When you're getting started in woodworking it seems
that every bugger's got an opinion, but by far the most common answer or opinion is whatever
suits you is best.
And it's the right answer, but it's also the most useless answer because it only helps
those who have already got the experience, you don't know what suits yourself so you're
asking that question, and that's what I wanted to do today I kind of wanted to have a bit
more of a, a bit of an insight to just my bench planes, and in particular the wooden
vs. metal scenario, because I think a lot of woodworkers are very intrigued by wooden
planes but have never really given them the go they sort or have this, it's almost like
the woodworker who works with his heart uses them, and I have to be honest I think that
my opinion is, yes you are working with these more with you heart, because there's no denying
and I'll be bloody blunt here, you know metal planes did over take the wooden planes for
a reason, I would say on, put them next to each other on usability on their multi purpose
nature on the simplicity of them, I know they're complicated but they're very simple to use,
they're leagues ahead of wooden planes they really are, if you're wanting a very clear
cut which is better, metal planes are better.
So that seems a bit bloody odd coming from me because I am a massive wooden plane user,
I absolutely love wooden planes I use them every day and I'll never not use them, so
what is that?
I'm trying to put my finger on it, and obviously a lot is what you're shown, what you're brought
up, I never had the struggle in setting them up, but here is a certain character with them,
you're using wood on wood, there's that basicness that simplicity, and they do perform if they're
set up right.
But it's not all heart there are some mega pluses to wooden planes and we'll start with
the smoothers, we'll go in to the negatives and the positives of metal planes later but
we'll start with some positives of these wooden planes.
What you tend to find is, even if you're taking a heavier cut with a wooden smoothing plane,
as long as it's not tearing the work, a much heavier cut than you would with a metal plane,
you'll find you'll have a considerably better finish with a wooden plane.
And that's because, something which isn't really talked about much today, is it burnishes,
the wood is burnishing the wood you're planning, so it's actually polishing.
And when you use a tiny little smoother like this thing, I mean this is so dinky, and you
apply weight to that, and this is another thing we keep getting talked about lately
about how light you should be and no effort pushing, that's true.
But when you're polishing you want to put some weight on that and on a little plane
it's a considerable amount of weight you can get on that little surface.
It's a mirror, and that's because the back of the plane is polishing that wood where
it's been.
I'll do, I'll do a video and I'll show you just how fine you can get these things to
work.
Another great thing about wooden planes is that you can restore them in a fraction of
the time.
Now this plane here this is a metal plane, it's just a number 5, it's a Bailey's a Stanley.
It's very inexpensive, very common, I do use this an awful lot, this is my go to plane.
I haven't really spent much time flattening that sole, it fact I don't think I've ever
even, I haven't even looked at it, because the type of job I've got for this plane doesn't
require that precision.
But if I wanted to flatten this, for one I would need quite a hefty slab to start with,
a good flat surface, and even if that was just a gnat's nadger out it would take me
forever to get that flat.
Of course the more I'm rubbing it the more good technique I need to not actually put
a curve in it, then of course if the beds a little bit out or anything's out it just
takes time with metal, as well as what you're got with a wooden plane.
I mean this I would probably dedicate a Sunday to, I'd say bloody hell it's Sunday, it's
a lovely day the sun's out, I'd get my bench outside or a makeshift table and I'd restore
it probably outside in the sun and it would take me all day, to do a good job.
This on the other hand I'd probably be able to get this in less than twenty minutes to
take a shaving because all I've really got to focus on is making sure that that iron
is flat enough, sharpened, I mean if it's got pitting on that's a different matter,
but the actual flattening, minutes.
It takes as quick to flatten that as it does to shoot a straight edge, and I suppose then
that actually brings us on to something else, the ultimate tool collection really and how
mine formed was through my ability and how accessible the tool was, and what I mean by
that is this plane, this is my number 8, it's a lovely long plane, I bought this with a
very specific task in mine and that is flattening workbench tops, this thing has paid for itself
a thousand times over, I wouldn't have been able to justify the cost of this thing just
for my furniture making, I couldn't have justified it I would not have been wealthy enough, but
for my bench building it is essential.
But long planes do have their place and this is where wood really comes in, because you
can buy, let's just say get yourself a nice Stanley number 7, of the same era of this
plane, it's not vastly old but it's older than me, and it's going to come and you are
going to have to flatten that, the whole point of this plane is to true edges up, it's got
to be flat.
Even in my professional workshop I don't have a surface big enough or flat enough for me
to reliably flatten it so I don't own one, I've never even looked at one but what I did
do and I haven't got it here because it's got water damage on it, because of poorly
stored wooden planes another negative of them, I'd buy wooden planes and I could get them
for very little and I could flatten that sole and keep that sole in check using smaller
planes, I don't need a surface plate I can use another plane to plane that sole flat.
So longer planes, even for somebody that's not particularly in to wooden planes it's
a very good area to start because of the ease of restoration.
Now a big negative on wooden planes is that you have, they're like one trick ponies, you
only, they only really do one task very well and what I find is this plane is very versatile
it's set up to be, I would say coarse to medium I've got a little camber on that iron and
it does most of my work, I can work very efficiently with just this plane.
To get something similar I have to have at least two wooden planes to replicate that,
I have one that's set much finer this one's quite fine, this is a lovely plane I'll show
you this in action in another video, we'll restore some planes in another video as well,
we'll go through it maybe, we'll restore the metal and the wooden to show you how to do
it and how to set them up, but yea this is a lovely fine set plane it works probably
to about as fine as this plane can go, but if I want to go coarser I have to pick up
the next plane, this is set much coarser, and the reason for that is the adjustment
mechanism.
