# Need a recommendation for a hand plane



## NOLAwoodwork (Feb 21, 2012)

I am building several farmhouse tables and need a recommendation for flattening the tabletop. I don't need perfect flatness of the tabletop; I am just looking the the best plane to knock down the glue joints and give me a "general" flatness, if that makes any sense. I have very limited experience with hand planes, my only hand plane so far is a cheap Harbor Freight bench plane. What are your recommendations for getting this job done? I would prefer the plane come already tuned.


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## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

You need a long bedded plane for table tops. 18" or so.
You want to set the depth of cut where the wood curls are so thin they are almost transparent. Your blade should be razor sharp. 
I'm not too hung up on brands. Many name brands are imports now. 
Buying a new plane is similar to buying a new shotgun. 
You can spend as little or as much as you want. They all do the same thing. Some look better than others, but even a cheap plane will still get the job done. 
Most all the new planes sold today are better than the planes used 150 years ago and some beautiful furniture was made 150 years ago with old wooden bodied hand planes that had a plane iron wedged in tight with a wooden wedge and adjusted with the tap of a hammer. 
Any hand plane requires considerable skill to master.


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## TimPa (Jan 27, 2010)

depends on the amount of stock removal necessary. a handheld belt sander is good for that, but requires some technique to get the desired results. otherwise, a random orbit sander does the same job but slower.​


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## amckenzie4 (Apr 29, 2010)

My vote would be for either a jack plane (about 14" long, Stanley called it a #5), or a jointer.

The jack plane has more uses: it can smooth, it can joint, it can take off a lot of material very quickly. Unfortunately, you need a fair amount of skill to smooth something the size of a table with something that small. A jointer (or try plane) is something like a Stanley #7 or #8: 20" or longer, relatively wide, and fairly simple to use. Set it to a fairly light cut, and start planing. If you're reasonably careful, you should end up with a surface that only needs a quick going over with a smoothing plane or a sander before finishing.

If you want to buy something that's already tuned up... you're looking at quite a bit of money. A Wood River brand (the house brand at WoodCraft) #7 runs about $300. Veritas sells a bevel-up jointer about the same size for about the same price. Lie-Nielsen is a step up, at about $425.

As far as used goes, I'm quite fond of my "transitional" jointer. It's 24" long, has a wide iron (3", I think), and is pretty reliable. That said, if you buy a used plane, you're going to need to sharpen it, and quite likely flatten the bottom, which can be a fair amount of work. A wooden body makes it a little easier, since sandpaper on a piece of glass will flatten it out pretty quickly.


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## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

TimPa said:


> depends on the amount of stock removal necessary. a handheld belt sander is good for that, but requires some technique to get the desired results. otherwise, a random orbit sander does the same job but slower.​


Sanders (all types) have a place in every complete workshop, but they will not take the place of a hand plane.


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## WesTex (Jan 5, 2014)

Planes need fine tuning, including new-in-box planes. Even a new L-N will want its iron sharpened to function at its best. Then there's the chip-breaker to fiddle with, and what about the mouth? Do we "set & forget."? Camber the iron or square it? 
I doubt the OP will get a plane that's already tuned. YouTube is your friend always by with the help of these knowledgeable members on this site. 
Besides its FUN to learn how to scrape, plane, chisel, saw , etc. while learning the nuances of your hand tools. Enjoy the trip.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Jammer (Jul 15, 2009)

How well a plane is fettled (means set up, adjusted, sharpened and trued) is a lot more important than what brand it is. Fettling planes make my teeth itch. It's time consuming, tedious work. The _only_ good part is that some of it only has to be done once.

Fettling planes is why apprentices were invented.


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## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

Jammersix said:


> How well a plane is fettled (means set up, adjusted, sharpened and trued) is a lot more important than what brand it is. Fettling planes make my teeth itch. It's time consuming, tedious work. The _only_ good part is that some of it only has to be done once.
> 
> Fettling planes is why apprentices were invented.


For those of us without apprentices, some of the fettling wasn't done properly until after retirement. Ha. :laugh2:


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## mdntrdr (Dec 22, 2009)

If your not willing to invest the time, effort, and money into learning to sharpen, and sharpen well, a hand plane will be completely useless.

No planes come tuned, and you will have to continually sharpen/hone and reset.

If not extremely sharp, a hand plane will do more damage than good. And there is still the inevitable tear out of figured grain that will have you screaming... :furious:


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## Nathan Parker (Jul 23, 2016)

Jammersix said:


> How well a plane is fettled (means set up, adjusted, sharpened and trued) is a lot more important than what brand it is. Fettling planes make my teeth itch. It's time consuming, tedious work. The _only_ good part is that some of it only has to be done once.
> 
> Fettling planes is why apprentices were invented.


How bizarre that such an obscure word as "fettle" has more than one meaning. In ceramics casting, fettle is the excess clay that's left on the object after you remove it from the mold, resulting from material seeping into the mold seams (equivalent to "flash" on metal or plastic castings). There's even a special tool for removing it, the fettling knife.


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## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

More on hand planes:
Hand planes used to be in every woodworkers shop and toolbox. Today, many woodworkers work for years without touching a hand plane. Modern machinery like joiners, large planers, surface sanders and more can do many of the jobs previously done with Hand Planes but now much quicker. 
When building furniture, you may only rarely need a hand plane if you have a well equipped shop of equipment. But when working with larger projects, projects like a large door, you can't easily move a large door across a joiner. This is where the old hand plane shines. You can easily plane down the dimension with a good hand plane. For some jobs, nothing works better than a good hand plane. 
But of all the hand tools in your possession, the hand plane requires the most training to master. 
Even the best of hand planes can ruin your work if you haven't mastered the technique of the tool. 
To confuse a novice even more, there are many, many types and sizes of hand planes. Choosing the right plane for the job is part of mastering the technique. 
Many woodworkers keep several hand planes on hand to choose from. 
Prior to the invention of sandpaper, a board was planed and scrapped to a smooth surface. 
When adjusted correctly, a hand plane can almost give you a finished surface ready for staining with no further steps. When you get to this point, you've mastered the hand plane. Give yourself a pat on the back.


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## joeb841 (Aug 14, 2016)

My favorite plane for that job would be a Stanley #5. You can find old ones on E bay but they won't come ready to use, you have to learn to do that yourself.


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## gornarak (Jun 5, 2014)

You may need to sharpen the iron in between anyway. So get a used Stanley #5 and restore it.
What you are asking is like looking for a car to drive without experience how to fill the tank.


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## allpurpose (Mar 24, 2016)

I'd go with the standard Stanley #4 made around 1942 or thereabouts.. 
You can get some very nice old Stanley's on ebay for around $20 or more, but as almost everyone else has said you'll need to learn how to sharpen and "tune" it. Paul Sellers has several YouTube videos on that exact topic and since you're new to woodworking you would be well served to spring for $35 for his wonderful book..
Not everyone wants to plane large surfaces down by hand because its a lot of work, but very satisfying once you get the hang of it. 
I planed my entire workbench down and it was all made of store bought rounded corner 2x4s. 

And while on the topic of hand planing i need to sharpen my plane because i have this monster to smooth out..


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