Creating a scrub plane

[Howard Pollack]

Hi- I have 2 planes I don't use, one is a Nooitgedagt smoother, the other a transitional jack plane. I'd like to make a scrub plane out of one of them. Is one likely to function better than the other as a scrub? Both blades are about 1.75" in width. Also, what should be the radius of the camber of the blade. Thanks for your thoughts. -Howard

[Bill Houghton]

Adjusters and stuff like that aren't needed.

I'd go with the one with the thicker iron, if one has a thicker iron; barring that, with the smoother, if it's the modern version of an old woodie, with wedge holding the iron, because that's about all you need, and it should be easier to get in and remove the wood you need out of your way without the metal parts of the transitional getting IN the way.

Radius: for an iron that wide, you should probably not try to replicate the radius of a Stanley scrub, which has a much narrower iron. I'm not sure the exact radius much matters - grind out something that looks good and try it.

Bill, no expert, just babbling

[David Gilbert]

I think that either of these should work. I'm not sure what the Nooitgedagt smoother looks like but I think it is a wood bodied plane.

I had a Footprint #4 with a very poor blade (it wouldn't hold an edge) that I reground on my grinder and then "honed" on my very coarse and coarse DMT diamond stone and it works pretty well at hogging out the wood. I just measured the radius and it's about 8" diameter (but I don't think it makes much of a difference). Since my plane has a chip breaker, I just pulled it back an 1/8" or so and started planing. This crummy blade works fine as a scrub. You may need to open up the mouth so the larger shavings don't clog it up. Does the Nooitgedagt have a frog you can move back? Since all you are risking is the blade, I would say give it a go!

After posting this note I went back down to shop and resharpened my blade. I found that honing it a bit more through most of my scary sharp grits helped it cut even better.

Cheers,
Dave

[Bill Houghton]

Since all you are risking is the blade, I would say give it a go!

True. Regrind the blade first, mess around with it. If it works, hog out the mouth - when you get going with a scrub, you'll be removing chips that look like the chips you get from a gouge, very thick, so you need the throat room.

[John Schreiber]

I had an off brand #5 which would not hold an adjustment well enough for regular work. Opening up the mouth and grinding a curve with a 4" radius turned it into a fine scrub plane. I'd modify the heavier plane. Momentum helps in a scrub plane.

[Marcus Ward]

I have a transitional jointer I use as a scrub, it works great even with the stock iron. When flattening the bottom I had to take so much off that the mouth was huge so I ground a camber on the iron and have used it ever since. I like it a lot more than my vintage stanley scrub plane.

[Matt Edwards]

I've been flamed over this before, but I'll go out on a limb here.

Bare in mind that this is only what I would do and have done and by no means intended to start a battle over scrub planes between purist tool snobs and guys that like to work with what they have on hand for a make do solution to a problem.

That being said, I have a Stanley 5 1/2 that I use as roughing out plane (I wont use the "s" word just to be safe) The blade is a stock one with approximately a 3.5 radius ground on the business end. Personally speaking, this has worked very well for me. The extra heft makes for good momentum hogging off large chunks to rough out stock, and I don't mind a little work out as I work. If a guy was going to be rough working stock ALOT, and by a lot for me that would be more than 1 medium to large project in less than a month. It might be a better idea to get a dedicated scrub, or resort to a means of the tailed sort.

I'm sure eventually I'll end up with a 40 or 40 1/2 scrubber, but when I first needed one I happened to have 2 5 1/2's one of which I had all of 5 bucks in. And since all I ended up needing to do was camber the blade and open the mouth a hair it was an experiment I have not regretted as of yet.

Regards!
Matt

[Bill Houghton]

Momentum helps in a scrub plane.

Interesting - the Stanley scrub is very light, being thin, and works fine for me. The iron is rather narrow, so the chips are correspondingly narrow; this may be why the lighter plane works. If I wind up with a surplus 4 or 5, I'll have to try modifying it as a scrub, to compare the two.

[Andy Hsieh]

you converted a 5 1/2 into a scrub what's next, an anderson smoother into a butt mortise plane?

ok - I'm over it now

[Matt Edwards]

I think my next feat will be an attempt at turning a tree in to something other than shavings and some dust.

Matt

[Alan DuBoff]

Interesting - the Stanley scrub is very light, being thin, and works fine for me. The iron is rather narrow, so the chips are correspondingly narrow; this may be why the lighter plane works. If I wind up with a surplus 4 or 5, I'll have to try modifying it as a scrub, to compare the two.

Correct you are Bill, the scrub is much narrower, and I've been under the impression that it is because when your taking a large chip, like the scrub does, you want the narrow width to prevent too much resistance.

I have not heard that a hefty plane makes a good scrub, and in fact, just the opposite.

For this reason, the 5 1/4 Junior Jack is the preferred plane to turn into a scrub, it has a 1 3/4" wide blade on it.

[Doug Shepard]

...when your taking a large chip, like the scrub does, you want the narrow width to prevent too much resistance.
....

Or put another way: With the depth set for the thickest shaving you could reasonably make without massive tearout and still be able to push it through the wood, the outer portions of the blade wouldn't be making contact anyway. So a wider blade/plane would just be a waste of money.

[willie sobat]

As a hybrid (hand/power) tool user the primary reason I use a scrub is to flatten panels in preparation to run through a power planer. Since my (power) jointer is only 6" wide this happens quite often. I have a Stanley #40. However, I have an off-brand #5 that I use a radiused iron on and find that it works better for me; for the purpose I have described.

[Bill Houghton]

Or put another way: With the depth set for the thickest shaving you could reasonably make without massive tearout and still be able to push it through the wood, the outer portions of the blade wouldn't be making contact anyway. So a wider blade/plane would just be a waste of money.

I'm very happy with my No. 40 (especially since the $6 price, 15 years or so ago, is gloatable), but I'd like to find a scruffy enough No. 4 or 5, and try a shallower camber iron than the No. 40 has. The chips would be thinner but perhaps a little wider - it would be interesting to see how that differed from the scrub.

[Peter Evans]

I have converted two wood smooth planes to scrubs, both reasonably thick single irons (1 3/8", 2" - both 1/8" thick). They already had wide mouths, total cost $0.70. they work well. As I clean up rough boards by hand, they get a fair bit of use. I will supplement these with the LN 40 1/2 (1 1/2" wide blade, 3/16" thick) that I picked up recently unused in the box for 50% of retail price.

I am contemplating converting a Jack and a 600mm German plane (combined cost $0.0) as well. This will give me a "brace" of scrub planes. The only disadvantage of these planes is they have double irons.

I do not think the camber on the blade matters much, just freehand on the grinder until it looks "fair", ie as in fairing the curve on a boat.

I have not converted a metal plane, and why would you with so many old wood planes around? Also single irons are much better than double irons (look at the Stanley and LN), and also cheaper.