Now you can adjust it with a hammer of course, it's how you set these is with a hammer, and
if you want a little bit of a deeper cut I'll just tap it on the bench, but as a whole you
can't really adjust from fine shavings to rough shavings because if you do that in one
setting, you just tap it out the nature of how the wedge and the iron lock in to the
plane will actually mean you'll probably slide your cap iron up the iron, it's not ideal
so you'd have to take the iron out and reset it manually from scratch, so it's very slow
to set up, very inefficient.
So that is a good reason that I like metal planes, and I think that starters are much
better off with the metal planes because they are very easy to set and on a minimum tool
kit you can be much more versatile, this is another fine example on smoothing planes,
I mean we all know and love the number 4, this is a number 3, I prefer a number 3 I've
got bloody hand like a giant but I much prefer the number 3 I actually hold it like this
because I can't get my hand in it, and off I go, I like a smaller smoothing plane but
that's a different matter.
But this smoothing plane would do all your smoothing needs, it'd do from, I'm gonna grade
smoothing, it would do from the extremely fine right up to sort of just surfacing.
As well as with a wooden plane you run in to a big problem and that is wear, and this
here, this is my general purpose smoothing plane you can see the mouth's quite open that's
because it's been worn I use it an awful lot, it was worn when I got it.
So if I was going to be dressing up some pine and it wasn't a particularly challenging timber
to plane I could get a good finish just straight off this, that's what I would use, but I wouldn't
want to start dressing timber as a general dressing of timber with something like this,
this is my fine smoother, because what I would do is quickly wear the sole of that plane
and actually widen that mouth in return so I have to reserve this for those challenging
timbers.
I look at a piece of wood and go, ohh this is going to be a bugger and what I do is I
pick this plane up, but for most surfacing and dressing I would, I could use this plane.
So what you've already got then is, you've got to get yourself, I mean you don't need
to start with, you don't need to I'm going on but, to be efficient and to use your planes
wisely you end up with a variety like I've got these four smoothers here, these are always
in use now, or they was.
And all had their own purpose because, I suppose what I'm saying is that a fine smoother has
a life span in wooden form, and obviously as an amateur and you're only doing it at
the weekend you might not have to worry about that too much but I do, I can noticeably open
a mouth on a wooden plane.
So that's where the metal planes do come in, they just don't wear.
Now my old man when I was working with him he, you know you'll take any work you can
get, and not all work that my Dad did was particularly what he wanted to do.
We often did fitted wardrobes, that was a very popular thing to be doing, they're still
all the bloody rage.
But you'd be working with a lot more man made materials, mdfs plywoods and whilst plywood,
this is surprising it planes beautifully, the edges of plywood planes ever so easily,
you can get a very clean finish much better than a machine, but with a wooden plane you
found that it very quickly looked like a bloody moulding plane, because it's so abrasive you
would actually wear the sole.
So we always had metal planes available for that job alone because you just don't, you
don't wear it half as easily as you do with a wooden plane so, again there's a question
there of what you expect to build.
If we step back a little bit again and look back at the usability of them, I've mentioned
before just how easy these are to set, with their little windy things and the levers,
you know it's very natural to do, you can do this on the fly, and it's useful because
it gives you the multi ability of a plane you can use it for sort of medium and coarse
and you can have a smoother that can do super fine to medium, but another valid point really
is the learning curve that comes with wooden planes, they're not, if you're just getting
started with woodworking you're not just going to pick one up and start knocking it about
like billion and then off you go and it's gonna work, it isn't.
There is a learning curve with wooden planes, so I think a very good place to start if I
was thinking of how do I get in to wooden planes, I've got some nice metal ones but
I just want to look, you know the part with a wooden plane.
I would say get yourself a nice coarse plane because you can put a nice camber on that
iron and by having that camber it means that you don't have to be half as precise with
your depth adjustments as you do with a straight iron.
So you'll be able to just throw that iron in, knock the wedge on and give it ago and
you'll get a feel.
Because there's a lot of feel with wooden planes, you've got to position your hands
you've got to put weight in different areas.
It's odd actually having your hand right up here if you're used to having your hand right
behind and low like you are on the metal planes.
So get yourself a nice coarse cheapo plane, give the iron a bit of work and just get it
going, that would give you the best introduction, and then slowly work yourself back down to
the finer planes I wouldn't ever start with a smoothing plane to begin with, they're an
art in themselves.
Something like this is a lovely plane once you've got used to that, well I'd go to the
long plane because it's got a good purpose then , but this you can see is much, it's
much straighter that iron, and the straighter and the finer the cut the more skill's required
in setting it up.
So, you really if you're looking at getting in to them, don't buy a load of wooden planes
to start woodworking, what you want to do really is make sure you've got a wooden plane
that's in alright nick, you've got it set up satisfactorily and just leave it on the
side and play with it and you'll soon learn it.
Again, we'll do a video, we'll restore one I'll get an eBay special in, I'll try and
get an ugly duckling, one that's the worst case scenario and we will go through from
scratch restoring it.
We'll pick a plane for a specific job and then we'll show you it in action in a real
world scenario rather than me just planning a piece of pine going, they all work the same.
So as far as the subject goes on bench planes, remember this is bench planes, we're not talking
about specialist joinery planes or anything like that I just want the basic bench planes,
it's very brief and I've kind of kept it like that intentionally because I want to do many
more videos that we can specialise on and I want to do some videos that respond more
to the comments, to the questions because I don't know those questions and I'm looking
forward to hearing those so if you've got any questions on wooden planes or metal planes
fire away and we'll try and get some of the common ones brought up in to a video.