Bench planes are the everyday workhorses of the hand plane family. Some are used to gradually reduce and straighten the pieces of a woodworking project to the correct dimensions, and others to smooth the surfaces of the wood, giving it a final finish.They are called bench planes because they are most often used at a woodworking bench rather than on site.
Bench planes are often used in the order in which they are listed below, after the scrub plane has reduced the workpiece to something approaching its required dimensions.
They are normally used along the grain of the wood . . .
. . . but are sometimes also employed in cutting end grain.
For every metal bench plane, there is a wooden equivalent, although the way the blade is secured and adjusted is usually different.
There are four basic types of bench plane, with metal and wooden equivalents of each.
Used in the order in which they are listed below, they progressively take a piece of wood from a basic state through to a smooth piece sized perfectly to fit into the particular project.
Jack planes
Jack planes are used to further reduce and straighten a piece of wood, usually after it has been through a jointer and/or a thicknesser – two electrically-powered machines used in the initial preparation of wood – or has been roughly sized by a scrub plane.
They are general-purpose bench planes and so can also be used for truing (levelling faces and edges and ensuring they are “square” with each other) and the initial smoothing of the wood’s surface.
Fore planes
The fore plane is sized mid-way between the jack and the jointer and is designed to further true (straighten and square) the wood’s surface after the scrub plane and jack plane have sized and initially trued it.
Jointer planes
The jointer is the longest bench plane. It has a dual role: stock removal (reducing the size of the wood) and accurately truing up long edges or levelling wide boards.
Smoothing planes
The smoother is often the last plane used on the wood’s surface. When set up and used properly, the finish it gives is far superior to that made by sandpaper.
Iron clamping and adjustment
The irons of most metal bench planes are clamped and adjusted by a system initially developed by Leonard Bailey in the United States in the mid-1800s, and later refined by the U.S. tool manufacturer, Stanley Works.
The wooden versions generally have a much simpler method of iron clamping and adjustment. A wooden wedge secures the iron and its depth and alignment across the sole of the plane is achieved by the rudimentary means of hitting the iron on the top or side with a hammer.
However, low-angle bench planes have increased in popularity and do have advantages – mouth adjustment is much easier than with a standard bench plane, and because they are bevel-up, a set of irons honed at different cutting angles makes the plane capable of a wide range of jobs.