Originally Posted by
Trevor Goodwin
What is the Jack in Jack plane? Is it "Jack of all trades" or something else, I'm not sure how long that phrase has been around and how it translates. I know a lot of people think the Jack plane is just for rough work, with a heavy camber, but I've always thought of them as an all-rounder, so Jack of all trades makes sense but sometimes these nicknames are coincidental. I did some work the other day with a lightly crowned blade in my #5 and found it great for roughing across grain with a heavy cut, flattening with grain, and then smoothing. I finished with a finely set #3 so that I didn't need to adjust the mouth. If I was working on a longer piece I'd happily consider a #6 for the job - that is: dimensioning, flattening, "rough" smoothing.
I've found with my #5 jack planes (one Stanley and one Falcon), if there is an 8" camber on the blade there is barely room for the chips in the mouth when taking a full-width shaving (because the mouth is too small), so if they didn't come from the factory ready for heaving roughing cuts why do a lot of people say that's their intended use?