someone off track about what a jack should do (by assuming that's the territory of a scrub) then it's potentially detrimental. Does it matter if hand tool woodworking is escapism instead? Only if someone cares what they're making. My point in proper use of the jack plane to dress rough lumber, even when it's far out of flat, is that it's partially escapism for me, too, but expect a little bit more out of my escapist mind vacations than hacking up work like a barn.

I can tell you the number of times I've seen someone set up a jack for coarse work and use it - two. I can count a far larger number of folks who have scrub planes and a jack plane that will more or less cut a heavy smoother shaving - many. If they had their planes set up properly, would they work with them more? I don't really know.

 

[ivan]

In the US it's generally thought that the Stanley scrub (and of course the copies of this) was designed as an alternative to hand ripping a small adjustment to the width of a board. It's narrow, and much quicker than a hand saw. The fore plane was used for the flat surface of the stuff, with an ~200mm radius on the cutting edge. Big bites could be taken as the plane was used diagonally at ~45 deg or normal to the grain. Illustrations from a couple of hundred years ago or more show the fore plane about No5 or No6 in size - to straddle the board. An old house where I once lodged had all 6 panel doors in a mahogony-like hardwood. Doors into utility spaces - cupboards, kitchen, wash house, loo, etc had panels finish planed on only one (the outer) side. The inside showed the diagonal pattern of the fore plane used to thickness the panel. My grandfather, a joiner in the early Edwardian period, said that big try planes like the No8 and even longer woodies, were only used for shooting edges to be glued, two board edges being planed at the same time. If you want a scrub plane - handy to stabilise an unruly board on the planer - get a second hand 5 or 6, open up the mouth, and grind a radius on the blade. It's rough work, the sole does not need to be ultra flat, and a bit of rust can be ignored. If the thin blade chatters too much for you, fit a thicker one.

 

[G S Haydon]

Thank you Graham yes that is what I have been saying - over and over again!
And I guess that is why it is called a scrub - it's for scrubbing up bits of old timber.
What Lie Nelson or Veritas say their extravagantly expensive offerings are for, is of no interest to me at all. In fact LV don't what they are talking about (or are just over selling) Veritas Scrub Plane with HCS Blade.
and LN don't even know how to sharpen one! This deadly serious vid always makes me laugh;

To be fair, these videos are aimed at absolute beginners. If I were in their position I would do videos like that. I would guess that many customers have never done any woodworking. Trying to show them how to use grinders and free hand methods would be very problematic. Any professional user wouldn't watch the videos and learn much.

 

[Jacob]

Jacob - I've probably used more types of scrub planes than you have.

You obviously haven't used an ECE scrub like mine

..... we haven't heard the context of the "bismarck" .......

Hardly gets a mention anywhere except in Ernest Joyce. As far as I can see it is similar to the wooden scrub with a narrow blade but with less radius on the camber. Logic says it could be the next plane you'd use after a scrub.

 

[D_W]

In the US it's generally thought that the Stanley scrub (and of course the copies of this) was designed as an alternative to hand ripping a small adjustment to the width of a board. It's narrow, and much quicker than a hand saw. The fore plane was used for the flat surface of the stuff, with an ~200mm radius on the cutting edge. Big bites could be taken as the plane was used diagonally at ~45 deg or normal to the grain. Illustrations from a couple of hundred years ago or more show the fore plane about No5 or No6 in size - to straddle the board. An old house where I once lodged had all 6 panel doors in a mahogony-like hardwood. Doors into utility spaces - cupboards, kitchen, wash house, loo, etc had panels finish planed on only one (the outer) side. The inside showed the diagonal pattern of the fore plane used to thickness the panel. My grandfather, a joiner in the early Edwardian period, said that big try planes like the No8 and even longer woodies, were only used for shooting edges to be glued, two board edges being planed at the same time. If you want a scrub plane - handy to stabilise an unruly board on the planer - get a second hand 5 or 6, open up the mouth, and grind a radius on the blade. It's rough work, the sole does not need to be ultra flat, and a bit of rust can be ignored. If the thin blade chatters too much for you, fit a thicker one.

Your account of the kind of singular finish on the non-show surfaces ends up matching what I and others have fallen into out of laziness over here (OK, all three of us). You do almost everything you can do with the jack, because it's easy to move through wood and it removes material efficiently (but without absolutely wrecking the work).

I haven't been able to bring myself to leaving rearward surfaces with jack plane marks, but don't finish plane them usually (they're peeled off with the try plane).

Using the term laziness, is smart laziness, though, not sloppy laziness. That is, if you can do all of the prep work and thicknessing and working nearly to the mark with one plane that removes material efficiently without busting wrists, arms and hands or needing to be waxed, you can just get things done faster. I used to leave a fairly large amount of work behind the jack for the try plane for fear of blowing past the marks, but over time, it's come down to pretty much what's left on the board is enough for the try plane to remove the marks of the jack and then leave a couple of passes for a smoother.

 

[D_W]

You obviously haven't used an ECE scrub like mineHardly gets a mention anywhere except in Ernest Joyce. As far as I can see it is similar to the wooden scrub with a narrow blade but with less radius on the camber. Logic says it could be the next plane you'd use after a scrub.

I've used single iron narrow older european planes, made better than your ece plane. I haven't used one of the "ECE brand". They don't have much use if someone is working by hand on furniture type work.

You could use one as my friend does to kind of hack and slash wood before he puts it in a power jointer and planer.

The only ECE/ulmia plane that's ever stuck here (this isn't quite true, I have an old ulmia continental smoother that came in a group, but haven't used) is the double iron rabbet plane that they make.

You've still provided no instance in furniture or workshop type work where a scrub is an advantage. If the work is too coarse for a jack, the scrub is worse than a hatchet or drawknife or saw. If it's too fine for a scrub, the jack can probably do it, but it may be the territory of a trying plane. There's just nowhere that it fits practically or I wouldn't have unloaded every scrub that I've ever bought. It seemed a useful plane (potentially) before I learned to set a jack the right way, but too often in dry hardwoods, it pulled something unexpected out and made the need for a repair. When the jack is dialed in, you just use it until you're almost at the mark, no problem. No checking surfaces, no nothing, just plane.