Tools: Planes

©️2019 Montgomery J Nelson

I grew-up in Minnesota, mostly in the 70’s, around folks who did a fair amount of woodworking.

Sometimes I wish I had taken the opportunity to learn more about woodworking back then. I could get a new can of Snus real fast, and I could figure out which fridge had the cold cans of Oly, but I wasn’t much more useful than that. Most of what I learned

about woodworking came from books and from casual observation as a child. I recently was thinking about how much the fellas used their old Stanley block planes. They had the “pocket” sized planes around and made good use of them- including as a shaping tool. I remembered this a while back and acquired a tiny inexpensive Kunz pocket plane to have around the studio. I have found it very helpful for small wood carving and other tasks.

©️2019 Montgomery J Nelson

I have started carving /sculpting larger stock, and in trying to shape the these larger pieces I found myself wanting for a tool that could do gradual shaping of flat surfaces. The small plane came to mind, and I started looking at the woodworking tool stores for ideas.
On the LIE-NIELSEN TOOL WORKS site I found their No 40 1/2 SCRUB PLANE.

©️2019 Montgomery J Nelson.

The scrub plane is a sculptor’s dream at shaping wood. And not just for working flat surfaces. The scrub plane does great work on curves as well. I love schwacking out big hunks of wood, but sometimes a more measured approach is called for and this is the tool for those times.

I love shaping with the No 40 1/2 scrub plane so much that I’m saving-up to get a LIE-NIELSON 

60 1/2 BLOCK PLANE and the extra toothed blade.

Product idea for LIE-NIELSON: do a second version of the Scrub Plane and 60 1/2 Block Plane, make the tools Emo black, and call them the 40 1/2 and 60 1/2 Sculptor’s Planes.