What good is a #6?

[Joe McMahon]

Another thread mentions that there may be minimal interest in a #6 plane because it is between a smoother & a jointer and therefore not have a real place. I believe that Patrick Leach feels that the #6 is worthless.
What is a #6 used for? How do you use your #6? If you have a #6, do you also have a #5 & #7 or#8?

[Doug Shepard]

Well I've got one but hardly ever use it. But not so much because it might (or might not) be useless compared to a 5/7/8 but because it's not all that great of a plane. It's a Chinese clone I picked up on clearance roughly 20 years ago for something like $12. After getting the sole lapped flat it does a pretty decent job on pine or other softer woods but for hardwoods I've got other planes (including 5/8) that have thicker irons, or steeper angles, and less adjustmest backlash and just do the job better. If it were a LN or LV or something similar I could see reaching for it once in a while over the #8 just for the lighter weight.

[David Keller NC]

Joe - I use mine constantly. They make superb fore planes (i.e., "roughing" planes with an open mouth and a heavily cambered iron). One of the reasons some may feel it to be a boat anchor is that they use a machine for its function, in which case the next plane in line is the jointer, not the fore plane, followed by the smoother.

Note that the Stanley number system doesn't make a plane anything (smoother, jointer, fore, jack, etc...). It depends on the scale of work you're doing. If you're a model maker, than a #5-1/4 might be your jointer, a #3 your fore plane, and a #2, and #1, or even a block plane may be your smoother. Naturally, of course, this analogy has limits - I've never heard of anyone that uses a #8 as a smoother (unless maybe they're working on Noah's ark, in which case I'd hate to see their jointer plane!).

[John Dykes]

Echo David here....

I had a #6 Frankenplane that SMC folks encouraged me to fully convert into a roughing plane. It is uniquely suited to that purpose.

[Jim Koepke]

I thought there would never be a #6 in my shop, then one day a wondering into the used tool store across the street from the super market had me holding on to one at a good price. Since then, it has come in handy as it is wider than a #5 and only a little longer.

To save money, I often use construction lumber and often work with 2X3 and 2X4 stock. The #6 comes in handy on these boards. Bought some off cuts of 2X6 at the local Home Despot to make some saw horses, $1.02 plus tax for two 4 foot hunks. The #6 came in handy cleaning them up.

I have a compete set of bench planes except a #8. If one of those comes along at a decent price, I will try to sweet talk SWMBO and also holds the check book into letting me buy it.

Does a person really need all the sizes and duplicates of some? Of course not. It does come in handy though.

jim

[Frank Drew]

I've got an older Record 05 and I'd take an 06 in a heartbeat; I can't imagine why anyone would say it's not a useful size. A fore plane is long enough to be a good shooting plane but not so long it's awkward in use.

[Joe Meazle]

I
have a soft spot for the #6. I have... well lets not go there.

I use 2 of them a lot, one as a fore plane with a cambered iron. That one is an old Millers Falls.

I also have a Veritas #6. That one is one of my favorite planes. It is super flat and I use like a small jointer or a British panel plane. It has a straight iron with clipped corners and is set up with a tight mouth. It is great for leveling panels for frame and panel work. For that job I think the #7 and #8 are too long and clumsy and the #5 a little short.

You can usually get them fairly cheap. I think Mr. Leach's condemnation might have a little something to do with that. His opinion/speculation is often taken to be gospel.


Joe

[Tom Sontag]

The best use of a #6 that I am familiar with is when a jointer-less friend of mine found one at the flea and traded it to me for my second #7. He knows he scored.

[Eric Brown]

I use the Veritas scraper adapter in my #6 making it a large scraper plane. Works well. I also have most all the other sizes of planes, so I really don't miss it for the planing capability.

Eric

[Dewey Torres]

All who hate the #6 and are willing to sell, please send me a PM!

[scott spencer]

I like my Record #6 a lot. It's great for flattening panels, and many other things.

[Mike Cutler]

All who hate the #6 and are willing to sell, please send me a PM!

Not sure how a plane can be hated just for it's size.

A lot of people, me included at first, do not use the #6 for it's intended purpose. The mouth should be set open, with a cambered blade. It is a plane meant for removing a lot of material in a controlled manner. It should follow the Scrub, and or the #5. The weight of the plane is fairly substantial which aids in it's task. I don't use my #6's for edge jointing much, I use them primarily for surface work.
The first #6 I bought, a Miller Falls, I bought used for about $15.00. I brought it home and thought I needed to rehab it, it was pretty nasty looking. The blade had a camber to it, there is a notch carved out of the right side of the plane, and it was filled with this "white stuff" between the frog and blade, and frog and body. So I "rehabbed" it.What a mistake, I should have left it alone.

