Thread: What exactly is a #6 for?

The #6 is a gap filler plane. A big company said to itself "Hmmm, there's a gap between the #5 1/2 and the #7, let's fit another plane in there and sell more planes and make more money".

You might do better with a #5 and a #7......maybe not......or maybe you'll get a #6 and fall in love with handtools. That's what happened to me, the 2ndhand #6 that I bought was the first woodworking tool I bought when I was setting up my workshop here. I now have dozens of handplanes....beware!


If a #6 happens along and you like the price, buy it. Use it as you will......there are very few rules really.


Alternatively......you could make a #6 "magic" by buying an extra blade. With two blades you could have a straight jointer blade and a cambered jack plane blade.
Presto-Change-o. You can transform the plane by swapping blades and adjusting the frog.

Not that anybody would use a #6 as a Jack for long......trust me.......my metal Jack planes are two #5 1/2s.....they get very heavy after a short while.

Eddie
Have a look at the following link The Superior Works - Patrick's Blood & Gore: Planes #1 - #8

Seanz was on the money

Yeah, I saw that. He evidently holds the plane in low regard.

I picked it up at a flea market. It's a Pope Falcon. I admit I'm kind of attached to it now, but I might consider selling it if I can finally find a decent #7. Seems a bit superfluous.

Originally Posted by seanz

The #6 is a gap filler plane. A big company said to itself "Hmmm, there's a gap between the #5 1/2 and the #7, let's fit another plane in there and sell more planes and make more money".

Except that the No.6 came before the No.5½ (1869 vrs 1898 according to B&G). Maybe said big company said "Hmm, that damned No.6 doesn't sell very well, lets make a lighter version and see if that makes more money" (remembering that the early No.5½s were also narrower with a 2¼" iron).

Most planes can do various jobs, depending how they're set up. I think of the No.5½ as a heavy jack or a panel plane/uber-smoother (depending on set up), whereas I think of the No.6 as a fore (a step between jack and smoother) or short jointer.

But then I'm relatively new to this game too....

Cheers, Vann.

Awww.....now you're getting all technical. I really should've checked before I mentioned them both.
So they're both gap-filler planes then?


I think it's worth keeping in mind (for those just starting out in the great rust hunt) that the large tool companies had the capacity to add product to the market, weather or not there was a real (initial) demand for it.
And that's how aluminium planes came about.......

Originally Posted by Vann

I think of the No.6 as a fore (a step between jack and smoother) or short jointer. Cheers, Vann.

Isn't the jointer what you use between the jack and smoother? Along these lines, what's the difference between a "fore" and "jointer"?

Perhaps I should put the question another way. Does anyone actually own these planes (as well as a #5 and #7) and actually use the thing?

Originally Posted by snafuspyramid

Isn't the jointer what you use between the jack and smoother? Along these lines, what's the difference between a "fore" and "jointer"?

Perhaps I should put the question another way. Does anyone actually own these planes (as well as a #5 and #7) and actually use the thing?

Yes I own a #6 (as well as #4,7) and no I don't use it. Because I acquired a #7...amongst other planes.

When I can see the top of the bench again, I'll do some testing and see if there's an appreciable difference in use as a jointer between the #6 and the #7.

The #6 was the first plane I purchased. It was recommended to me by the woodworking teacher and I've been using it for the past three years without any qualms. I do enjoy using it and though I've tried I can't seem to get comfortable with using a #5. I've considered a #5 1/2 but I don't see the point when I've got the #6.

My #6 is used for everything other than smoothing and I do get great results from it.

Will get my hands on a #7 one of these days and see how that takes effect.


Regards,

Denim.

Always interesting reading these posts.

Trade cabinetmakers are trained on a 5½ or a No 6 universally worldwide. A No.6 is a general purpose bench plane, the No 5 really was a homeowner's plane or a portable plane, because, if I was a chippie, I'd hate to have to carry around a No6 all day in the days when you had to lug a box of hand tools around.

A No6 is short enough to use a bench plane and long enough to use a jointer. I haven't touched a smoother in years.

