Thread: Your Top Ten Handplanes by Use

Having been ribbed by NZstu in another thread, about a shelf full of No.4s - I present to you my Top Ten Handplanes.

From left to right :

1 - Record No.04
2 - Record No.04ss
3 - Record No.04
4 - Record No.04
5 - Record No.04
6 - Record No.04ss
7 - Record No.04ss
8 - Record No.04ss
9 - Record No.04
10- Record No.04

Cheers, Vann

But more seriously :

My first plane was a Stanley (UK) No.4, bought in 1973 for $7.94. It is rubbish (I've still got it) and for years I thought I couldn't plane by hand.

My third handplane is a Veritas LA Jack - wow, what a great plane. Full length, full width shavings... fabulous

So I don't have ten users (yet) but here are my seven users:

1 - Record 04ss
2 - Record 05
3 - Veritas LAJ
4 - Clifton No.3
5 - Veritas Edge plane
6 - Stanley (UK) No.110
7 - Woden duplex Rabbet
and
8 - (not shown) Record 043 Plough plane.

The Record 04 & 05 are both damaged planes (the #4 has the side 'wing' broken off and the #5 has been brased up one side). I fettled these two figuring that if I stuffed them it wouldn't matter. However the 04 is one of my favourites - it's set up for coarse smoothing and general work.

The other favourite is the Clifton No.3 - set up for fine smoothing.

Cheers all, and Merry Christmas, Vann.

OK - Vann gives me courage to reply. I have collected many ordinary planes cheaply ... and I have a fondness for injured/repaired planes.

The addiction has roots extending back, but the avalanche started when I went to the auction at the Fremantle Wooden Boat Works. I bought a box that had a #4 and a #5 - modern, but sharp and well-cared for. I didn't even know what a #4 or a #5 was, I had to look it up online.

Then I looked on Ebay ... !

While there is a refectory table in the not too distant future, I haven't built much so far other than my bandsaw table. Mostly I have bought planes (and chisels) and just fiddled them, and sharpened them, and tried them on scrap until I could get some sort of a result. I still have the first stick of jarrah that I managed to make smooth and glossy.
I slept with it for a week.

So ... this is kinda a list of planes I have gotten to work well.

1. Record 074 shoulder plane ... more like a whole arm ... used it so much in making the bandsaw table. Was a good price - the cast RHS rear wing is broken off.

2. Stanley #40 - I have used this a surprising amount. It was great for flattening areas of those big blocks ready to be bandsawn, at 7am when it was too early to annoy the neighbours with the electric planer.

3. #608C I have enjoyed since I got it - and then I added a Ray Iles blade.

4.+5.(+5a) The ECE Primus planes. I got these early on due to reading positive reviews in magazines and online and have appreciated them more and more over time. The jointer isn't in the photo, but I'm kinda slipping it in here They have lignum vitae soles and have a very special feel to using them wood on wood. It took me a long time to feel confortable adjusting the smoother!

6. Stanley 60 1/2 ... at least that's what I bought it as. Just happy to get a low angle block plane with adjustable mouth. The sole had broken away a little behind the mouth ... was cheap ... works great.

7. #605C. This has only just pushed aside the original #5 I have with "Wooden Boat Works Fremantle" engraved into it. I didn't want to alter that plane at all, so the Ray Iles blade went into this one. This one has a braze in the front right cheek ... hard to see in the photo.

8. Japanese plane. This was my first (japanese) one I bought. It's nowhere near perfect, but it was sharp when I got it, planes finely and it taught me a lot.

9. When I started getting (well-used) infill planes it was a revelation. A completely different feel to planing with metal stanleys. This panel plane with busted-up sides does a brilliant job as a smoother every time.

10. Norris A5 - post-WW2 - well-used. It wasn't all that long ago that I finally got an A5, and originally it didn't perform as well as the non-adjusting infills that I had. It took some resuscitating and getting used to before I started wanting to grab it more and more. I only just now have a pristine A5 and a panel plane winging their way from Patrick Leach's lay-by service ... will take a while to arrive ... very keen to try them out once they get here

Finally I want to offer my apologies to the transitionals, the pure woodies, and all the other infills ... just 'cos you're not on the list doesn't mean I don't love you.

Thank you fellow addicts,
Paul McGee

Hmmmm!

Record 04 Bench
Record 120 Block
Record 778 Rebate
Record 041 Shoulder
Stanley 71 Router
Record 044 Plough
Stanley 13-050 Plough etc (across grain)
Stanley 6 "Mister Useful", (Heavy USA War Edition)
Stanley 79 Side Rebate
Record 080 Scraper

First plane was the Record 04 plane.

