Scrub Planes

[Jerry V Lape]

Okay I have figured out planes but still don't know what the purpose of scrub planes is and how they could be useful in rifle building.  Are they for reduction of thickness?  And are they used with the grain or cross grain? 

[Longshot]

In practice, scrub planes are typically used in the first stage of taming/truing rough cut boards.  Accordingly, they serve to reduce dimension.  They are initially run diagonal to the grain and commonly employ a slightly convex, and rank set blade.

[Jerry V Lape]

Longshot, thanks for the reply.  One further question, what does rank set mean? 

[Kermit]

Yup, diagonally. The irons are narrow and have pronouinced arc to the edge. Set for a heavy cut, the remove wood fast, leaving a pretty rough surface. That gets followed using a try or jack with the grain, and finishing up with a smoother. I used to build a lot of dining and coffee tables from heavy live edge slabs way too big for any machine to surface. I think working a rough board with handplanes is quicker and easier than manhandling larges, heavy wood back and forth around roaring machines. No ear protection, and you can hear the shop radio/music.

Scrub planes look dinky and overly simple, but are real powerhouses.

[mark esterly]

[David R. Pennington]

Rank set means the plain iron is set to take a rather heavy cut or thick shaving. The iron is ground with a slight radius as previously mentioned so it works a little like a gouge.

[Kermit]

Lie-Nielsen and Lee Valey both put a 3” radius on the 1-1/2” wide blades of their scrub planes. A 3" radius on a 1 1/2" scrub plane iron gives about 3/32" relief from center to edge. Scrub planes have a wide throat to clear the very heavy shavings, almost more like chips.

[kaintuck]

these are used on green wood boards...........

[Kermit]

I've never used my Stanley #40 scrub on green wood. I've attacked a lot of very dry, sometimes highly figured hardwoods in large slabs that needed a 36" planer--that I didn't have access to. I once went after a book matched pair of 40 year old claro walnut slabs 42" x 11' each for a huge conference table. They'd been cut with a chain saw mill and were cupped and in winding. I spent most of a week with handplanes on that project. The lowly looking little scrub plane is a powerhouse.

[kaintuck]

careful!!! use on hard dried stock wood~you could pull out the grain in these highly figured pieces....tiger striped and hard.....shave the wood, in fact, I use my cutoff Dewalt with a 40GT sanding disc..........OUTSIDE!! with a mask on!!!

and never with walnut...or cherry...that dust will kill me.................and tomtom!

[Kermit]

I PURELY HATE WOOD DUST ! I rarely sand anything any more. Too much exposure to nasty, toxic woods.

[PPatch]

I converted a Stanley #4 to a scrub plane recently, it really hogs off the wood. I'm with Kermit on the wood dust and use a hand plane where possible. Except for a bandsaw and drill press I go hand tools mostly these days.

dave

[Clark Badgett]

I converted a Stanley #4 to a scrub plane recently, it really hogs off the wood. I'm with Kermit on the wood dust and use a hand plane where possible. Except for a bandsaw and drill press I go hand tools mostly these days.

dave

Me too. Love the slow, quiet process of using hand tools.

[JBJ]

The discussion re wood dust is appropriate and more of us are bothered than we might at first realize. Check out the following: http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-allergies-and-toxicity/. Kind of my "go to" re wood allergies, etc.
J.B.