As well, a salient data point -> why are all the old wooden bench planes 18-20" long? I'd contend that historically, this was the optimum length as well.

CHeers,

eddie

I'm also quite new to hand planes. Using them anyway. I've been collecting for a while
I have #4, #4½, #5, #5½, #6 and a #7. The number 6 was the first plane I acquired and I used it for everything till I got a few more. The #7 is much better as a jointer and I prefer the #5½ as a jack/small jointer. The smoothing is best performed by the #4s and the #5 is currently converted to a scrub. The poor old #6, that I would not part with, is relegated to shooting board duty. Which it is quite good at by the way
Try not to get too caught up in the fore, jack, joint,smooth terminology and just enjoy using hand tools. As Seanz said, they're not really rules, more like guide lines.

If you had every size from 1 - 8 your choice of plane would likely be determined by the size of your work piece.

You could set them up starting at #5 as your coarsest with the biggest mouth and most camber, then #5 1/2, 6, 7 & 8 getting gradually finer.

Smoothers #1 - 4 1/2 all set fine with progressively smaller amounts of camber due to blade width. Then you might want a couple with higher degrees of pitch or back bevels for cranky grain and a shooting plane with a straight blade.

So that's around thirteen bench planes. You may want to supplement these with some bevel up planes. Then there's the block planes and all sorts of speciality planes.....

I don't have a #6 but I like using a woodie in that length. I have a few 5's a 5 1/2, 7 and 8 and various smoothers. If I was making furniture using only hand tools I would start with a wooden fore plane then a #7 and only use a smoother where it really needed it.

Best wishes

Steve

Originally Posted by snafuspyramid

I've been banging on for the last week or two about building a workbench. I've settled on a design, but I still need to finish collecting the tools I'll need (read: scrounging rust)

The discussion raised the question for me: what exactly is a #6 for?

...

I don't know what it supposed to be for, but I use a six for jointing the backs and tops of violins. Clever people can do it with a 4 or 5. Speaking of 4 or 5, I seem to have acquired four or five of the things - bit silly really I can only use one at at time.

Tim

I been retired from the trade for a few years now but before the electric plane became common the 6 was the main plane for door hanging. It was heavy enough to sit lfat on the door, but if the door needed to be not quite straight it was short enough to get a bit of a curve on the edge.
Rowley.

The #6 is a perfectly adequate jointer.
You already know that the longer the plane, the 'straighter' a surface/edge can be planed. Lets consider mathematically*, perfectly fettled #6 and #7, that is, the soles are 'flat' and the blade is sharp so you can take reasonably fine shavings. How do they compare in the task of jointing an edge? Actually we want to see how they compare jointing two board edges and laying the edges together as you would for a glue-up (lets say the boards are 2.4m long, a tabletop size). You obviously want to have those two edges as straight as possible so there is no gap between them. When you joint them with the said fettled #7 (with a blade projection of 0.1mm - this is important) and lay them together, the maximum gap between the edges will be very close to 4.3mm, it can't be any worse. With the fettled #6 (same blade projection) the gap between two jointed edges will be close to 5.6mm, it can't be any worse. Not much difference between the #6 and #7. Those gaps are a bit big still and if we reduce the blade projection from .1mm (4thou") to 0.05mm(2thou") easliy doable with a sharp blade, the gaps will reduce to a maximum of 2.2mm and 2.8mm for the #7 and #6 respectively (remember that is over 2400mm). Remember these are maximum gaps with fettled planes, you may do even better than that, but there is so little difference between the #6 and #7 as to be meaningless.
What makes the performance of a plane worse? A plane sole that is concave or convex or a blunt blade where you need to take thick shavings. My advice is to fettle your #6 so the sole is 'flat' and the blade is sharp, the frog flat and you'll learn something ad have a perfectly acceptable plane. Otherwise you may start chasing that elusive next 'perfect tool' that is going to solve all your problems. It seems to be a commom complaint!

*There's no point comparing two real planes unless you can positively show they are both 'flat' and have sharp blades with the same blade projection. To do otherwise invites too many variables. For instance, a convex #7 or one with a blunt blade may perform even worse than a perfect #6.