Scrub Plane

[Dave Lehnert]

I have not ruled out making a scrub out of a #5 But If you were going to buy one. Would you get a wood body like the E.C. Emmerich or the Veritas scrub plane. Lee Valley free shipping and a $100 gift card has me looking.

Veritas® Scrub Plane

[Trevor Walsh]

I have the LV, it's nice to use, but I like the look of that wooden one, I think yo'd be fine with either and the E.C. would save you some coin to go towards something else. It's a rough work tool, and I think the wooden one might be real nice for that. I might consider selling my LV Scrub if your into that? I don't use it much.

[Dale Cruea]

I have never used a wooden scrub plane. I do have a LN scrub. A few months ago I made one from a #5 Stanley Bailey I had laying around.
I have not gotten the LN scrub out since.
My LN scrub gives me a lot of tear out. The #5 gives me very little. I can plane with the gran with the #5 never with the LN scrub.
I never changed the blade on the #5. It still has the standard blade that came with it.
The #5 seems to work better for me

[Paul Saffold]

I converted a 5 1/4 to a scrub. I'd spend the $$ on a tool you can't make or modify, or one that needs more precision than a scrub. Just my .02.

[Simon Frez-Albrecht]

I bought the Lee Valley scrub about a year ago, and hardly use it. I think you would do fine to buy almost any old plane and grind a radius on the edge and use it. Many times the radius that came on my LV is too much, I don't want to take that big of a bite. I ended up reducing the severity of it some.

The real advantage to getting a dedicated scrub is that they are a single iron tool, no cap iron. The tool is also frequently (or at least in my hands) used on dirty, rough sawn wood that can really wear an edge. The fact that it's single iron means that sharpening is much faster. All you have to do is unscrew the lever cap and pull out the blade, sharpen, and stick it back in.

[Steve Friedman]

I have never used a wooden scrub plane. I do have a LN scrub. A few months ago I made one from a #5 Stanley Bailey I had laying around.
I have not gotten the LN scrub out since.
My LN scrub gives me a lot of tear out. The #5 gives me very little. I can plane with the gran with the #5 never with the LN scrub.
I never changed the blade on the #5. It still has the standard blade that came with it.
The #5 seems to work better for me

I agree. I have not used my LN Scrub since I put a cambered Hock A-2 iron and cap into a Bedrock #5. That plane is so much easier to use than the scrub - it just sails through the wood.

I have read recently (don't remember where) that a scrub plane was originally intended only to be used on edges - not to flatten faces. That makes sense. With hindsight, I would try a #5 with a cambered iron before I got a scrub. Then, if I needed a scrub plane, I would consider a wooden one first. I have used the ECE scrub and loved it. I bought the L-N one because I couldn't resist the bling.

Steve

[Jack Curtis]

I have not ruled out making a scrub out of a #5 But If you were going to buy one. Would you get a wood body like the E.C. Emmerich or the Veritas scrub plane. Lee Valley free shipping and a $100 gift card has me looking.

I'd get the ECE, without question. I bought an old European woodie scrub, small, very light (this is important in scrubbing), and scrubs the wood like a champ.

Jack

[Mark Baldwin III]

I made my scrub plane, it's a Krenov style. IIRC Woodcraft carries scrub plane irons (that's where I got mine). You could also find a Stanley #40, which I believe is a nice plane.
They work great for roughing down the edge of a board, as well as thicknessing. You can take off lots of material very fast. I follow mine with a Hock jack plane, then either the #5 or a jointer. It's a good tool to have around.

[Bryan Schwerer]

I built my scrub plane from a Steve Knight kit. It is make of Purple Heart (The One blade, no chip breaker, planing Purple Popular Eater) has a 1/4" blade. I like it, it is light and does a great job removing wood. The only thing I don't like that handle is too close to the blade/wedge and makes it difficult to adjust.

[Michael Peet]

I like metal planes, so it would be LV or LN if money were no object. As it is, I made one out of an old #3 instead.

P1020406.20.jpg

Mike

[Jim McGee]

Jim Toplin has an artical in this months wooden boat magazine about how to turn a stanley number 5 or 6 into a fore plane. He curves the frount of the mouth in the same arc that he will sharpen into the iron.

[Larry Fox]

Interesting thread. I use my LM scrub plane much more frequently than I thought I would when I bought it. I have never used a wooden one but I can tell you that the LN one is a great tool and a blast to use and I would expect the LV to be the same.

[john bateman]

I received one of these as a Christmas gift. The iron has a pretty small radius curve, and the mouth is completely straight. So when I set the iron for a reasonable depth of cut, only about 1/2" of the width of the iron is doing any work.

Does this seem right?

[Tony Shea]

A picture would really help. But yes it does seem about right. What do you consider to be a reasonable cut? These planes are designed to take a bit more than a reasonable cut.

This is why I prefer a fore plane with a decent camber when removing stock from the face of a board, I can leave a flatter surface than a scrub but still remove a charge of wood. The extra width and length also aids in keeping the boards face true.

Your scrub is a bit more at home working the edge of a board where a significant amount of stock needs to be removed and a rip saw would not do well that close to an edge. This is an opinion though as there a many people who use the scrub to get your boards face somewhat true.

Oh, and I do try to find as many excuses I can to use my scrub as it is an absolute blast. There is no other plane I can remove as much stock and have little reguard at how pretty it is. They are just fun!

[john bateman]

I have the iron projecting about .01 of an inch.

And I sure hope it works on the face of boards, as I wanted to use it to get them reasonably flat quickly.