Planes I True My Wood With | Paul Sellers

There is no doubt that truing up wood using hand planing methods can be a daunting thought. So we hope that this video of Paul's strategy will make planing wood much easier for you.
Using a combination of planes and techniques makes the highs low and brings the lows high. This system works like no other so enjoy a strategy that Paul has used for decades in straightening and squaring his wood ready for joinery.
--------------------
For more free woodworking videos, please consider subscribing to my channel:
www.youtube.co...
Want to learn more about woodworking?
Go to Woodworking Masterclasses for weekly project episodes: bit.ly/2JeH3a9
Go to Common Woodworking for step-by-step beginner guides and courses: bit.ly/35VQV2o
bit.ly/2BXmuei for Paul’s latest ventures on his blog
--------------------
Instagram: bit.ly/2oWpy7W
Facebook- bit.ly/2JgKHQS
Twitter- bit.ly/33S7RFa
Pinterest- bit.ly/35X5uTf

[@Vormulac1]

I never thought of using a #78 like that. Genius.

[@mohdalisyed]

The crisp sound of that plane iron again the wood is just 👌

[@Mr_Rick]

There's simply no one else like you Paul. We are blessed for all your sharing. Thank you.

[@nobuckle40]

Thank you for sharing your techniques with us Paul. I appreciate how you make woodworking so accesible for the common man.

[@michaellieblang6325]

Hi Paul. Deep admiration from Germany! The 2 Videos just watched opened my world. Highly recommend the others without having watched them already ;)

[@jmo136]

I found your video on planes you use to true a piece of wood. I have some planes I have three planes, Stanley #6, Stanley #4 and a Stanley #3. Which other planes do you I suggest I add to my collection?

[@jkgkjgkijk]

Dont try this if you're jabbed kids

[@dondicey6528]

AH, the workout at the "plane" gym/fitness center. I am amazed at how often I find myself huffing and puffing when I am truing up a nice piece of hardwood. You are the perfect fitness instructor! Thanks for all your tips as always.

[@paulcharleton3208]

Paul - Just a thankyou for showing me that manual wordworking is possible for a novice. My father was a joiner - he did apprenticeship from 1946 and became a civil engineer after the army building the big power stations. I was brought up on Deephams water treatment works in North London watching him work with wood in the service sheds on site. I would have been about 2-3 in the late 50's very early 60's. I have all his tools as he is no longer with us. They were always a mystery to me as to my shame I never took an interest when I could. Your videos have shown me how to restore his planes and do things myself and become closer to him. You are a true craftsman and communicator. Many thanks. Paul

[@ForestWoodworks]

Does anybody else love Paul's comment sections? So encouraging, such joy. Very few trolls. Just all manner of people coming together over craft. ❤it!

[@mr.shellcracker9161]

Paul, I have a no 6. Would this substitute for the 5 1/2?

[@hypnoraythompson5824]

Not only flattens your boards, but an excellent workout too.

[@ErgonBill]

And you get a good workout.

[@Jacob19923]

No one does it better. Full stop.

[@Dragon_With_Matches]

Great video! Thank you for teaching us all so much! I’m about to start shopping for my first hand plane and I can’t wait to get started working with it. I’m new to woodworking and have been mostly relying on power tools. As much as I enjoy it, My current project has been mostly done with hand tools and I enjoy that even more.

[@astrophyz]

Thanks, Paul! I'm slowly learning more about how different planes are useful and where in the process they fit... And this video just fits.

[@rjtjtckt3998]

How impressive that you carry on talking in the same tone as you work. You're a great teacher/mentor.

[@sjlee32]

“We don’t want to spend a whole day just truing up a piece of wood” This describes my first few weeks using hand planes in a nutshell. It really takes practice and good judgment to just “get it where it needs to be” and get on with it

[@jamesbradley9474]

Thank you very much for this video, Mr. Sellers! I have a small project that I am starting which will be my first where I will true the wood entirely by hand. I was a little surprised that you used a Stanley #78 as a jack/scrub plane but, again, this is a new operation for me. I have seen other planes used as a jack, but not a #78. My Grandfather was a cabinetmaker, carpenter, boatbuilder, contractor and I have many of his tools including a fairly complete assortment of Stanley planes, scrapers, etc. As I have been learning woodworking over the years it is interesting to observe how a better understanding of woodworking lends insight into how my Grandfather had set up his tools: things that have seemed strange to me on first observation make more sense over time. I have been struck by the absence of a jack/scrub plane in my Grandfather's tools, which I supposed would come in a much different form than a #78. Upon seeing this video, however, I went into my shop and I found one of my Grandfather's rabbet plans which, to my joyful surprise was set up as a jack plane just as your #78 was, Paul. This plane was a #190, which is a very similar body to the #78. It brought me joy to understand yet one more thing about my Grandfather's tools, and to realize that what you are doing, Paul, was the same set up as my grandfather was using just about 100 years ago.

