Wooden & Metal Planes, Which Do You Use?

[Jelly]

Following on from the new planes thread, I'm curious to know what people use and if they're doing so in a professional capacity.

I'm an avowed fan of wooden planes, when I first started seriously learning woodwork I spent a lot of time chatting to the joiners from the custom order shop where I worked, the eldest of which used a wooden Jack Plane and extolled its virtues, whilst everyone else had Bailey planes of one manufacturer or another.

Since then other than occasional mentions from some of UKW's cabinet makers and traditionally minded joiners, I don't think I've come across another working user of wooden planes, indeed I was chatting to a joiner in the workshop the other day who was mocking my "old fashioned" wooden planes, but admitted that in my hands they produced the same result his metal ones would in his.

 

[RogerP]

Woodwork is just a hobby for me but I do use English and Japanese wooden planes much more often than metal ones.

 

[MIGNAL]

I use both, in a professional capacity. My most frequently used wooden plane is the small Jack. It's mainly used for removing material quickly but without the fierce nature of the scrub. It excels at that. It's quicker and less tiring to use than it's metal equivalent. Try hand planing continuously for 20 or 30 minutes and the difference becomes very obvious.
Experience tells me that metal planes (and their extra heft) have a slight advantage in very hard, 'difficult' timbers. Having said that I often use a longer wooden Jack to dimension relatively small pieces of Ebony. Providing the Ebony has well behaved grain the larger wooden Jack removes material at a pretty fast rate. I'm not a fan of the traditional coffin smoother or Japanese planes. I have a few examples of each of them but I simply don't find them all that comfortable in use. The traditional jack plane is a joy to use, as are the Marples type transitionals.

 

[D_W]

Wooden jack plane, wooden try plane, metal smoother.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Wooden and metal in jacks, jointers and smoothers.

Metal specialist planes, wooden moulding planes.

Overall, more metal than wooden. I do it for the fun, so like trying all.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[G S Haydon]

A mix of both but when for stock prep wooden planes are hard to beat.

 

[Corneel]

I use both too. I really like the simple beech coffin smoother, but also use a wooden fore plane from time to time. Overall I use Stanleys more often, but sometimes I get the urge and grab the wooden ones. They are a bit more difficult to set, but boy do they glide over the wood!

 

[AndyT]

For me, my enjoyment of woodworking is linked to my interest in old tools and methods of work, so in many cases I have metal and wooden tools that can do the same job and will experiment with either.

 

[rafezetter]

It's been about 6 months since I was properly introduced to wooden planes and now they are the ones I reach for instead of thier metal counterparts, especially for long jointing and rough scrubbing although I still go for my lovely bailey 4 1/2 for smoothing, and of course my block plane. Apart from the simplicity of fettling and ease of use, I've found the hand position of the coffin to be particularly comfortable for my larger hands.

 

[custard]

A wooden plane gets mullered if you use it on man made boards, fairing a curved edge on a sheet or ply or MDF will groove the sole of a wooden spokeshave almost before your eyes.

So here's the dilemma for full time furniture makers,

1. Even if I chiefly work in solid timber I'm still continually making boat loads of jigs, templates, and formers from man made boards
2. I don't want masses of hand tools, I just want the minimum that I actually need. That way I can keep them all in tip top condition and build expertise with each of them by maximising actual usage experience.

Fact, most full time furniture makers reconcile these two positions by ditching almost all of their wooden tools.

 

[Jacob]

I use a 27" wooden jointer for long pieces- just the final straightening, a wooden scrub for cleaning up rough stuff, wooden rebate planes occasionally. Otherwise it's almost all Record 5 1/2 and Stanley 220.

 

[Bedrock]

I have been making furniture for probably nearly 50 years as a hobbyist and use mostly steel planes, Stanley/Record and Norris, and home made. I have also an Emir jointer, an old Japanese plane, a couple of Chinese and several self-made woodies.
Despite considerable perseverance with the wooden planes, I usually default to the steel adjustable planes, although the Emir comes out for roughing.
Can't make the old Japanese plane work for love nor money.

 

[BearTricks]

I started the new planes thread because I was having issues with my wooden jack.

Since then I've started planing my sawn sapele. I have one board done and I've been roughing it with the wooden jack and using the Stanley 4 1/2 to smooth. The sawn wood isn't rough enough that I couldn't use the 4 1/2 to do the whole job but using the jack is quicker.

In all honesty I prefer the Stanley. It's smoother to use, keeps an edge better and I don't need to do as much work maintaining the edge.

I will say the jack takes shavings from difficult grain with surprisingly little effort considering how light it is.

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

 

[heimlaga]

I use a number of profile and speciality planes with wooden bodies. My bench planes and spokeshaves are all metal.

In paid work the hand planes are used only when needed. Just to save labour...........but there are a few occasions when hand planing is the most cost effective way.

 

[8squared]

I use both.

Ive bought metal ones to use regularly and wooden ones for novelty which then became regularly... both types have been cheap.

Now as i look into spending my money wisely i find the choice a matter of what catches the eye... for instance Hotley planes absolutely stunning things using both wood and metal.

So in the future my small collection will no doubt be a mix of both.

 

[biskit]

In my joiner/carpenter job over 50 years I used metal smoothing planes most of the time, wooden jack planes as a way to get rough timber down ready for smoothing. Did'nt get an electric plane till very late in my working life. (hammer)