These lists more accurately describe the "kind" of work that we do, as well as usefulness.

cheerio, mike

Originally Posted by mike48

........These lists more accurately describe the "kind" of work that we do, as well as usefulness.

Was thinking the very same thing myself, Mike.

It might have been more informative if we'd been asked to nominate what we mostly make (when not collecting, fiddling with, or sharpening great herds of planes! ). I suspect that even those of us who make similar things find our own paths from raw wood to finished item, but there must be a few general trends....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Was thinking the very same thing myself, Mike.

It might have been more informative if we'd been asked to nominate what we mostly make (when not collecting, fiddling with, or sharpening great herds of planes! ). I suspect that even those of us who make similar things find our own paths from raw wood to finished item, but there must be a few general trends....

Cheers,

I'll go then - here is my gaggle of planes and a project I've just finished using them on.

My taste is for very simple furniture, so anything that might be used for decorative purposes just doesn't figure...

The table turned out really well. Is that a condom lying on the floor?

Originally Posted by Woodwould

Is that a condom lying on the floor?

A couple of rogue dinosaur stickers, actually... They keep turning up all over the place.

Hi NZstu

is that nice "Roundel blue" paint on your planes, or the dreaded black paint of "inferior" planes?

only joking, I have and use both, mike

I suppose the most used planes are those in the bench drawer
1. 605 with a TS blade & chip breaker
2. 62 LA Jack with an LN replacement blade
3. Stanley 6 type 10 with TS blade & chip breaker
4. Stanley 60 1/2 with Adjustable mouth & chip in mouth.
There is a 78 in the drawer but it has'nt been used for a while.
Over to the cabinet
5. Stanley 93. Love it, should be in the drawer
6. Stanley 112
7. Stanley 45 Nice & basic, easy to use, slowly grinding custom blades to suit various profiles. I have a 55 but lifes too short to set it up.
8. Stanley 3 type 11, will fit a TS blade when next sharpened
9. Stanley 51/52 shooting board & plane. Bought it earlier in 2011 & now use it a lot as I try to get things more exact
10. Aldi plane (gift with tongue in cheek from BIL) I like the feel of wood on wood & it works so well.
Regards, Bill

Originally Posted by mike48

Hi NZstu

is that nice "Roundel blue" paint on your planes, or the dreaded black paint of "inferior" planes?

only joking, I have and use both, mike

Classic black for me, although blue would go nicely with the walls...

Gents,

I have been collecting and restoring handplanes for 7 years and I can not say that I have a top 10 - more like top 30. I use the same type of plane tuned in different ways:

• Use a Type 16 no. 6 set for a course cut to rough down then switch to a Bedrock 606 set for finishing cuts.
• Use a Type 14 no 5 for jointing small boards finishing with a 605 to improve the finish.
• My favorite block planes are 18, 19, 60 1/2, 65 and the minute 203. Don't forget a 9-1/2 either. All are duplicated and set-up ready to work from a course-roughing cut to a cut less than .001". Just swith between planes as the work progresses through its stages.
• A 605 1/4 is my perfect plane for meduim bench work on thinner stock.
• 92 and 93 shoulder planes are blessing.
• For flattening bench tops depending the amount of "warp/twist" start by targeting the high spots with either a SW 3, 4 or 5 planning across the grain followed by diagonal with a 5 1/2 to get a flat surface then along the gain with a 607 or 608 to remove all the "wind-rows". Its great exercise!!.
• Have a LN 62 low angle which improves cranky grain tear out.

All my user planes are Stanley USA except for the LN. All required a fair amount of tuning even the LN.

Have tried the WoodRiver range and can recommend without hesitation - they are a good plane and if I was starting out again would have bought the set.

Handplaning has great advantages once your technique for tuning and using reaches the "confidence" level. No noise, no dust only shavings, superior finish requiring little or no sanding, can take accurate cuts on all or only a specific area of the stock and definately less chance of injury.

BJ.

Originally Posted by NZStu

Classic black for me, although blue would go nicely with the walls...

The only problem is it's much harder to find paint to touch up the blue, where I've managed to patch up the black on a few to a point that it's impossible to tell it's been done.

It's interesting to note that we're seeing a lot of repeated planes and not just the bench planes. But it's still a small portion of all the plane designs made over time - this thread shows which worked and which didn't quite well.

Originally Posted by andrewr79

But it's still a small portion of all the plane designs made over time - this thread shows which worked and which didn't quite well.

It's also an indication of what was mass produced and affordable. I'm sure we'd all have a couple of Norrises as our favourites if we all had them. (can you tell I would really like a nice Norris smoother and yes I saw Ian's A5 for sale but it cost more than all my planes put together I could never slip that one past the minister of finance)