Bench Planes

Bench planes are a loosely linked category of flat-bottomed planes. The cutting irons are usually set at a forty-five-degree angle ("common pitch"), though for hardwoods the angle traditionally has been a bit steeper, perhaps fifty ("York pitch") or fifty-five degrees ("middle pitch"). The bench planes, along with the smaller block planes, are used for surface smoothing and squaring. Other planes perform special types of shaving work, such as shaping moldings or rabbets.

Metal bench planes all have the same basic elements. There's the main body of the plane, with its handle at the rear and a knob up front. Within the frame is a sloping cavity into which the plane iron is inserted. The plane iron, consisting of a blade and cap, is fastened to the frame with a lever device. The blade does the cutting, the cap deflects the chips upward. The cap is screwed to the blade.

The bottom of the frame is called the sole. The opening in the sole is the mouth, the front the toe, the rear the heel. An adjustment nut or wheel raises or lowers the blade and a lateral adjustment lever shifts the blade from side to side.

Wooden bench planes are simpler than their metal brethren, generally box-shaped, and square in section. A handle extends upward from the rear of the plane. Just forward of center, the plane iron is held in place with a wooden wedge, with the bevel of the blade facing downward. The bodies of wooden bench planes tend to be made of American beech. The cutting irons can be single, but more often are capped. They are mounted bevel down, as in metal planes.

The subgroupings under the general heading of bench planes include the jointer, jack, and smoothing planes. These planes are similar in design but differ in scale. The jointer is the largest, typically more than twenty inches long. The smoothing planes are the shortest, usually seven to nine inches long. The jack planes are in between, typically a foot to fourteen inches in length. All are to be found with both wooden and metal bodies. (The name fore plane, though now largely out of use, probably refers to planes of a size between the jack and jointer planes, typically eighteen inches long. I add the "probably" because some experts argue that fore and jack are really different names for the same plane. Apparently, though, one common application for the fore plane was to shave down or smooth the edges of windows and doors. An eighteenth-century source insists that it got its name from its place in the smoothing process: "It is called the Fore Plane," asserts Joseph Moxon in his Mechaniks Exercises, "because it is used before you come to work with the Smooth Plane or with the Joynter."