Is a scrub plane a good idea?

[Smudger]

I am wondering whether or not I should get a scrub plane.

I am close to retirement age, and we have a holiday home in Normandy, where I will be spending more time. I have an outbuilding which will make an excellent workshop, and a nearby source of wood at prices which make your eyes water with joy (mostly sawn green oak which suits what I want to do). I could buy a planer thicknesser but the implications of that are
a) it costs money and I'll be retired,
b) it needs power and
c) I'll be leaving it alone for months at a time and it may get pinched. English holiday homes are sometimes targeted for tools.

So I thought of setting up a workshop in which I mostly use hand tools, and from that thought to getting a scrub plane for dimensioning this sawn timber. But I've not been able to find one at a sensible price (I'm talking metal, not wood) in the UK, but there have been some on ebay from the USA.

Is the scrub a good idea, first of all? Should I look out for one or convert a #4? Should I pay a high price - #40s seem to fetch about twice the price of #5s. I'm not going to by a LN or LV, see a) above, so don't really need to be told about the virtues of getting one!

Any advice very welcome.

 

[paulm]

A scrub is pretty effective at bringing rough stock down in size but it is also a pretty good workout if you have any amount to do.

Others are more experienced than me, but I would have thought pretty much any old seconhand No5 would do, just put a bit of a camber on the blade, open up the mouth a bit if needed, and off you go.

Think a No4 might be a bit light for this and the extra weight of a No5 probably helpful, but no hard and fast rules.......

Cheers, Paul.

 

[Colin C]

Smudger

Why not a wooden one as they work fine :-k

 

[Smudger]

Never used one, so no idea of how to set one up or adjust it, so that just adds an extra complication. Where would I find a good s/h example?

Chisel - what you say makes sense, in fact I've just bought a #5 with quite a concave iron, perhaps that is what it was set up for. I'd be happier with a 5, as a 4 seems cramped on my (small but pudgy) hands.

Doesn't the chip iron mean that it clogs quickly? Would I need to open out the mouth?

 

[paulm]

The chip iron won't cause any clogging unless it's a really poor fit where the end meets the plane blade. Just make sure it fits well along it's whole edge of contact (smooth the underside of the chip iron on a diamond stone, wet & dry or whatever as necessary) to make sure there are no gaps between it and the blade where shavings could get caught. Polish the outside surface of the chip iron for a half inch or so above where it meets the blade if you are really fussy and that will aid the shavings passing also.

Once ground and sharpened to your required camber and bevel, set the plane blade to protrude as far out as you are probably going to want it to be (depending on how thick a shaving you anticipate taking and bearing in mind that thicker shavings are harder work, but too thin means you will take forever to get anywhere !), then check visually whether there seems to be enough clearance between the front surface of the blade and the line of the mouth for that sized shaving to pass through. If so then start planing ! If not then try adjusting the frog back some if it has any travel, if the frog is already as far back as it can be then a bit of mouth filing is called for........

Cheers, Paul.

 

[Smudger]

Thanks for that, I may try to get a replacement #5 and try that.

By an amazing coincidence my wife has just showed up from a boot sale with a 15 3/4" wooden plane - presumably a jointer at that length. A bit knocked about, but looks basically OK, weighs a ton. Some very interesting dings - it looks like it's been adjusted with a stiletto heel, or possibly a toffee hammer.

Have you seen this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=130110465230&rd=1&rd=1

Looks gorgeous - but any use?

 

[woodbloke]

Smudger - Paul Chapman uses scrub planes allot, 'spect he'll be along shortly - Rob

 

[Shrubby]

Hello everyone.
A scrubplane is very usefull and you should find a wooden one in Europe cheaply,they call them a Bismarck. It wont react with the green oak like an iron plane saving you from the 'black hand lurgy'

 

[Smudger]

Ah - I hadn't thought about lurgy. You mean that the iron actually reacts with the wood and stains it? I know that is a problem with oak and water.

 

[Shrubby]

Hello smudger, the lurgy will be on your hands! The green oak reacts aggressively with iron (stanley or record) type planes and inevitably stains your hands, it can leave streaks on the work too.Wooden planes are still sold in France - Stanley Goldenberg is one brand,try farm suppliers rather than Mr Brico (diy) or search flea markets.Mine was used solidly for 6 months on High Street Londinium and became a real favourite.
good hunting[/url]

 

[Anonymous]

Smodger

As a user of handplanes over most other tools, I am with Chris Schartz on scrubs - fun to play with but not good cabinet making tools. I don't tink you'll find many people who genuinely use them to prepare wood

I would say that you should use a machine to get close to size or get a Fore or Jack, open the mouth and take thick shavings (this is what i do).

Chris Schwartz's Course, Medum, Fine DVD would be worth you getting - it is very useful and interesting

 

[Frank D.]

I agree with Tony, I use my scrub mostly for carpentry. On the other hand, I could never get along without my jack. The biggest problem I have with a scrub is that it can take huge chunks out of a board, and sometimes these chunks reach below the finished surface depth I'm aiming for. A Jack with a 1/8" (or even 3/32") crown takes off wood very quickly without too much tearout, in a much more controlled way. I just leave the chipbreaker well back, and I back up the frog to open up the mouth. No special fettling or filing necessary, on my plane anyway (it's an old Stanley Bailey--I'm sure an old Record would do just fine).