[@bill4123]

Paul flattened that board in less time than it would have taken me to get all the broken stuff off my bench that my kids set there for fixing!

[@mathquir190]

I worked for the first time on pine and same soft woods with a lots of knots and got confident. Now I tried some maple just to see and it seems to be a LOT different thing. I got the plane to take the more wood I can and it still... not doing much or just tear the thing inside too much. I guess when you get into HARD wood you need to get a different angle but can't be sure if I need to be more parallel of more perpendicular with the blade sharpening. Hard to tell. As I seen, being more perpendicular sharpening (like 20,22,25) was helping a lot and then it was just about adjustments but I feel like I need more angle like 25,27,30 because the wood just bite too much on hard woods with lower angles. If someone knows about it and read it please tell me which one I should go (lower or higher angle). I just have one blade right now and I'm pretty poor so it would help a lot to figure it out. Thanks

[@VitorMachadoProf]

Good job. I subscribed the channel. Cheers.

[@andyoverall1951]

Using a plane is harder than it looks especially if you have to contend with knots and cross grain. You make it look easy on that cherry, I can see that I need more practice.

[@van192]

You are ray of light that continues to illuminate my journey in woodworking. I love you, man.

[@donalrodgers123]

Crub plane, joiner plane, smoothing plane.

[@fireant128]

It’s easy to throw it in a thicknesser and say done but it’s an art to do by hand

[@jerrytrueblue]

Thanks for the refresher Paul.... especially these days of info overload. Reminding me to keep it simple. Stay well! Jerry

[@LNM0000]

Not to mention keeping you fit !!

[@donepearce]

There is most definitely a right time to use a power planer.

[@howiegsplay884]

Hi Paul. A newbie here and would like to ask what would be the best plane for a beginner like me?

[@3henry214]

That there is the stamina developed from doing it for decades... I bet Paul has one heck of handshake. impressive from someone in their 70's, when at a younger age, I can't even do that for even 1/4 of the time that he's doing it in the video, without starting to get winded.

[@mattevans-koch9353]

Every day is better when it starts with a Paul Sellers wood working video. Thank you Paul for all of your sharing and teaching. Have a great weekend.

[@brianmiller6304]

Thank you very much. Exactly what I needed today. And hello from South Dakota, USA.

[@sawdustcrypto3987]

I thought getting into hand tools meant a little more elbow grease but less money for tools. But going by this example, it looks like I'd need to spend $1000 on tools just to true a board!

[@toshn4151]

You can do it with a single Stanley 4 with several blades of varying camber. That's less than $100. Paul is just showcasing some options. With power tools a planer or a jointer would be several times more expensive, and not to mention you'd need to sand.

[@en510]

One thing I really want to see a video on is how to go about dimensioning a highly figured board, it seems like a lot of the time when I use a scrub on them i end up ripping big chunks out and end up chasing problems

[@defjosh75]

I always try to work across the grain. If my plane is just taking big chunks out I just switch over to a card scraper. I just spent three hours last night planning a walnut slab for a tiny side table.

[@en510]

@@defjosh75 I have some prices that have really quilted grain rivaling on burl status, but i just wonder if there is a better way to do it by hand rather than doing 5 hours of scraping and checking

[@silmarils94]

@@en510 reducing the camber of the iron allows to take a thinner shaving, but sometimes you have to switch to a regular straight ( ish ) iron and be patient. Oh and sharpening frequently can help a lot.

[@spayced]

Best option is to tighten up your chip breaker to get it as a close to the cutting edge as possible. Requires some precision to get it working. Also go more diagonal not with the grain, you need more camber for that though.

[@jimcarter4929]

@@defjosh75 Number 80 scraper plane helps too, but mostly better for hard woods.

[@derf9465]

Thats the 78 irons going up In Cost.......

[@1mwebster]

Bugger me pal you make it look soooo easy, thanks for sharing for us mere mortals 😉👍

[@skippylippy547]

❤

[@Thom4123]

As always thank you for so much the information.

[@yaroose1]

Wonderful and informative as usual. But my first follow up question is how do you plane the other side of the board to be perfectly parallel to the first planed side, and then the second is making the second side to a specific dimension width. I've been practicing with a piece of 2x4 and can barely get that flat. Oh well. Thanks for all your absolutely great videos!

