Wooden moving fillester plane

[joe maday]

I do "hybrid woodworking", in that I prepare most of the stock/pieces by machine. but do the majority of joinery and surface finishing with hand tools.
I'm wondering/thinking about acquiring a wooden moving fillester plane. I do rabbets and such with a table saw, chisel, cutting gauge and/or rabbet/shoulder plane. I have tried to use a wooden moving fillester plane in the past for cutting rabbets on legs of federal tables for edge stringing. They just seemed to be too clumsy. I know they might have not been set up accurately but it just didn't work out.
Well....I've got the itch to try again But...What do you guys think?...with so many other options out there..my present system/methods, LV skew rabbet, LN skew block plane, Stanley 45,55 or even the Stanley 78. Is it worth the effort? Is it just a nostalgia thing? Just wasting time/money? Do you find them very useful/necessary?
Thanks in advance for any replies or comments.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

No experience with moving filister planes. For rabbets I mostly use a Stanley 78. The wooden planes I do have (jack, try) work really well.

Stanleys are cheap. If you go that route, look for one with all the parts (often missing fence or depth stop).

[Christopher Charles]

If you can do them on the table saw fine and you have the itch enough to post here....you may already have your answer

I recently purchased the LV skew and recently made breadboard ends on a couple of desks with it as a way to learn the tool. There is definitely a learning curve and I feel like I'm making good progress toward being able to use the plane as quickly as I would table saw or other methods. The LV skew did well in unruly grain, including a knot in the walnut (good planning on my part for final look, poor planning for cutting the rabbets).

One trick I figured out for bread boards was to waste several narrow strips rather than going full width at once (last photo).

Good luck and have fun scratching that itch.

Best,
Chris

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[Matt Lau]

I just got a Japanese wooden filister plane.
I haven't used it yet, but plan to...

[Jim Koepke]

What do you guys think?...with so many other options out there..my present system/methods, LV skew rabbet, LN skew block plane, Stanley 45,55 or even the Stanley 78. Is it worth the effort? Is it just a nostalgia thing? Just wasting time/money? Do you find them very useful/necessary?
Thanks in advance for any replies or comments.

Spending other people's money is fun and easy.

My problem with spending my own money on things like this was the difficulty of making the decision of which plane to purchase. My solution was to give in and buy at least one of each plane as finances would allow.

I have tried to use a wooden moving fillester plane in the past for cutting rabbets on legs of federal tables for edge stringing.

If you are trying to cut rabbets along the edge for stringing (or banding?) a Stanley #78 or even a Record #778 might be a better choice. If you want to also put stringing/banding in from the edge the Stanley #45 might be a good choice.

jtk

[Dominik Dudkiewicz]

The Veritas Skew Rabbets work great, although I don't have any others to compare to. Just put a good wooden sub fence on them - I also made longer rods (you can buy them also) for mine so I could use a thicker fence and still take full width cuts, and learn to hold the plane properly by not holding the front knob but pressing the thumb down behind it, in front of the blade and the other fingers supporting the fence against the piece. Setting the blade just a fraction out from the edge of the body is critical as well.

Sorry, not sure why I went into details on setup and useage but I think many people struggle at first due to some simple errors in setup or technique and get discouraged.

I use mine just as much, or more, for bevels on things like box lids, mallet heads etc as I do for rabbets. You just need to make some angled fences.

Or cut to the chase and buy a HNT Gordon Wooden Moving Fillister! On my wish list.

Cheers, Dom

[mike holden]

LV skew rabbet plane will do what you want, but for edge stringing try using a cutting gage. Depths to a 1/4 inch or more are really not difficult, and the smaller tool is easier to handle and register than the plane which is up and away from the small edge you are cutting. Just some thoughts to muddy the waters (grin)
Mike