Turned out that the notch taken out of the side of plane allows my hand to achieve a lower position on the tote, and put my elbow more in line with my wrist. The "white stuff" turned out to be a bedding compound used to bed rifle barrels. Whoever owned it before me knew a lot about planes, and I have since "rehabbed" it back to the "nasty" condition I bought it in.

I have three #6's. The Miller Falls, a Stanley, and an LN. The LN is set for a much finer cut than the MF or Stanley,and is only cambered at the edges of the blade. I also have three #5's set up in a similar manner.

Joe.
I too have found Patrick Leach's opinion of the #6 to be off the mark. Doing the initial surfacing of a 7'x14" wide padauk board yesterday, the combination of the #5, followed by my MF #6 and then the LN #6 made a surface that was pretty darn good. (The boards will all go through a 15" planer eventually. I just like to handplane for the practice, and because I find it enjoyable. Once this padauk is made into a table top it will need to finished by hand due to it's size. So I practice on the rough boards, plus it allows me to see the grain and color before I have to do too much man handling of the material.)
I think Patrick may have been a little hasty in his remarks, or his skill level is greater than mine, because I know I can't go from the #5 to the #7 personally.

I have a soft spot for the #6 also. It was the first LN bench plane I got ( as a gift), even though I already owned two #6's. I like the #6.

[Matt Edwards]

I think the reason that the #6 has a bad rap is because of where it falls in the Stanley gene pool. Arguably, "most" wood workers could get along fine with a small stable of 3 bench planes. A 3, 5, 7, or a 4, 5 1/2, 7, or just one of many combinations of small medium and large. That being said, if you have your basic three and add the in between sizes most will find there are things that the 4 excels in over the 3 etc. The spot that the 6 occupies does not seem to afford it that great improvement over the 5 1/2. You might say that the 6 is the Jan Brady of bench planes, not as cute as Cindy, not as hot as Marsha, BUT still a Brady . In my experience the #6 will do pretty much everything that a 5 or a 5 1/2 will do in the arena of flattening and jointing. By the same token, it can be used in place of a 7 or 8 with equal results, it just doesn't seem to be a stand out like the others. When I purchased my #6 it was pretty much fill a chronological spot between the 5 1/2 and the 7 in the plane till. (it just seemed like the right thing to do) It didn't get used much until blade went dull in the 7 during the building of my work bench, thats when I decided that it was well worth taking from the till on a regular basis. After all, Stanley didn't decide one day to slip a POS in their line up, its built just like all the others.


Sorry for the ramble, it's early

Matt

[Douglas Brummett]

This topic gets batted around every few months it seems. Since the last time it went round I have rehabbed 2 #6 planes, a type6 and a type11. One of which I flat honed the iron and sold to an instrument maker. He was using it to joint violin parts and found the plane to be just right for the scale of jointing he was doing.

The one that I kept I heavily cambered the blade on. I still need to open the mouth a bit more, but it doesn't seem to clog so I have been holding off. At any rate I find it to be a very stable plane for rough work. The extra width and mass over a scrub make it very comfortable on larger boards. I found that I don't like face surfacing boards wider than about 6in with my no40 scrub. The no6 has no such limitation for me.

I don't know that I would personally use it as a jointer, but I have no7 and no8 size planes so there is no need for it to do double duty. It is set up as a fore plane and will be left in that role as long as I continue to find it useful

[William Drylie]

I, like many others in this thread, use a #6 as a fore plane. The one I have is a W.W. 2 era Stanley with the original blade ground at a 10" radius, and the mouth opened up. I have a Record #7 set up as a Trying plane with a Hock blade and chip breaker. The blade only slightly cambered in the honing process. I also have a Stanley #8 set up with a Hock blade sharpened straight across which I use for edge jointing, match planing and shooting. I have two other Stanley's set up with heavily cambered blades a #3 and a #5 for smaller scale work. I have a #5 and a #5 1/2 set up kind of mid way between the fore plane and the trying plane. Then I have two #3's, a #4, #4 1/2 and #5 set as smoothing planes. And now I'm starting to get into Wooden planes.
I like and use them all. Could you get along with less? Sure. But it would'nt be anywhere near as much fun.
By the way all but two of these planes were bought at antique dealers, most for less than $40.00. Those other two were bought new by me one 30 and the other 40 years ago.

Bill