Plane Order for Dimensioning Boards

[Patrick Cox]

Hello,
I just watched Rough to Ready with Rob Cosman and I was surprised to see that his process for dimensioning rough lumber was... Scrub Plane, Jointer Plane, Smoothing Plane. Is this the process that most here follow? I am starting with a Jack Plane and a Smoothing plane. Am I not starting out correctly? I thought the Jack Plane was recommended to be the first plane one should buy.

Thanks for your comments.

[Dave Kelley]

Relax Patrick....MELLOW......You'll do just fine with what you purchased in the other thread. I know you're excited, I can tell. I still get excited when I cart home a fresh bundle of lumber for a project a few weeks out. BUT....Rob has lots of planes so he can use them at will. You will soon have two. Your jack will do the scrubbing and help with jointing but your number 4 can smooth and joint if it's small pieces. You learn those two planes and you will be fine. Later you will have 10 planes and you will set them up to do what you want them to do for specific tasks.

You have a good board here and you are definitely on the right track. Just because Cosman has it doesn't mean you have to. Look at Paul Sellers, he will show you what a number 4 alone can do.

[Patrick Cox]

Relax Patrick....MELLOW......You'll do just fine with what you purchased in the other thread. I know you're excited, I can tell. I still get excited when I cart home a fresh bundle of lumber for a project a few weeks out. BUT....Rob has lots of planes so he can use them at will. You will soon have two. Your jack will do the scrubbing and help with jointing but your number 4 can smooth and joint if it's small pieces. You learn those two planes and you will be fine. Later you will have 10 planes and you will set them up to do what you want them to do for specific tasks.

You have a good board here and you are definitely on the right track. Just because Cosman has it doesn't mean you have to. Look at Paul Sellers, he will show you what a number 4 alone can do.

Breath....Breath....

[Dave Kelley]

What you can do right now is go buy your lumber. Even kiln dried lumber needs to acclimate so get your project list together and go shopping for that. That will get you excited for sure.

[Robin Frierson]

Taking rough lumber and making it flat and square take some practice. Many people start out with a lunchbox planer and a 6 inch joiner to do that job. I don't recall how you ended up with these planes, chisels and saw's. Is it because you wanted to go that neanderthal route. If so that's great. You can build wonderful furniture with just handtools. But for myself, personally, I would start out using electrons to dimension my lumber, while I gained experience with my planes, especially the sharpening.

[Patrick Chase]

Hello,
I just watched Rough to Ready with Rob Cosman and I was surprised to see that his process for dimensioning rough lumber was... Scrub Plane, Jointer Plane, Smoothing Plane. Is this the process that most here follow? I am starting with a Jack Plane and a Smoothing plane. Am I not starting out correctly? I thought the Jack Plane was recommended to be the first plane one should buy.

Thanks for your comments.

EDIT: Most people follow a rough-joint-smooth progression, but not necessarily with scrub, jointer, and smoothing planes. It depends on personal preference and scale of work.

The scrub is absolutely not necessary. Many people prefer Jacks (#5) or Fores (#6) with cambered blades for roughing, while others prefer the smaller/narrower and simpler scrub. All of them work perfectly well. Also if you're buying pre-dimensioned then you don't need a roughing plane at all.

The question of the jointer is a bit trickier. A common rule of thumb is that planes will easily flatten stock up to twice their length, where "easily" means that you don't have to measure and iterate. You can go longer with moderate effort. Your #5 is therefore very suitable for jointing up to ~28" work pieces, and longer with care.

The one catch is that roughing and jointing optimally need different blade configurations. Most people find that efficient roughing requires a heavily cambered blade (rounded edge profile), whereas jointing requires a straight or minimally cambered blade. If you were going to get one addtional thing I would therefore suggest an extra blade for the #5, so that you can reconfigure that plane between roughing and jointing by swapping blades. If you're limited to one blade then set it up for jointing and accept that your rouging will be a bit inefficient (unless you like the "scalloped look" :-)

[Scott DelPorte]

You should be just fine with a jack and smoother. Taking a bench making class at Woodcraft like you described in an earlier thread sounds like a great way to get started.

[Patrick Cox]

Taking rough lumber and making it flat and square take some practice. Many people start out with a lunchbox planer and a 6 inch joiner to do that job. I don't recall how you ended up with these planes, chisels and saw's. Is it because you wanted to go that neanderthal route. If so that's great. You can build wonderful furniture with just handtools. But for myself, personally, I would start out using electrons to dimension my lumber, while I gained experience with my planes, especially the sharpening.

