question about hand planes

Your best bet would be a #7 or #8 size handplane. Ebay they go for $70-$120 for pre-war Stanley Bailey’s but can be found in the wild for cheaper. You could probably get away with a #6 for shorter boards. Ive even had success jointing with a #5 which are readily available at auctions, tag sales, flea markets, and the like.

-- "there aren’t many hand tools as awe-inspiring as the #8 jointer. I mean, it just reeks of cast iron heft and hubris" - Smitty

Chrisstef has good advice You must remember that buying an old plane (which I do) requires a lot of rehab. De-rusting (often), sharpening always, proper set up, etc.
There is a bunch of info on the web about plane rehab. It is very rare to find an older plane ready to use.
I recently paid $75.00 for a good condition #7, and $25.00 for a #5 1/2 that needed just a little work. That’ll kinda give even more credence to what Chrisstef posted. Those prices had additional shipping costs.
Just as a reference…..a good #4, #5, and #7 will do a lot of what you want. You don’t EVEN want to know how many I have (hanging head in shame).
Bill

-- bill@magraphics.us

Bill’s got it dead on …. start with one and youll end up with 20. I built a till to house my planes with 7 slots, no way ill ever need more than that i thought to myself. HAHA … now ive got planes scattered about the shop and the till is well beyond full.

-- "there aren’t many hand tools as awe-inspiring as the #8 jointer. I mean, it just reeks of cast iron heft and hubris" - Smitty

I joint almost entirely by hand but I’ve never had much luck ganging boards I plan to glue-up. My advice is the same as above, Stanley #7. Tune it up, go to work.

-- My dad and I built a 65 chev pick up.I killed trannys in that thing for some reason-Hog

I agree with what the rest have said, look around for a good #7. I use a #7 for all of my jointing.

What you mentioned about having the 2 boards clamped together and planing them at the same time is called “match planing”. It has its pros and cons. On the pro side, if you plane your board so that they aren’t quite square to the face, the edges will counter-balance each other and you still get a flat glue-up. On the other hand, if you plane your boards and the edges are not perfectly straight, you double the effect because each board is bowed the same way.

I’ve tried match planing and I don’t do it. I find it easier to plane each board so the edge is square to the face than it is to get edge perfectly straight. So I plane a board and check that it is square and straight. Then do the same with the other one. If I get better at making them straight, I may try match planing again.

good luck.

^agree totally with Lumber2Sawdust. I like to square the boards up to each other individually, then take a few partial swipes in the centers of the boards, “spring” them, if you will. I find that it keeps the extreme edges of the joint tighter together. My favorite thing to do with planes is joint. You’re in for a fun time.

-- My dad and I built a 65 chev pick up.I killed trannys in that thing for some reason-Hog

There is sage advice in the responses above.

What a ton of great responses! Thanks to all. I am really wanting to >step< into this and this gives me what I need to start.

Again, thanks!

-- Chris, “as soon as you come up with something foolproof, they come up with a better fool""

Agreed, some excellent advice above. My personal jointer is an old Bailey No. 7. When I bought it, it not only required derusting and general set up, but sole flattening, cleaning the gunk from underneath the frog, and a good scrub with oil, and then waxing it up. The nice thing I’ve found about restoring these old planes is that once you do it, you have a pretty good idea of what your plane can do in the cut. I’m currently debating springing for a replacement blade and chipbreaker from Hock since I use my jointer so often.

I’ll be one that says grab you a #8 if you have the opportunity. It’s a big hog, but well worth having if you’re jointing anything more than 3/4” thick. A plane in motion, when it’s the #8, stays in motion and that’s a very good thing.

Other than that, Everythign Above is spot on, sage advise… Good luck! :-)

-- Don't anthropomorphize your handplanes. They hate it when you do that. -- OldTools Archive

Hello Chris, Im fairly new to hand planing myself.

I might get my head chewed off for saying this, but I believe hand planes should work in unison. I think in terms of 4 planes with any project because it will be a rare day when you do not flatten boards as well as edge. This is particularly true with rough stock. My ideal basic setup is as follows:

#7 jointer #5 jack #4 smoother
A good block plane

This only my opinion. There are a ton of guys on here who have more knowledge and talent than I do at this point in time.

V/R….... John

Don’t listen to these guys – there’s no danger of getting hooked on handplanes. And the “slippery slope” is an old wive’s tale. Here are some shots of what happened not long after I bought a single garage sale smoother. The lineup on the dining room table (that went over big!) is of a single days’ take last summer. The rest of the shots are of planes I have in a spare room. In other words there are no shots here of my shop planes! But, no, I don’t have a problem – I can quit anytime I want.

see if this helps

http://timetestedtools.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/what-planes-do-i-need/

-- There is nothing like the sound of a well tuned hand plane. - http://timetestedtools.wordpress.com (timetestedtools at hotmail dot c0m)

Well, if I was going to be scared off, DocBailey would’ve done it!

I have already been down this road with:

Guitars
Computers
Smartphones
Golf clubs

I’l stop there. All I want is one little hand plane. Just one and I’ll be happy…..

thank you for the input!! I’ll start shopping for that one now.

C

-- Chris, “as soon as you come up with something foolproof, they come up with a better fool""

Doc, you need help (moving all those plane around).
Bill

-- bill@magraphics.us