Thread: Electric Plane or Manual Plane or Both

Uh oh, I feel a fight coming on.

I'm all for a bit of both. I only use my electric plane for taking the paint off recycled boards, and putting a rough chamfer on non-important things. Hand planes do many different things for many different jobs and most woodies will have an assortment.

Good luck. Let the games begin

I've been asking myself the same question of late, I still haven't come up with an answer though, but I think Yowie is right, a combination of both.
An electric plane will never do all that an assortment of hand planes will do but if you have enough hand planes you can do everything an electric plane will.
I found the best way to get an idea (apart from reading these forums) was to watch videos of them both on youtube, see what people use them for and how they work, then you can decide if that's what you need em for.

I can't believe you got this far in wood working without at least a plane and some chisels. I think chisels are the most often used tool in the shed. But back to your question...

As always with tools it depends on what work you do.

Personally, I think electric planes, can cause huge amounts of damage to your project or your self if you're not careful, and there isn't a job in furniture making I think they are suited for.

Hand planes. Depends on your budget.

My first plane was a stanley, baily, no 5. Personally I think the no 5 is a better all rounder.(Cf. no 4). I still use it on most projects.

Another option would be a veritas no 5, or a low angle jack, which would be better striaght out of the box cf. the baily.

It'd also be helpful to give us some idea of what sort of projects you're interested in. Then our responses might be more useful.

Boz is right about furniture... but furniture making is hardly the entirety of the field of woodwork.

I, for one, would be lost without my 'leccy buzzer. I use it for removing bulk material quickly... but never, ever for finishing.

There is a temptation with the electric plane to remove too much wood in one pass. It is the same temptation that causes us to buy electric planes in the first place.

A small mistake in your motion with a handplane can become a question as to whether the slip with the power plane has turned your piece into firewood. Beware!

The only time I use one now is for sizing doors. (Even so, I have one ugly door. I'll replace it one day!) Some sort of a fence is handy when using one too in order to keep the tool at a consistent angle.

Hi Arry,

Skew is right - we need to know what sort of work you are wanting a plane for.

If you are doing some house framing & want to quickly remove material from a stud, bearer, joist, rafter etc then you probably want an electric plane. If you are building furniture then you need to consider what part of the process you intend to use the plane for - but for furniture you are probably best with handplanes (note - I used the plural!). And there are plenty of other ifs...

Others may disagree, but I would equate the electric plane with a scrub plane - it lets you remove a lot of material quickly, but is not realy a tool for finessing the work.

Do keep in mind that handplanes can become very addictive

OK - I had a quick look at your recent posts - it is furniture & you want to bevel the ends of a nice looking jarrah table. This is not a task for a handheld electric planer.

You could machine cut the bevels & sand the resulting surface.

However if you want to get one plane to help with this and also get you started with planes, I would suggest the Veritas Low Angle jack - it will cope with the end grain planing well, and is very versatile for many other tasks. You will also need to learn to sharpen the blade! Many posts on sharpening on this forum - you could also get Ron Hock's excellent book "The Perfect Edge" or the "Complete Guide to Sharpening" by Leonard Lee.

Chris Schwarz book "Handplane Essentials" has a collection of articles on many aspects of handplane selction and use. You can also peruse his blog entries on handplanes at Popular Woodworking Magazine. Garret Hack has a good book on handplanes also - imaginatively called "The Handplane Book"

And if you are gong to plane, you will need a sturdy surface (read workbench) to hold the work you are planing.

I use a block plane for any touch up required, with electric planes many do not have a long bed. I have both types but I rarely if ever use the short bed one.
les

I have tried to use an electric plane on a few occasions and have not been very happy with them. They are far too aggressive, heavy and cumbersome for my liking and would not use one in any event for finishing. You can't get the "feel" as you get with a hand plane from the electric plane when you are working with one. The last one I bought I returned to the shop after trialing it for a couple of hours, I found the switch too hard to click on or off due to arthritis in my hands.

get both I'd say. electric plane to get you close fast, then slow it all down, switch to the plane so you can creep in spot on.

If it were me, I'd be putting my money into a nice hand plane. Electric planes have their place; where it is used to remove material quickly, but precision or aesthetics are not required. I find they are harder to get a nice feel for, and they are difficult to get a flat surface with. The blades are also right fun to maintain when they go blunt.

Hand planes offer better feel, and better control, and leave you with a very respectable finish, not to mention that once you get a decent stone and honing guide they are easy to sharpen and look after. And they are quiet too! Well looked after, a hand plane will last an entire lifetime if not more and do anything an electric cousin can.

If you already have a plane and thicknesser and intend to do cabinet/furniture work, I think it's time to invest some time and money in a couple of hand planes.

I don't have either a planer or thicknesser, so I use an electric plane for removing bulk. But it would fast become redundant otherwise.

Like Dan I can't believe you don't own a chisel. Anyway be that as it may, as the others have said it depends totally upon your methods of work.

I have all manner of different planes. A planer/thicknesser for sizing stock, and numerous hand planes for more subtle operations and an electric plane for when I need to quickly and roughly cut something to size, especially for carpentry in an awkward position . In terms of total time in use the hand planes get more use. This is because I find them more pleasant and rewarding to handle. They fit better with my personal philosophy around my work too.

In my view there are some jobs you simply cannot do with any degree of adequacy or comfort with an electric device. That is unless you are prepared to spend thousands upon thousands on a special purpose machine that may only get minimal usage. Take my Stanley number 8 for example it's fantastic for levelling benches and tabletops. To do this any other way requires one of the following: a large belt sander preferably with an external sanding frame, a large drum sander or a very large thicknesser. The belt sander option is time consuming, resource intensive, noisy and dusty not to mention less accurate and results in a finish nowhere near the quality of that from a hand plane. The other two options are just not viable in most sheds, certainly not in mine which has limited space. I can level a bench while listening to the radio or chatting to whoever might be visiting. It's also good physical exercise.

If I were to recommend a first plane I'd suggest a Jack plane. If you can come up with the cash then the Veritas low angle jack is the pick of the bunch in terms of the price to performance ratio. Otherwise, the best bet is to go to some of the markets and garage sales and get an older stanley number 5. I've had big quality difficulties with the newer Stanleys so I'd advise you to steer clear of them.

In order to get any plane to perform you need to keep it sharp. The books suggested above are all good references and you'll learn skills you will need to apply when you get some chisels too....still can't believe there is a woodworker with no chisels.

Cheers

Horaldic

+1 to both.

You can do a lot of waste removal in dense or silica rich timbers with a lekky plane with TCT blades, and then for close dimensioning and finishing pick up a handplane.