three special Joinery Planes
When a woodworker hears the word hand plane, the first image that most of us visualize is that of a bench plane. And, I think that’s fair. Most of us were (or will be) introduced to either a bench or block plane as the first real “hand tool” in our shop.
However, as a woodworker that tries to blend equal amounts of hand tools and power tools, I think there’s another class of hand planes that most people are aware of, but may not know exactly where they would be used in the shop. I refer to these as joinery planes.
When I use the term joinery plane, you would expect that these are planes that cut joinery. And yes, that’s certainly true, but more often than not, I’m actually using these planes to refine joinery that I’ve cut somewhere else.
For example, I might cut a rabbet at the table saw and get it close. At the bench, I can finesse the fit with a rabbet plane. Tasks like that are where these planes really fit into my shop. However, they can do so much more.
THE CONFUSED COMBINATION PLANE.
Before we go much further, let’s talk about the plane that everyone likes to talk about. I’ve given talks about joinery planes at about half a dozen guild meetings, and it never fails that someone asks about the combination plane.
It slices, it dices, and it juliennes. I wasn’t around when Stanley (and others, such as the Record shown above) were marketing their respective combination planes, but I’m sure that was a tag line used at one point.
The combination planes were designed to be the jack of all trades — a variety of add-ons, blades, and setups would have this plane doing anything you needed. However, upon practical use, most users of these planes realize that they’re pretty tedious. Most get frustrated and throw them back in the box.
It’s for this reason that I tend to not cover them in joinery planes, as I feel there are better options available for most common shop tasks. With that in mind, let’s start at one of the most common — the rabbet plane.
RABBET PLANE
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| For cutting clean rabbets in hardwood, a skewed rabbet plane makes quick work of the task. |
Rabbet planes take many forms. Some are “rabbeting block planes.” Others, like the Veritas version shown, are stand alone planes. The boon of this plane is that it can cut rabbets along the edges of boards, both with the grain and across it.
THE RIGHT FEATURES.
When you look at a rabbet plane, you’ll notice that it shares one feature with a shoulder plane — the blade extends to the very edge of the body, allowing it to get right up against the shoulder of a workpiece. However, there are a few additional features that make it better suited to cutting rabbets.
First, to control the depth of the rabbet you’re cutting, a rabbet plane has a depth stop. You can see this in the photos above. You set the stop to your desired depth, and once the skid comes in contact with the surface, it will stop the plane from cutting.
The width of the rabbet is controlled by a fence. The fence is positioned to only expose as much blade as you want. Older, vintage (wood) rabbet planes may have wood arms and wedges or wood nuts. Modern versions have brass knobs and stainless steel fence rods.
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| Cutting cross-grain rabbets is a rough task with a hand tool. A dedicated rabbet plane has many things going for it, including a nicking/scoring blade that leads the cutting edge, as well as a cutter that is at a skew angle, peeling the cross-grain fibers. | The nicking blade is used first by pulling the plane back across the area to be cut, pre-scoring the fibers before the first pass. |
Finally, what really makes a rabbet plane a beautiful tool to use is the addition of a nicker. You can see this little round cutter below the depth stop above. This is, in essence, a scoring blade.
The nicker is designed to sever the wood fibers as you cut across them, such as you see to the left. These features make this a tool that can quickly clean up machine-cut rabbets, or form its own with a few quick strokes.
THE PLOW PLANE
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| Start the cut at the end of the workpiece. Make several passes, pulling back a bit further each time. |
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| As you deepen the groove, continue to pull the plane further and further down your workpiece, creating a longer groove. |
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| As the groove becomes established, you’re ready to make full-length passes. The quick, short strokes from the end help ensure a straight groove that doesn’t wander. |
Up next is the plow (plough) plane. This is one that hasn’t changed a lot over the years. Vintage ones are often found made out of wood with heavy cutters. A plow plane lives its existence with the sole purpose to cut grooves in any wood that gets in its path. The key with a plow plane is that they cut with the grain.
The lack of any nicker or scoring blade means that this plane simply will not cut across the grain very well. And that’s okay. The plow plane is the plane that you reach for when you need to quickly zip grooves in drawer parts to fit a bottom. Or, when you need to cut grooves on the inside of a frame assembly for a panel.
IT’S ALL IN THE BONES.
The ability to cut grooves comes down to a solid skeleton — the framework of this plane is designed to put all of the force from the narrow cutter into the body of the plane. Unlike a bench plane (or the rabbet plane earlier), the plow planes don’t have a traditional bed for the blade to seat on.
Instead, the bed is a narrow skate — as you can see in the photos here, the plane frame is only an 11⁄88" wide. This means that, while narrow, the entire plane is built around this backbone. It provides support for even the narrowest cutter to provide chatter-free cuts.
VARIETY OF CUTTERS.
As with the rabbet plane, a fence positions the cutter on a plow plane. However, the width of the cut is determined by the blade that is installed. To change the width of the groove you’re cutting, you need to swap out the blade.
This means that to get the most out of a plow plane, you’ll need to have several different cutters on hand in your most commonly used sizes. The ability to change cutters also blurs the line into combination plane lane — check out the box on the next page for other cutter options.
IN OPERATION.
Cutting a groove seems simple. Keep the fence up against the workpiece, and cut until the depth stop engages. With a perfect piece of wood? Yes, but there’s usually a bit more to it than that. The narrow blade of a plow plane has a tendency to follow the grain on a workpiece. To counteract this, you need to break the cuts up into shorter sections.
A MODERN COMBINATION PLANE
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| This plane is the closest modern plane to a combination plane, with the exception that it works well in every task. | The interchangeable soles mean that the cutter is a perfect match to the profile of the sole. |
Finally, this is an odd-ball little plane that I love. It’s what I call a “modern combination” plane. This is the HP-6FX from Bridge City Toolworks. It has the unique feature of changing out the sole to different profiles, in essence making this a modern-day molding plane.
SOLES & CUTTERS.
As you can see in the photo above, the HP-6FX uses various cutters and profiles to achieve different cuts. Some of the soles include a bullnose, a rabbeting sole, a grooving sole, and more. These soles offer a lot of versatility in a small package (though, to be clear, you need to buy the additional soles and blades, so the cost can quickly add up).
Adding one or several of these joinery planes to your tool cabinet is a great way to enhance your woodworking. There’s something about fine-tuning a joint or quickly plowing a groove that puts a smile on your face. And that is what woodworking is all about.
Expanding The Plow
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The medium plow plane shown on the previous page is great for creating grooves in larger parts. Veritas also offers a much smaller, dare I say “cute,” plane called their Box-Maker’s Plow Plane, shown here.
This pint sized plane offers many of the same things you’ll find on its larger brethren, but in a smaller form. This plane is designed for people wanting to create grooves in smaller parts, such as boxes (oddly named, right?).
My small plow plane lives in my tool cabinet as you see here — with a beading blade installed. This little plane is unbelievably adept at cutting various sizes of beads on parts of all sizes.
