Expert: Jamie Yocono - 5/22/2006

Question
Greetings Sir,

I wish to try my hand at basic wood working.  Before I can continue with my endevors, I need a plane.  From what I understand I need a smoothing plane to do general work.

Do you know of any reasonable suppliers of quality planes and what brand/type of plane would be good for a beginner?  I have seen that Veritas comes highly recommended, but they are far above my modest budget.  Because of my rural location, anything I get will have to be ordered.  I would greatly appreciate any advise you can give.

Thank you for your time.

Johnathon

Answer
Johnathon,

I'm sorry it's taken me a while to answer your question; I was away for a few days and forgot to mark myself as "on vacation" at All-Experts. Anyway, I'm back and ready to tackle your question. I'll try to answer your specific questions, but I'll also lend an opinion about planes for beginners.

I did a search for articles on hand planes in my favorite magazine, Fine Woodworking, and found a pretty decent article, with much peripheral information. Cut and paste this and after reading it, you should have a decent understanding of the various planes out there, and what each of them do. The link is:

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ToolGuide/ToolGuideAllAbout.aspx?id=3000

I agree that Veritas tools are great, but they are very expensive. There are some decent alternatives out there, so I'll try to suggest something. Lee Valley Tools sells the Veritas line, but they also offer some alternatives. Check out their Hong Kong-Style High-Angle Smooth Plane for about $44. Also, Amazon.com's tool site- ToolCrib.com sells tools for very decent prices. I saw a Stanley Smoothing plane for about $39, and while it won't have the stability as a $300 plane, it will suffice if you tune it up a bit. I've had a Stanley block plane that I've used for years, and it's great, despite what some wood snobs might think of it's lower quality.

Tune it up? Plane bottoms are notorious for not being flat, and they MUST be flat in order to do their job. There are many articles out there about how to flatten a plane bottom, so do a Google search and find a few to read. Tuning up a plane requires a little time, as well as some muscle on your part, but you can turn a relatively cheap plane into a pretty good one.

So my best recommendation is to look for a plane that your budget can handle, and then tune it up to make it better. Stanley and Grizzley are low budget, but certainly will work for a beginner. I like purchasing from Amazon.com because they really do offer decent prices, and you can ever get an additional discount if you're willing to get an Amazon credit card. I ordered a digital camera from them and for an additional $30 off by putting it on their credit card. So it's worth a shot.

Last thing- I am all for learning hand skills in woodworking. It's important to develop good coordination and learn how to use all the various tools. And while I don't know how tight your budget is, it sounds like you're pinched for funds. With that in mind, I am not quite convinced that a smoothing plane would be one of my first purchases if I were a beginner. Most wood that you're going to be working with (in the beginning) might be S4S, meaning it's surfaced on all 4 sides. That wood is probably going to have decent edge and face grain, so that you'll be able to glue things together reasonably well, if you have the clamps to do so.

I guess what I'm saying is that unless you already have a decent array of hand tools, like chisels, scrapers, hand saws, etc., a smoothing plane wouldn't be one of my first purchases. Oh, you're going to need one later on down the line, but there are just too many tools out there (in my opinion) that you might need before you'll need a smoothing plane. Just my opinion, take it for what it means to you in terms of the tools you already own.

But if you have a good selection of tools already, and are simply looking for a plane to add to your arsenal, but all means, buy a less expensive one, tune it up, and you'll learn loads in the meantime.

Good luck, I hope this helps. Feel free to write back with any other questions you might have after reading this.

Jamie Yocono
Wood It Is! Custom Cabinetry
www.wooditis.com
Las Vegas, NV