The Hand plane (Tips from a woodworker with 70years of experience)

Today we're going to discuss one of the most useful and most aggravating (for beginners) hand tools in the shop, the hand plane. In the following post you will learn about one man's take on how to sharpen, clean, store, and about adjustments of the all steel style hand planes. Before you stop reading right here let me mention, that this man is not me, but an 84 year old carpenter named John. John has been a woodworker professionally since he was 14. What you read here will go against just about anything a woodworking magazine, or youtube video will tell you but it works fantastically. I will tell you the story of John in a later post, in this post we will stick to the Hand planes.

As you may or may not know there are thousands of styles of hand planes, and they do all sorts of amazing things, but we are going to discuss the plane jane hand plane. John told me that for 30+ years he only really used one hand plane for smoothing and jointing, and that was a Stanley no.4. It wasn't until later that he got a bench plane and jack plane. So let's just start with the no.4 because for the most part it is the same as the other two.

This is the No.4 hand plane. Yep its an oldie, but this particular one is a Craftsman and its mine. It was actually made by Stanley, but Craftsman used several manufacturers to make their hand planes. You can go to your local box store and buy a no.4 Stanley, but it is not going to be the same as the vintage planes. It looks the same, and feels pretty much the same, but the difference is in how its made. We'll discuss these differences when we discuss the setup, but just know if you have a new no.4 that's ok, don't toss it.

First let's discuss the handles. Believe it or not, they are not all the same. John handed me several examples to try out, and each one felt different. Some I could fit my hand into and hold it like it was meant to be held, others I couldn't. Some would rub my hand in certain areas, which can cause nasty blisters, and some would not. A few were heavier, and a few were lighter. From a distance they all looked the same. John told me that a hand plane can be the greatest in the world, but if it does't fit your hand, you'll never get it to work right for you. So if you haven't bought one yet, and are thinking about it, put your hands on it first.

There are two categories of metal hand planes, according to John, and all metal hand planes fall into these two categories. The difference between these two categories is wether or not the plane has an easily accessible adjustment screw for the frog. The frog is adjustable on both, but one (without the easily accessible screw) has to have the blade removed and two screws loosened to adjust the frog. This one can be a pain if you feel the need to adjust the frog between pieces, but it is meant to be set up once and forgotten about. The second one has a single screw below the depth adjustment that can be turned to adjust the frog forward or backwards, opening the throat or closing it. (this is labeled "Adjuster Screw{Frog}" below)

Courtesy of Lie-Nielson Bench Planes 

John told me that being able to adjust the throat opening easily is good, but it's not a must have as they all adjust in some way. Other than that the "Stanley style" planes are really all the same with exception to blade angles. Almost all the new planes that you buy are going to be the easily adjustable frog type. This is where the new Stanleys have a quality control issue (Kobalt as well). Often the frog is not machined but ground on these newer planes, that means 9 times out of 10 it will not adjust correctly until you take it apart and fix it. The vintage planes were machined, so they tend to be fine in this department. On my Kobalt, this was an issue. The frog was placed in a jig and ground, but the jig must have been tilted to the left by 1/16". This means that before I reground the frog I needed to have the lateral blade adjustment lever all the way to one side to make a the blade straight. When I did regrind the frog, and put it back in, I found that the screw that holds the frog adjustment tab was now 1/16" off. So I had to remove the adjustment tab, and grind the top a little and check it. I did this over and over until I got it right. The process of fixing the frog took about 3 hrs. 

Most of the videos that I have watched on youtube about setting up a hand plane said that the sole of the plane has to be perfectly flat. If you take a combination square that is true and place the ruler side against the sole, and the other part against the side of the plane that the sole should be perfectly flat and square to the sides. John says this is important, but it doesn't have to be perfect. How many readers just gasped? Well his point is that the plane should be close, very close, but it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. Yes the sides need to be square to the sole, but out of the box John says most of them are. If the sole is cupped slightly in the center (by more than a few thousandth's of an inch) you will need to flatten it. On the other hand if its only 2 thousandths out, don't worry about it, "It's woodworking not machining" John says. I think for the average joe this is absolutely true. For other's that are into the super fine stuff perfection matters, but as John points out, wood is never perfect. "You can't make something perfect, that is full of hidden knots, or cracks anyway, besides it will flatten after a few years of keeping it clean" John states. What does he mean by this, well John believes in taking care of his tools, and this means taking it to sand paper to clean it occasionally, and keeping it waxed. That's what he means when he says a new plane is like a novice woodworker, it gets better with experience. 