[@jjorge5610]

Make the first face as flat as you can (using winding sticks to remove twist). Then plane the adjacent face to be perpendicular to the first flat side. Now you have two sides flat and at 90 to each other. You then use a marking gauge to set the depth of planing to the other two sides.

[@susanmei9980]

@@jjorge5610 Newbie here: What are Winding Sticks?

[@engelsQ]

The smile at the end…! 😊

[@BakerVS]

My strategy: A Swiss wooden bodied scrub plane for rough removal, then a no5 with a strong camber, followed by a normal no5 or 6. For long pieces, I also have a long bodied Swiss jointer out of wood. At the end, I smooth with a 4 1/2 or an Ulmia Reformhobel.

[@nickgoogle4525]

Mmh, so one _only_ needs a number 4 plane. And then another number 4, and a 5 1/2 and a 4 1/2 and a rabbet plane... ;-) That's a count of 5 in my book :-D. But I understand. So my thinking was that after having a number 4 I will convert an old wooden plane I have (also sized about a no. 4 plane) to a scrub plane and lastly add a 5 1/2.

[@WorkingViews]

my scrub plane has saved me days of labor.

[@michaeldwilson1471]

If you run a pencil back and forth on a flat surface, then rub your twisted board across that surface, you can identify exactly where there's a high spot.

[@negaopiroca2766]

Following your advice I converted one of my #4 to a scrub plane and it works beautifully. What is the advantage of the #78 in relation to the #4 though?

[@patricklee5969]

Thanks for the videos, my love of planes I owe to great people like yourself. I have my grandfathers STANLEY plane and I was wondering were I can get the plane dated. Any help?

[@joshjenkinson1929]

I always wonder how flat Paul gets a board like this before calling it flat. To get it flat to within a few thousandths along the length and width seems a lot of work for me. The thought of planing a load of rough sawn hardwood into the components for say a bookshelf seems like a mammoth task. I reckon it’d be at least a few days of hard work. Even slight bluntness in the plane iron can force you to push / press harder to get the job done which inevitably leads to a not so flat board.

[@anselmmoro5795]

Thank you so much. Your videos helped. I appreciate your work.

[@pathdoc60]

Amazing workout that you can do all that while narrating it and never seem short of breath. “Planing Gym”. Cheers and thank you.

[@pathdoc60]

Thank you Paul. Amazing that you do all that while narrating it and are never short of breath. Wow! “Wood Prep Planing Gym” , what a workout, no treadmill needed. Cheers. Michael Alabama, USA

[@lesdrinkwater490]

Great if you have a wide choice of planes to use. I don't.

[@jonescrusher1]

Been enjoying this on 2x playback speed

[@nikwhite9762]

The idea of using the No.78 with a cambered iron is brilliant. Even though I have a LN scrub, which is very aggressively cambered, now I'm in the market for a No.78 or maybe a No.10-1/4 since I'd also like a larger rabbet plane.

[@sacm.d.l8337]

What a brute you still are Paul! The long winter obviously hasn’t made your arms weary.

[@donatostolfi1025]

Ciao , SEI UN GRANDE MAESTRO COME POSSO FARE PER SEGUIRTI IN ITALIANO ...

[@lanceroark6386]

Mr Sellers, what would you say to the challenge of making a loom?

[@niallmccurdy3731]

I must be missing something when I watch videos on truing up timber. I have been trying for months for to get a flat face side when working with a hand plane but I always seem to end up with a concave in the middle of the timber even when planing something 50mm wide

[@juancordon7326]

Great video! I’ve learnt so much from your videos and have improved so quickly it’s amazing! Thank you Paul

[@micheljauvin3536]

why going back to a 4 1/2 after the #5 plane

[@jameshutchins3396]

Love the idea of different blades

[@rauschguitars]

Highly recommended! If you take a light shaving, the scrub blade even deals with nasty grain (like ebony) quite well. I started just leaving the scrub blade in my number 4, using it to do 95% of the work before finishing up with a 6.

[@AbandonedInTheMilkyWay]

There is so much to learn from you Paul. Thank you!

[@jacekkonior5776]

Best regards from Poland

[@christophercastor6666]

Thank you as always -CY Castor

[@ibrhemahmed170]

Thank you so much

[@Lagrange00]

I’m surely missing something but I don’t get why you are using a no. 78 as a scrub, with a scrub you aren’t using the fence or the depth stop, then because of the blade’s camber you also aren’t using the nicker or taking advantage of the full width blade. I suppose it could be simply because you had it laying around not using it for anything else or because you found it used without any of the accessories.

