Reply To: Old Coffin Plane to Scrub Plane?
Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Tools and Tool Maintenance/Restoration / Old Coffin Plane to Scrub Plane? / Reply To: Old Coffin Plane to Scrub Plane?
I don’t agree at all with dperrot! Scrub planes are extremely useful, and it is their purpose to do the rough job. Once done, you grab the next plane, which is still sharp. I have a tiny “German” scrub plane, blade 1-1/2″ wide or even less. It worked wonders on large wide rough sawn planks and it was amazing to see, how this small lightweight tool hogged away the waste so quickly. Of course, it is possible to use finer planes, but it is less efficient. I like to think of a smoothing plane in scrub-mode like a guitar tuned down to bass pitch: It sort of works, but it isn’t the same.
In a video, Paul Sellers talks about the history of wooden planes and how the scrub plane came to be (as a matter of fact, it was always there, but had no name). He demonstrates, how a scrub plane easily produces 1 mm thick shavings – try that with a smoothing plane!
The blade of your plane is fairly thin. I don’t know, if that is good or bad for a scrub plane. According to Paul Sellers, it should be fine, if it is seated well in its bed. If not, it might chatter and cause horrible tearout then (that’s just my idea, might be wrong).
All this said, you can probably turn this plane into a scrub plane, unless it already is one. Check the width of the opening for the blade. Or only clean it up a bit and keep it in memoriam to your grandfather.
Dieter