The Wood Shepherd on Planes
Nothing symbolizes the Galoot more, perhaps, than the hand plane. Even dedicated Normites with an aversion to any sort of hand tool cannot ignore the plane and will resort to at least the block plane for trimming and fitting. We'll get them in the end! Planes, of course, started out with wooden bodies fitted with iron blades (now known, would you believe, as irons.)
Wooden Planes
Planes whose bodies are made from wood are a
joy to make as well as a joy to use. Imagine work on a project has reached
a stopping point because there is a particular molding required and there is no
router bit that will scream its way down your stock to make things happen.
What do you do? The Galoot orders an inexpensive iron blank, grinds the
desired profile and then sharpens the profiled iron, and then grabs a slab of
beech, mills the bottom of the soon-to-be plane to 
match the
iron profile, cuts a mouth and perhaps an escapement, a wedge, and Bob's your
uncle. Mess about making that profile once, and then we can make as much
molding as we need plus extra. And then re-profile afterwards if we
want. At the left is my almost-finished Ron Hock kit, a maple version
of the ubiquitous Krenov-style wooden plane. Shown with precision
adjusting instrument.
The Bailey Pattern plane
Leonard Bailey (1825-1905) was the right person
for the right time. An accomplished cabinetmaker, Bailey was a progressive
sort of Galoot who first patented a scraper plane, and then in 1867 patented the
metallic plane pattern we are used to today. Producing his own planes, two
years later Bailey's
company was assimilated into the Stanley Rule & Level borg which began
a long tradition of really great planes and really large profits: a tradition
that lasted into the 1960's when Stanley decided that making garage door openers
was a more noble vocation than quality hand planes. At the right are four
of Stanley's finest, all vintage: from the bottom a No.-3, No.-4C, No.-5, and a
No.-8. Of these, probably the No.-3 is the only luxury in any woodworking
shop: the 3 & 4C are both smoothing planes, the 5 a jack plane, and the 8 a
jointer, used for preparing the edges of stock for edge-gluing.
The Galoot's
arsenal of planes is, like all of woodworking, a very personal thing and
based mostly on work habits and the type of work most often done. The
joiner or cabinet maker is probably going to want to start out with at least one
decent block plane, a smoother, a jack, and a jointing plane, in terms of bench
planes.
Specialty and molding planes can be acquired or built as needed. At the
left is a Stanley 60-1/2 block plane, cleverly finished with left over paint
from a previous owners AMC Gremlin repaint. It works so well I'm not
really upset with the gold metalflake paint, which is wearing off through use
(every Galoot knows that preperation is 90% of finishing.)
Specialty Planes
In terms of non-bench planes, the Galoot's individual needs, desires, and budget are the best informants. Certainly the worker of wood that creates very many mortise and tenon joints will not want to be without a good shoulder plane. The shoulder plane permits the craftsperson to cut the tenon slightly oversize and then to trim shoulder and cheek alike, "sneaking up" on that perfect fit. This is a very effect work method. Casework requires lots of dados and rabbets, and so planes such as the Stanley No.-78 are up to the task. I've had the privilege of evaluating a Veritas skewed rabbet plane for several months now, and I have to say that this is one killer plane! Two thumbs up! Also, once our dado is cut (or groove ploughed) we may want to clean things up a bit, cleaning the sides with the Stanley No.-98 and the bottom with a Stanley No.-71 router plane.
Chisel planes let the Galoot into tight areas for clean up as well, and I would be lost without mine (metaphorically speaking.) Many bull-nose rabbet (rebate for our British friends) planes can be used without the toe assembly attached, also making them a small chisel plane. Compass planes have a flexible sole that can be adjusted for a radius, which will permit the planing of convex or concave surfaces. A scrub plane is a great aid for taking very rough-sawn stock down to near the desired thickness very quickly. The match plane such as the Stanley No.-48 is so called not for making matches (that comes closer to a spill plane's function,) but for making tongues and grooves on the edges of planks (matched edges, as they were known.)
The biggest
nemesis of the Galoot is the crazy, wild, beautiful grain on that plank chosen
for that special project that just erupts with tearout when touched with our
finely-tuned smoother. One handy tool to have in our arsenal is the
bevel-up, or low-angle plane. The iron is presented at a much lower angle,
and
the bevel
can be reground to outsmart the stubborn grain. And of course there is the
heroin of the plane world, the combination plane. At the right is the
Stanley No.-45 combination plane, also known as Traut's Patent Adjustable
Beading, Rabbet & Slitting Plane, along with a box of very dull
cutters. I'll continue to call it a No.-45. There are all of the
cutters suggested by the longer name, as well as match cutters. As you can
see, the plane body is made up of a couple of "skates," adjustable for the width
of the cutter, with the addition of an adjustable fence to be used as a moving
fillister. Note that the box comes with a couple of extra nickers stapled
on the outside; I prefer to keep my nickers on (on the box, that is.) One
person who is using the highly addictive combination plane and admitting it is
the Cornish
Workshop author Alf, and I'm going to send you
over to her for more information, or else to ole' Rusty Tool , who has both the 45 and 55 figured
out.
Stanley made two other types of planes worth bringing up. The first is sort of a combination of the wooden plane and the metallic plane; wooden body, metal adjustment mechanism. This is what is known as a transitional plane, and I have a soft spot in my heart for them, sort of the best of both worlds in my view. The other's origin is somewhere in the late 1800's; Stanley began to combine Bailey's mechanism with innovations for frog adjustment, overall machining quality, iron bedding improvments, and an improved lever cap, and brought this line out as the Bedrock line up. The later planes had the familar square-topped shoulders, and this is the pattern that Thomas Lie-Nielsen picked up and began to produce, first in bronze and now in grey iron as well.