See, most non-handtools folks don’t know that you gotta have a smoother for softwoods and then another at a higher angle for hardwoods. Same thing for a jack, with a difference in camber too. Then there’s the foreplane before a jack and for some hardy souls, the scrub. I have a small scrub and a large scrub.. go figure….

This way, you just reach up and grab the smoother to do what you want - not fiddle around with changing a blade with a different camber and/or cutting angle. Those folks with $200.00 and up new planes don’t spend any time fettling or even much sharpening. But then they buy several expensive blades to configure different ways - and then wind up spending woodworking project time changing blades out. Just to not have to buy more than five or six expensive planes.

Well, you carry that thinking over into shaves and other tools and you just paid for a very nice tablesaw.

Sorry - got carried away - a bit.

Skip

I really love Christopher Schwarz’ book on Worktables.
http://www.lostartpress.com/product/3513e08a-2f07-4616-8f2f-74017f296377.aspx

One of the things he does is break down tasks, and give a rating on what fitting is best used to accomplish the task.

I would love to see an article on plane types that goes along this line. I see listings by names and listings by Stanley number, but I have not seen one by task.

I may put one together just so someone else can shoot it down or do a better one. I know a lot about planes, but not enough I think to be an authority here.

I think I will ask this on Woodnet and see how far the discussion goes.

Bob

My first plane was a contractors’ grade Stanley reg angle block from Lowes. Didn’t use it much, went thru just about exactly as you describe here, except it’s not for end grain. My trip down this slope started years later, about a decade ago when I wound up with an almost new Stanley #4 smoother when my father-in-law passed away. It wouldn’t work either… But this time I started buying handtool books and reading them. Particularly about how to fettle planes, new and used. Most folks don’t have a clue that new planes are not ready to use out of the box - nowhere near ready. I had never heard the word fettle, I certainly didn’t know what it meant.

Now I’m at 35 planes, including two different reg angle blocks and a low angle block. Need to thin the herd down tho….. Too many slopes, not enough time!

Skip