John comes from an age where you respect your tools. He told me that in the 40's to 50's a Stanley no.4 cost about $3.50 brand new. Sounds cheap to us, but when you factor in inflation, and the fact that a hand saw cost $1.50 back then you realize the price hasn't really changed much. $3.50 then is a lot like $40 now. The quality was better, but John thinks they weren't as good at figuring out ways to cheapen things back then, or there wasn't the desire too. So that being said John says there are somethings a person should know about caring for hand planes. First and for most never store it on its sole. He says "The magazines today tell you to run the blade back up into the plane and sit it on the sole, that's horse shit" he says. "If you do that then every time you go to use it you got to get the blade adjusted back out, which means swipe and adjust, swipe and adjust, if you just leave the blade out and store it on it's side you don't have to worry about all that". "Besides what if you forget to suck that blade back up into the plane and set it hard on the table on it's sole, you just messed up the blade. Suck it back in there or not, as long as you remember to set it on its side, you don't have to worry about it" he says. It is important to keep in mind that John is a guy that needed to set a plane up, and expect it to be the same every time he picked it up, so I think this is really good advice. 

So if you know a lot about planes you have probably turned your nose up a couple of times but you haven't completely shunned this article, well that may change at this point. John sharpens his plane blades in a way that is completely against the ways that most people tell you to do it. So let's look at his sharpening strategy as if we were making a new plane sharp, or fixing a really dull blade. This is what John starts with....

Seriously he uses a bench grinder. He leaves it off and puts the blade against the wheel at the same angle the blade is already ground, then adjusts the rest to the blade. Next he makes sure the little can of water he has beside the grinder is full. Last he turns it on and swipes it across a few times, each time dipping it in the water to keep it cool, then he checks it. This is what he is looking for... 

He is looking for the concave shape the wheel naturally makes to go from the edge to the back like pictured above. Then he heads to his sharpening stone. He uses a oil stone that is a combination. Rough on one side, smooth on the other. John thinks it is best to build a little box to fit it in, John's box fits the stone exactly and has a lid. He also points out that he has run four screws through the box on the bottom, from the inside to the outside just enough for the screw tips to protrude, then breaks the screws off so the stone sits flat in the box. The screws keep the box from sliding on your work bench while sharpening. 

John sharpens his blades completely by hand holding it at the angle "the blade wants to sit at". He then puts 3 in 1 oil on the stone and proceeds to push it around on the stone in a circular motion. He does this and then checks the face of the blade. He is looking for three things. First he wants the blade to take on the following shape....

                                                 Standard                                 John's way

Next he looks at the blade from the side. This is what he wants it to look like....

John also wants a bur to form on the back side of the blade. Most woodworkers tell you to lay the blade on it's back side on the stone, then left up slightly and draw back. the point of this is to make the two angles meet into a really sharp edge. John says "That's Horse shit!, you want a plane iron, not a damn hatchet!" I find that John likes the combination of the words Horse and Shit when debunking what he says are myths. He turns the blade over onto its back side, flat, and then moves it in a circular motion to knock off the bur. After demonstrating the perfect method, he starts moving at his normal speed. You can tell he has done this a million times as his 84 year old hands flip the blade swipes, flips the blade and swipes, and does it so fast he is literally blinding me as the flash of the sunlight hitting the blade hits my eyes. Yes his irons are that well polished. John also says you should never sharpen in the dark. Dummy me asks him why not, and he flashes a quick smile and says "thats how you cut yourself, turn a light on!" "There's only one thing a man should do in the dark, and if it involves sharp objects, you have the wrong woman!" I loved this man's humor!

He put the iron in the plane, and adjusted it by planing on a piece of mahogany, till he got perfect curls, and then handed me the plane. "Try this he said", and I did. I can tell you that was the smoothest shaving I have ever made. I couldn't believe it. He then says "You like that? Watch this" he takes the plane from my hands and adjusts the depth and swipes the plane over the wood. By feel this man just adjusted a plane to take out a mahogany shaving that was full width of the iron, and so thin I could literally see through it. "I bet that's only a couple of cells thick right there." he says.  I was completely amazed, I asked him if this was the no.4 he had told me about that he had his whole career. "No, he said I just bought that one at a yard sale yesterday. I tuned it, cleaned it, and sharpened it while we were talking. Never used it before, but its a good plane". "You want it" he asks, "How much you want for it?" I say. "Nothing I only paid $2 for it", walking over to a cabinet he opens the door, "I have at least 40 no.4's". I am amazed as I see three shelves full of no.4's. 

Before I left I also bought a no.5 Stanley off of him for $30. 

Every time I use these planes I will forever remember the time a 84 year old woodworker took 2 hours of his time to show me his secrets. I hope this article helps some of you to learn to use a hand plane, because his methods really work for me.