I don’t feel you need to be an expert with a shop filled with planes to turn out quality work, but I do feel if you have a few “tuned” planes and plenty of practice you can improve the quality of your work. I don’t remove large quantities of wood with my planes; that work is assigned to my power jointer and power planner. I reserve hand planes for smoothing rough spots left by my power jointer or snip left by my power planer. Also, there are many times when you only want to remove a small amount of wood to make a part line up, flatten a dovetail joint, or put a quick chamfer on an edge. This is where hand planes shine.
The Bench Planes I own are from Lie-Nielsen which are based on the Stanley Bedrock-type planes and are used in the descriptions below.
My Bench Planes:
– No. 4-1/2 Smoothing Plane
– No. 8 Jointer Plane
My Block Planes (I will cover block planes later):
– Low Angle Adjustable Mouth Block Plane 60-1/2
– Rabbet Block Plane 60-1/2R
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Basic Bench Plane Parts (From bottom to Top)
Sole – Bottom of the plane that contacts the surface of the wood being planed
Mouth – The opening in front of the iron (See Fig 1.).
Toe – The front part of the plane (See Fig 1.).
Heel – The back part of the plane (See Fig 1.).
Frog Adjusting Screw – Moves the frog forward or backwards (See Fig 1.).
Locking Nuts – Holds the frog in place (See Fig 1.).
Frog – Holds the blade assembly at a 45° angle to the sole (See Fig 2.).
Adjusting Nut – Moves the chip breaker and iron up or down the frog (See Fig 2.).
Lateral Adjusting Lever – Moves the iron side-to-side leveling it to the sole (See Fig2.).
Iron (Blade) – Is the blade of the plane and cuts the wood (See Fig 3.).
Chip Breaker – Sits between the lever cap and the iron applying pressure to the iron and curls the wood shavings after they are cut by the iron (See Fig 4.).
Lever Cap – Uppermost part of the blade assembly and provides the clamping pressure on the chip breaker and iron (See Fig 5.).
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Five keys to a well tuned Hand Plane
1. Sole: The sole must be flat and smooth. The outer edge of the sole and the mouth should not have any burrs or sharp edges.
2. Iron (Blade): The iron must be sharp. To fully cover sharpening the iron it needs its own article, but the definition of a sharp edge is the intersection of two flat smooth surfaces.
3. Chip Breaker: The front edge of the chip breaker should be close to the front edge of the iron; this holds the iron down and prevents chattering. The front edge that contacts the iron must be flat. You should not be able to see any light between the front edge of the chip breaker and the iron when they are together. If you can see light, then wood shavings can get caught and choke the plane. Also, the round part of the chip breaker above the front edge should be smooth. If it is smooth, then the shavings will roll off naturally.
4. Mouth: Adjust the mouth opening by moving the frog forward or backward; the mouth opening should be just wider than the thickness of the shavings you are going to make. With a typical Bench Plane you have to remove the blade to access the screws that hold the frog in place. On the bedrock series, the locking screws are on the back side of the frog and you don’t have to remove the blade to loosen them.
5. Iron Adjustment: The blade should be adjusted for depth of cut and laterally to the sole. I like to use a small piece of wood to help in the lateral adjustment. Lay a white piece of paper on the table. Turn the plane over in your hands and sight down the sole from the toe to the heel. Then advance the blade until it just start to show through the sole. Use the lateral adjustment level to level the blade. Then to fine tune the adjustment, use a small piece of wood to take small shaving from each side of the blade to see which side is higher or if the iron is level. Make adjustments as needed. When the iron is level back it into the plane until it does not take any shavings. Then make continuous passes over a board slowly advancing the blade after each pass until it starts to cut. Now you are ready to make shavings.
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Related Links and References
Lie-Nielsen Use & Care Instructions
Matt’s Basement Workshop has various podcasts on hand planes
Popular Woodworking June 2007 Issue #162
HANDPLANES for Beginners page 70
American Woodworker #129 July 2007
Troubleshoot Your Plane page 64