 

[mr]

Smodger

I don't tink you'll find many people who genuinely use them to prepare wood

Hands up as being one of the few then (there's always one eh ). Chris Schwarz concept of the scrub being primarily a tool for use on site by a carpenter may be entirely correct, it certainly sounds feasible, but they also work perfectly well as replacements for powered thicknessers and I'm not sure what I would use instead. I have an old woodie try plane (about 16 inch) with a heavily cambered blade that sometimes sees action but thats just a big scrubber. Chris Schwarz idea that the scrub is best used for "ripping" - ie trimming the width of a board is also feasible but I find them too aggressive for that preferring a jack or jointer depending on how much needs to be removed. It's when trying to "rip" with a scrub that I find it takes off too much, below the desired surface as Frank D says, I generally only have this problem on faces with a rank set jack, the scrub seeming more controlled. It may be that my scrub being a bismark style wooden one is easier to control perhaps.

Cheers Mike

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Smudger,

I'm in a similar position to you - retired and limited funds to spend on tools so I don't have any machinery. Do most things with hand tools. If you want to prepare wood from rough sawn stock, then a plane set up for normal use is not really suitable. I tried out a Veritas scrub at Philly's Big Bash last year and was impressed. However I couldn't really afford one. About that time Alf posted on her blog that she had bought a rusty heap of metal that she had converted to a sort of scrub plane and she wanted to sell it. So I gave it a go and bought it from her. Here's a picture of it next to my Clifton #3

And here's a picture of the component parts

Although it has a fairly thin blade, it works really well.

I have also modified two old Records, a #5.5 and a #7. These already had the mouths opened out a bit from the days when I fitted thicker blades and cap irons. However, I have reverted to using them with the original Record blades and cap irons but with the blades ground and honed to a steep camber. Depending what you are planing - long narrow stock or shorter wide stock - I find that it can be useful having scrub-type planes of various lengths.

With a scrub plane and its heavily cambered blade, only the central portion of the blade does any cutting. You can, of course, vary the depth of cut as much as you like and easily control how aggressively it cuts and how much tearout you get.

Proper scrub planes don't have a cap iron because it would serve no purpose. If you modify a normal plane, just set the cap iron a fair way back from the edge of the blade.

As with a lot of tools, you really need to use one to see how good they are. I would strongly recommend you get a copy of Rob Cosman's DVD "Rough to Ready" http://www.classichandtools.com/acatalo ... n_DVD.html It takes you through the whole process of preparing a board from rough sawn timber.

If you have any old wooden planes, or can pick some up cheaply, they can also make good scrub planes.

Hope this helps.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Frank D.]

Hi Paul,
I just thought I'd make a comment that I almost made in my first post--please dont, take it as an argument; I just thought I'd throw it in for discussion.
I tend to follow Henry Mercer, who defines a plane not by its length but mainly by the shape of the cutting edge. His method of classification helped me a lot to understand the function, not just the size, of the various western planes. In his book (Ancient Carpenter's Tools) he says the jack is the first plane used by the carpenter, due to its convex edge. I'm not saying that scrubs were not used in the past, but that the two terms "scrub" and "jack" can be taken as identical, since they are both used for preliminary stock removal. The best way to really tell them apart IMO is by the radius of the blade. Thus a scrub plane IMO would have a very tight radius, 2 or 3" (maximum). Mine has a 2 1/2" radius. A plane with a blade that has a pronounced convex edge but with a significantly larger radius is IMO a jack plane.
I mention this because the blade on your scrub resembles the blade on my jack plane; the curve on the edge is perhaps a little more pronounced on yours, but not much.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Paul,
I just thought I'd make a comment that I almost made in my first post--please dont, take it as an argument; I just thought I'd throw it in for discussion.
I tend to follow Henry Mercer, who defines a plane not by its length but mainly by the shape of the cutting edge. His method of classification helped me a lot to understand the function, not just the size, of the various western planes. In his book (Ancient Carpenter's Tools) he says the jack is the first plane used by the carpenter, due to its convex edge. I'm not saying that scrubs were not used in the past, but that the two terms "scrub" and "jack" can be taken as identical, since they are both used for preliminary stock removal. The best way to really tell them apart IMO is by the radius of the blade. Thus a scrub plane IMO would have a very tight radius, 2 or 3" (maximum). Mine has a 2 1/2" radius. A plane with a blade that has a pronounced convex edge but with a significantly larger radius is IMO a jack plane.
I mention this because the blade on your scrub resembles the blade on my jack plane; the curve on the edge is perhaps a little more pronounced on yours, but not much.

Hi Frank,

I agree entirely :wink: We all get a bit hung up on names but it doesn't really matter what you call a tool, just so long as it does the job There is a lot of room for experiment, I think, with size of camber on a blade. My main point was if you can't afford a planer or thicknesser or a "proper" scrub plane, don't worry because there's a lot you can achieve by doctoring cheap tools.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Smudger]

Thank you all - that is helping a lot.

A week ago I won a #5 on ebay for a tenner, it's a nice plane now I've cleaned it up, but the iron is definitely cambered, though not as much as 3" radius, and the cap iron was set back about 1.5mm, so I may already have one - I'm glad I put off grinding the iron square! It took fairly narrow shavings, but that was on an edge not the face of a board, which I haven't tried yet, so I'm not sure if that was the shape of the iron.

I assume that I will hone the blade freehand, so I can increase the curve gradually, and keep a spare, square blade to use as a 'proper' jack.

I think I'll look out for a Bismark, but also look for a boot sale lump with a bit of potential and start butchering it.

Very grateful for all the helpful and generous advice.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I assume that I will hone the blade freehand

I've never really got on with honing freehand and prefer to use a honing guide. As I have a few heavily cambered blades now, I treated myself to the Veritas Mk2 honing guide and cambered roller assembly, which I find works well.

Cheers :wink:

Paul