I do have a track saw if I need it but I don't have a table saw and I really don't have the room for a table saw. Also the power tools are a bit noisy and I wanted to give neanderthal a try! And I can use the exercise. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it! We'll se how it goes. I'm going out to buy wood tomorrow morning.

[Patrick Cox]

You should be just fine with a jack and smoother. Taking a bench making class at Woodcraft like you described in an earlier thread sounds like a great way to get started.

Thanks. And yes, I am signed up for that class. The problem is I have to wait another 6 weeks!

[Patrick Chase]

I do have a track saw if I need it but I don't have a table saw and I really don't have the room for a table saw. Also the power tools are a bit noisy and I wanted to give neanderthal a try! And I can use the exercise. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it! We'll se how it goes. I'm going out to buy wood tomorrow morning.

I'll probably get flamed for this, but...

IMO roughing is where going neander delivers the worst payoff. It isn't terribly skill-intensive, but it's the area where hand tools deliver the least incremental benefit in terms of results (power tools can do it just as well) and cost the most in terms of effort.

One think I should have said in my previous reply: I have a scrub, but I more often use a jack for roughing. IMO the scrub is a luxury item, not a core necessity.

[Reinis Kanders]

Sign up for free Paul Sellers videos. He is a pretty good teacher.

[Luke Dupont]

Sign up for free Paul Sellers videos. He is a pretty good teacher.

This almost seems off-topic, but is a good suggestion.

I think he offers a good introduction for beginners because he keeps things to the bare-bones essentials, and doesn't over complicate. It's definitely a perspective that you should expose yourself to, as a lot of people will be very insistent on complicated or expensive methods that may not be necessary for the humble beginner/hobbyist.

In general, it's more important to learn to use a core set of simple tools in a diverse and skillful manner than to have large numbers of diverse, specialized tools, each perfect for its specific application, as a beginner. Loads of specialized tools might be convenient and efficient, but they aren't necessary, and you don't even know what you'll need and don't need until you have more experience.

A jack and a smoother is plenty sufficient. Focus on the underlying concepts and techniques rather than the specific details involved in a particular method. Everyone does things a little differently, and some like to do the same thing in a more complicated manner, or using more tools in the process because they have that luxury. Your goal as a beginner is to distill that to its simplest form, and learn to do it yourself without all of those fancy tools that you don't have yet

I think it's a good thing to learn this way. It makes you more flexible when, say, you know how to make rabbits without a rabbit plane, or you learn to joint a long board with a short plane. It may not be the easiest way, but it will teach you a lot about woodworking and how to use your tools/what they are capable of.

That isn't to say you should always do things the hardway, just that it's a useful approach as a beginner, will teach you a lot, and save you money, allowing you to identify what you really do/don't need in the future. I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking they need this or that tool for this or that job, when, their current tool-set is plenty adequate (especially if they don't intend to be doing "this or that" on a frequent, repeated basis).

But then, I'm a bit of a minimalist, so my preferences might be biasing my advise here.

[steven c newman]

Wasn't there a show by Underhill and Schwarz about handplane essentials. Where the go from a "common" jack plane, through a try plane, to a smooth plane. They also showed how to use a couple others as well.

pbs.org The Woodwright's Shop. Not sure which season it was in, or episode number.

[Bill Houghton]

Just remember:

1. The iron/blade on your jack plane should be curved at the cutting edge (the standard term is "cambered"). Using a jack with a straight-across edge is somewhat self-defeating. How much? Well, you'll have to experiment/learn. 1/16" from edge to center might be a good place to start, although others will suggest other grinds. Getting there, if you're sharpening by hand, involves putting more pressure on the corners, alternating as you go. There's a tradeoff: if you get a good camber on the jack, suitable for taking off plenty of wood, it won't be as effective when you're using it as a little try plane (which I did, when I didn't have but one plane). If you can afford an extra iron, you can have two different grinds for different purposes.

2. When you're working from the rough lumber, planing across the grain will remove more wood than planing along the grain.

3. Somewhere, I read the acronym FEWTEL: Face, Edge, Width, Thickness, (opposite) Edge, Length. I haven't watched the video in question, and he may have addressed this issue, in which case I'll shut up. But it's a good sequence to follow.

[Brian Holcombe]

This is an important hurdle to jump, in learning to dimension lumber you will also teach yourself how to sharpen and setup your planes to form an efficient approach.