I had been looking at maybe springing for a LV or LN scrub plane when I saw Shannon Rogers’ video in which he suggests converting a cheap plane into a scrub since it is, after all, a rough tool, and saving the budget for another plane whose function requires more precision.
This makes sense to me, so I’m using an old Stanley No. 5 for this project and have spent the money, instead, on a new Wood River jack.
LN and LV both put a 3” radius on the 1-1/2” wide blades of their scrub planes. For his jack-to-scrub conversion, Rogers grinds an 8” radius on that 2” wide blade. (he also moves the frog way back)
Playing with this in AutoCAD I note that a 3” radius on a 1-1/2” blade provides 3/32” of relief from center to corner. That same radius on a 2” wide blade results in almost twice as much: 11/64.” And Rogers’ 8” radius on his 2” wide blade results in just a sixteenth, but it works fine when he demos it at the end of the video.
My question: does anyone’s experience with scrub planes here in the Haven give you a passionate opinion on what the blade radius should be, or is it simply not very critical?