[@bighands69]

Wood working can be very personal. He is probably using the narrow width of the plane so as to target very specific humps in the wood and does not want to be taking off other wood around the area. His first pass with the narrow plane is not to flatten the whole of the wood but to target very specific sections. That is my read into it.

[@colinscowen9621]

My old wooden scrub plane is also a very narrow blade as well.

[@behonestwithyourself3718]

I have a 78 for a scrub too. Mine was laying around and had no fence, nicker etc. The blades are cheap and it's works surprisingly well.

[@malcolmsmith5903]

I don't think you've missed much. I think using a 78 which is no longer useful as a 78 is an opportunity. However, when scrubbing high spots using a wide blade it's actually a very narrow part of a heavily 'radiused' blade your using anyway. And a narrower scrub reduces the effort too for step 1. I have which a 78 as scrub because it had a cracked depth-stop and Mr Sellers showed the possibilities to utilise it. That's what he does - you don't need lots of stuff, a 4 will do must stuff but if you have others then here's how. ;) My donkey work is with a 78 and a 4 1/2 or 5 1/2....after I've done as much as I can with a saw(s).

[@alland1241]

I would love to see a video of you trying to take off a 1/16th off of a board using a 5 1/2 just because it has a wider blade

[@vvood_loft69]

good working👍

[@Ivanhoe52]

Thanx Paul! We needed that.

[@imager8763]

Excellent.

[@usaf4dbt]

Thank you

[@bobbabcock3847]

very helpful

[@paulp4452]

One thing I am not clear about. Whats the advantage of starting with the 78? Couldn't you just reach for your 4 scrub initially?

[@Paul.Sellers]

It's a narrower plane with a wide-open throat so you can reduce the highs much more readily yet highly controllably and then follow up with a converted #4 as a scrub at a secondary level. It's hard to explain the pleasure it brings but on a #4 plane you have to use the cap iron that restricts the cutting potential.

[@Membee]

@@Paul.Sellers that makes sense. Thanks Paul

[@thetrevor861]

Fascinating. Such expertise and technique, thank you. Except. What IS a scrub plane ? What IS a No. 4 plane ? What IS a No.5 plane ?

[@Paul.Sellers]

Go and do the research. Google them. make the time to find out. Then it will be earned by you as we all have done.. I and others took the time to put the information out there. We've made videos, written reams of information on these tools. Yours is the easier for our hard work. Go for it! Hit those keys.

[@thetrevor861]

@@Paul.Sellers Sorry Paul. I thought, you are so good at explaining your expertise and experience, you would just, perhaps, explain a bit of jargon. Mea culpa.

[@Paul.Sellers]

@@thetrevor861 and I'm sorry if my answer seemed terse to you. Sometimes I can see how it can come across that way. I meant to be encouraging not unkind. Please forgive me.

[@SenorHeisaCoolguy]

Paul, what do I do if I only have a jack plane and a smoother...? And lack 50 years of experience?

[@Paul.Sellers]

Then you use what you have.

[@mitschkoff]

Try to obtain a second blade iron for one or both of them, grind a chamfer on the blade and you get a free scrub plane.

[@keithwyles5248]

@@mitschkoff Often cheaper to buy a second plane complete with blade and convert it. My scrub no4 cost £12.

[@gregblake2764]

I took 3 years of industrial arts while in school. We did everything, flattening, squaring, jointing, and smoothing using only a Stanley #5 jack plane. As a result, we all got quite skilled with it. I built for 12 years trying up boards only with a #5 because it's what I knew. Get a second iron for it and put a strong camber on the iron for course work and then switch back to your original iron for final flattening, jointing, and smoothing.

[@gazpal]

My old woodwork teacher gifted me my first smoothing plane after I passed my O Level Woodwork when aged 13yrs. I'm 60yrs old now, I've never looked back and work with my handplanes daily. 🙂 Number 2 (cheap, narrow soled planes from the 60's) make decent scrub planes, as do the old horned Bismark planes 🙂

[@silmarils94]

why don't you check for twist?

[@Paul.Sellers]

I do. All the time, every day in all of my work.

[@benoitvannoten5113]

This is about using various planes. Paul has other videos about wood preparation where he is using the winding sticks.

[@silmarils94]

@@Paul.Sellers Of course, I was meaning in this video.

[@Paul.Sellers]

Because the video is only about the planes I use and not the subject of truing wood .