If you are knowledgable about planes..

[Dave Bagwill]

...maybe you can clear up some confusion for me.

From woodworking sites I get the following series of steps:
Scrub plane
Fore plane
Jack plane
Bench plane
Block plane
Smoother plane
Finishing plane

And to make it worse, a number of the come in 'bevel-up' configurations for a little more money. Some are low-angle, some are high angle.

Apparently you can fit a block plane with a 50* blade and use it for difficult wood - then why purchase a plane dedicated to that purpose?

Little help here please? Thanks

[Dave Bagwill]

Brian Burns got back to me on this - does not answer all the questions but is a good start:

"Hi Dave,

I have a Stanley #4 that I use occasionally for rough surfacing of brace stock. It's equipped with a Ron Hock iron and chip-breaker, which makes it useable on hardwoods. The stock Stanley iron and chip-breaker are not up to hardwood use. Yes on the two irons for the Veritas. I have one with a 25° top bevel that gives a 45° cutting angle for general use, and a second with a 40° top bevel that gives a cutting angle of 60° for figured hardwoods.

For cross grain hogging off of material, I would use your #5 with the iron sharpened to a small radius like a "scrub plane". The surface will be rough as a cob, so leave some material for clean-up.

Outside of those two planes the only one I use is the Boone brace shaving plane--a teeny little wooden plane made for the purpose. The photos are actually larger than the planes. The guy that makes them is HUGE!"

[Rienk Ayers]

I've been considering the Hock blades too.
But I'm never sure what angles are being talked about when this is discussed... total angles off of the wood, or from perpendicular?
Drawings of what Brian is explaining would be very helpful to a nincompoop like me.

[dave d]

Dave - to answer the question about buying a dedicated plane for difficult grain, you certainly don't have to if you can get a blade with an angle suited for that grain, that fits on a plane you already have. I have a block plane with two blades, and a jack plane with two blades. For folks that don't like to change their blades, they may just want to get the whole plane, or something slightly different to help them justify the need(want) to buy another tool :)

Rienk - the angles discussed are from horizontal. So for example on a bevel-up plane with a 12* bed angle and a 25* blade you would have a cutting angle of 37*. This is a rather low angle so it would likely be used for planing end grain. A 38 degree blade is a good middle-ground angle for smoothing or edge-grain work, and a 50 degree blade (resulting in a 62* cutting angle) would be used for the tricky wavy grain, as Brian mentioned.

plane37.jpg (23.62 KiB) Viewed 1331 times

Does that help? I have more opinions to share if needed :)

[ken cierp]

Good one DD, not sure I had ever since such a drawing. By all means share more of your views!

[Dave Bagwill]

Couple of pix from Brian's Burns' book: