Hand Planing Wood - Flat, Smooth, and Polished (2020) 

In the past six months I have watched A LOT of youtube about hand planes, and I think this is the first time I've ever seen one that actually explained not just how buy *why* every step is taken when planing a board flat and smooth, and the relationship between the method and the result. Thank you so much!

I want to update my last comment by saying this is probably the best video I have ever seen on flattening and smoothing a board. Rob goes into the depth and takes the time to ensure that whoever watches this knows what he is doing and why. No other RU-vid presenter comes even close to this.

When I watch other videos, they make it look so fast and easy. Then when I do it, never fast. Your video is excellent as it shows the reality of it takes time to do it right. Very reassuring. Also, I learned you start with a technique but you are constantly adjusting to what the wood is telling you. Great teaching and advice. Thanks

Im someone who prefers to learn by doing, and I wanted to give a huge thank you for these videos. Many of these basic skills can be quite intimidating. Ive had projects that i was nervous to finish at a certain point out of fear of ruining the whole thing. Your videos and expert guidance have helped me tremendously, and im glad to be a part of the age where we can share this knowledge freely with others. Id never be able to afford actual classes, so thanks for helping me in my journey!

Rob, it is SO nice for someone to show how it REALLY works! 3-7 strokes. Check it. 3-7 strokes. Check it. 3-7, check, 3-7 check. I always felt like I was missing something when other videos are getting flat square parallel boards in 2 minutes. Pencil the pivot points (or lows or highs - I use squiggles for lows, lightning bolts for highs, and darker lines for magnitude). The other part you talk about is not making it worse! In the beginning, I'd take too much and then just like golf on the green, wiff the ball back and forth. I feel so validated watching you. Thanks for making it real.

This chap is brilliant both in his skills and the clarity of presentation. Thank you Rob for what you are doing and the way you are helping so many. Woodwork has kept we sane during this virus lock down.

I took your advice, Rob, and recently bought a 5 1/2. Wow. So glad. The weight and length make planing a joy now. Accuracy has improved dramatically, too.

The instructions Rob uses are the best. I have been wood working since a kid in my grandfathers shop. I am blessed with a well equipped shop and the one thing i have been reenforced with Rob is tool sharpness . When I watched his top wood selections I guessed pine as his favorite because it is mine. I do work with cherry and walnut a lot.

These are excellent tutorials Rob, I'm getting a lot from them , thank you :)

Thanks for all your tutorials, Rob.

Great info and video. Always watching from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Thank you for all you do. Cheers

This is one of my favorite videos you've done! Thank you!!!

This is such an interesting video. Thank you so much for explaining so clearly.

Fantastic demonstration Rob, thanks for posting it for us. It was almost as therapeutic listening to those shavings coming off your plane as it is when I'm doing the work.

glass panel,damp the board, lay it on the glass, the moisture will be visible where its touching and dry where its not. frosted glass will give a more pronounced effect.

I love these tutorials, these are helpful.

I'm exhausted just watching! Great vid thanks.

Great vid Rob. I remember you doing one similar to this topic some time back which was also good. But this is fantastic. Slowing down a little and taking time to explain some of the details to us less experienced gives me the "ahaa" moment I was looking for. Thanks

I have learned more about hand planning watching your video's than any other medium I have looked at for the use, set up, tuning and sharpening of hand planes. I was almost at the point of giving up on hand planes until I starting watching your demonstration and teaching. Now I look for every opportunity I can to use my hand planes, which are Wood River I might add, again because of you. And I can say the same about chisels. Thank you so much. One more thing, your PHP has to be ranked right up there with the best in helping our vets. I have contributed when I can and hope to do more in the future. What a fantastic program.

That was really well presented - and it had a lot of useful info too. Gotta be happy with that.

I recently discovered the hand plane way. My Kana leaves me a beautiful finish. Great video turn everyone onto hand planes...brings you "closer" to the wood anyway

The difference in appearance of sanded vs. hand planed blows my mind. I'm just starting woodworking with just hand tools, and flattening surfaces is my first concern so thank you for the information.

Good to see someone else chasing different areas flat on a board. Pleased it's not just me that goes though this.

Hey Rob, i really like your humor.

Useful, helpful and enjoyable. I was amused when you mentioned you had to get this finished before you ran out of wood. Now, of course, I'll have to give this a try but I'm going to start with an even smallest board.

Thanks Rob, nice way to end the day. Greatly Appreciate the tutorials ! On the job wearing the tee shirt every day, aching for someone to ask about it so far no bites but I’m sure someone will ask sooner or later ...

Now I understand why there is so much focus on having a perfectly flat workbench. It is used to gauge just how perfectly flat boards are when planing. It is not all about having a flat surface for assembly.

Holy shit I literally just learned a lot I always mess with twisted boards and never knew how to get that out thanks rob

Thanks

I went through this last night and it seemed to take forever and reduced the thickness of the board more than I wanted or needed. I have another board to do but watched this first. Hopefully, I will do better. Thanks for the very informative post.

Thanks Rob, your information is timeless. Excellent tutorial.

Very nice level of detail and thoroughness. Could you sometime comment on the rationale and particulars of the collection of plane blades you have in the tool tray on the back of your bench?

I could never be disciplined enough to stop and pull out the shavings after each stroke! My plane is lucky if I even bother to stop when there's a chunk stuck in the blade..

For anyone learning to do this for the first time pay close attention to some of the subtle details Rob is doing. Put all of your pressure on the knob at the beginning of your pass and all of your pressure on the tote at the end of your pass or you will be planing a hump into all of your boards unwittingly. If you're hand dimensioning boards your workbench has to be flat, it is your reference for flatness that will transfer to all of your boards. Rob, your video is excellent. This is a tricky task to get right when you're starting out that certainly frustrated me when I was learning. I'm just a weekend woodworker, and I made the decision to buy a jointer and planer so that I could finish more than 1 or 2 projects in a year. I am still glad I took the time to develop this skill because there are times when I have boards wider than my 6" jointer that I have to flatten by hand before thicknessing in my planer. Also going through the effort of learning to dimension lumber by hand is probably the best/quickest way to get "good" at using hand planes, so that when the boards come out of the planer flat and square the act of putting a finish ready surface on it with a smoothing plane is trivial and a pleasure.

Absolutely amazing, this was a 30 minutes educational video… how long would it take you working un interrupted?

Gotta love the way these demo's are always done with straight grained knot free timber and it's nearly always a softwood. If only that were possible in the real world. Before surface joiners took the brutal sweat out of dimensioning lumber surfacing and thicknessing was done by scrubbing the timber flat diagonally. Curved blades hold up longer and leave a surface with lot's of reference points for the finishing cabinet maker to work from. There really is no point in finish planing generally until the work is assembled. Wooden soled planes, waxed, polished and subtly hollowed could be driven fast with far less friction than metal plane's. The wax rubs off metal plane within a minute or two and it won't be long, trust me on this, before you get blistered hand's using one.

Patience, patience!

Thank you truly. It has been a pure pleasure watching you working as ever. A bit depressing for an amaterur like me, reminding me all the time how much farther I yet have to go before reaching the point when the man learnt to put a rock at the end of a stick :-)

Great lesson. Thanks. Removing that hump in the board would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, and not nearly as efficient and precise using a random orbit or belt sander.

The thing I always have to remind myself is that a low spot requires everything else be lowered to match it, while a high spot needs to be reduced to match the surrounding levels. I also have to discipline myself to slack off at the end of the stroke to avoid introducing a taper. This is a matter of practice and attentiveness as I work through the process.

Great video! I liked it and found interesting. Thank you Cosmans (or Cosmen?)

After using several hand planes. I finish off , with the L/V scraper plane on very hard woods e.g. ebony, rosewood, locust, white oak etc

Good stuff Rob! I hated the hand plane. Then I found you and your videos. I am still a beginner with my Bailey BUT I am getting better results each project. Thanks again, and if you ever get smocks in for us polar bear sized guys, I would love to buy one.

Another great video, look forward to seeing the winding sticks video. I think we use the term PAR (Planed All Round) instead of S4S in the UK.

Do you have any video’s on flattening bench tops

Do some finishes or stains require a rougher (less polished blade) or sanded surface to work well? Perhaps to have a uniform stain or help in avoiding blotches, especially modern finishes?

I had a 400 dollar budget for hand planes. I bought the WR Low-Angle Block w adjustable throat and the No. 6. I already had a vintage Fulton No. 4, and a Fulton waffle handle combination plane. These will just have to do for a while yet. I couldn't get a LN or Veritas in an acceptable time frame. I'll use the router to flatten anything way out of shape.

And once again, a thorough and detailed video. You are teaching whole generations of woodworkers not only proper techniques but how to think through the problems. On another note, did I miss your explanation of what the fuzzy is on your apron? Well done Rob, thank you!!

Tus Vídeos son muy interesantes. Siendo yo hispano parlante utilizo el traductor de google, pero, este no es muy bueno, de manera que me cuesta entender tus excelentes instrucciones. Seria interesante que puedas subtitular tus vídeos en español para poder comprender mejor. Muchas Gracias amigo..

Amazing video, and can't wait for the next one on winding sticks! I've been working on my hand plane technique after watching some of your previous videos and it's really helped improve my results. If you have any tips: I have been struggling with getting the outer side of my board flat. I've been trying to use the skew technique you mentioned at 14:19 but have had a hard time with the outer edge because the majority of the plane is off the board and I think that's been causing me to lose full contact with the board. I've tried various things like flipping the board in the vice (a bit annoying but it works), or changing the skew to be in the other direction (really awkward). I've been planing relatively wide boards so it's even harder to get my hands all the way to the outside. I noticed that you reduce the skew when you get to the outside edge and are almost parallel: is that the technique you would suggest?

Any chance of doing a video on hand planing a board with cathedrals.

Great tutorial. Finishing a great dinning table in Holm Oak at the moment. Hand planing not really an option, irrespective of throat width. Would you sand or scrape??

The first step that you're doing, taking the high spots out. Can this also be done with winding sticks? Because My bench isn't flat enough to use as a reference face. So I thought winding sticks would work too?

your videos are amazing. thank you so much. i am basically a novice woodworker. my question is. if you start out with a 3/4 board. after all the planing it is probably only 5/8 or 11 /16 so if i am using boards for a project how to i make them all the same thickness thanks

Curious if one would get equally good results planing end grain, like an end grain cutting board. Or is it better to just stick with sanding that kinda thing?

I was always tought by a master carpenter , that if you plane the surface to the piont that it's polished... its then becomes difficult to apply any sort of finish.? ie .. stains or varnishes.? Any thoughts on this?

Is planning generally the first step in a project or can this be done later in the project? Say once i've glued or joined other pieces together?

Hello, I have the following question: I just can’t get a flat surface lengthwise, there always is a bump and the stat and end of the board are thinner. I do pay attention to the pressure when starting and ending t7he stroke but always end up with the bump. Sometime the plane only catches at the beginning and at the end of the stroke, even when I already have a bump, leaving an even bigger one. What can be the reason? This lets me currently think it is just not reasonable to try to dimension a board by hand, but when I see this video it seems to be possible to get a fly surface. Please help! thank you

Hey Rob, did you do a Shop tour video? I am fixed on that wall behind you and looking to build one myself.

Thank you! Thank you! Great video. It gets to the heart of my problem. I do have a question. If you only have to get 1 plane, what would it be? I have a bevel up plane. Its LN 6 1/2 low angle. I cant seem to get a consistent shaving because each time you adjust the blade, you have to loosen the blade and adjust, test and adjust to make sure you are planing square on both size. I'm so ready to try a bevel down plane. What would you recommend? Thanks.

Is that Jack a 5-1/2? I’m waiting until this weekend to go to WoodCraft and get my new 5-1/2! Time goes SOOO slowly when your not doing woodworking! Awesome video as always and I’m learning so much from you!

Great video, Rob~! I've watched you do this in so many clips, but I need to give it a go myself. Got to get over the first-time jitters. :-) Also, I hope to get somewhat proficient at this for when I sign up for your TTH workshop. Thanks much~!

If your project needs 3/4 inch parts, what rough thickness do you start with before thickness planing and then hand planing? Thanks,

Would borrowing an idea form the router guys make un-winding and flattening easier? The plane is stiff enough and long enough to bridge across the board maybe. If tapered shims were used for stabilization and leveling of a pair of clamped fences. would a "plane sled" work?

Cool to watch, but I'll stick with my jointer, planer and sander and be done in 5 min. We still don't know if the faces are parallel.

Personally, I plane sidewards, across the grain, until the board is grossly flat. Depends on the wood, I guess. Most hardwoods, going sideways will give much faster material removal (can extend the blade out farther without jamming/chatter) with less effort and less chance to tear out the surface of the wood if the grain isn't all the same direction. You get lines, but no bad tearout. Of course you have to avoid blowing out the back edge, but if the edge/s are high, you can plane them from edge-in, so no tearout. When grossly flat, then I change directions to go with the grain, and also readjust the plane. And the lines disappear with 2-3 passes, maybe? I'm sure the wood moved, here, making the job way bigger than first anticipated. As he removed the hump, it released some tension, and the wood curled more. Ad infinitum. Making the wood thinner is like removing some of the laminations from a bent-lamination. That area would move, as a result. The kind of wood probably makes a difference, too. A thoroughly dry hardwood might not move so much? If he had anticipated this much material removal, he probably would have done it a different way. Or more likely chosen a different board? But the result? Seeing that plane all waxed up and gliding off layers of wood silk, I think the video was spot on. Wood River, eh?

ignore me I watch all your vids

A video on how to correctly use a block plane? All possible uses? Often I happen to plane a box on the main face running into different grain directions and possible tear out... thanks!

I know this is at least a year old or late comment, but how much thickness of the plank did you lose to planing?

If you are doing a combination planer - plane work (and you have a jointer), my question is if you want to end up with (say) 1/2" thickness, how close to that do you go with the planer but leave room to plane off the board to be smooth. 0.510? 0.530? What?

The video links you mention in this video are missing. I'm guessing youtube changed something in the year since it was posted?

Where do you get your plane wax

What kind of pine is this board?

Thank you for your videos I watch them all the time. I am new to planing and I know the 5.5 is your fav. I will be joining 2 11" wide cherry slabs 2" thick 10 feet long. What plane would you choose for this job as my first plane to purchase? I would like it to be versatile so it can do other jobs as well and not just for this type of tough job. Would you stick with the 5.5? low angle jack? 6? Your advice is appreciated :) (I know.... I have a tough job for never using a plane before but I can do it )

Last time I was this early, sandpaper hasn't been invented yet

When you transitioned from getting the board to not rock then to making it smooth-which face were you working on?The opposite face to the "non-rocking " side or was it the same side that you started on?

Question: when does the wood finally stops twisting?

I'm a total newbie to woodworking and I am trying to make sense of the whole process. To me it appears, at times, he is going against the grain. If you want to true up the face first then surely you must plane against the grain at times yes? Or am I thinking about this wrong?

Great video and just in time while I'm working on the new top for my new bench. So you used the jack plane, will you still use a smoother as well after ? or some sandpaper before applying the finish?

I primarily use machines for dimensioning and am thinking about getting a 4 1/2 for smoothing instead of sanding. I basically like planing better than sanding. For this situation would you still recommend a 5 1/2?

🔝

Can’t wait until you get me my Shapton 16000.

Do you use card scrapers? Didn’t see any videos about it on your channel

Good video. While it is important to have this skill. Using a jointer and planer would be quicker and easier.

I need this 14" planner with 6 extra blades how can I purchase

Just curious, I love the planed look with the wood. Suppose you have a dead flat board and your finished size is 3/4inch thick. What thickness do we legitimately lose with this planning? 10 to 12thou? Or is it too small in the situation I described to even worry about? Love you instructions.

This may be a dumb question but do you have to water pop wood to raise the grain when you use the handplane over sanding? Or is that eliminated because of the handplane?

In a future video could you show how you plane a long piece of wood, say maybe 6 feet long? I have learned to use my legs and then extend my arms for a 3 foot piece but dealing with something big is something I have not figured out.

Your Videos are very interesting. Being a Spanish speaker I use the google translator, but this is not very good, so it is difficult for me to understand your excellent instructions. It would be interesting if you could subtitle your videos in Spanish to understand better. Thank you very much friend..

Since it was a oak in his yard, I suspect it is our most common oak, live oak, Quercus virginiana. Red oak is Quercus rubra and white oak is Quercus alba. So related but different.

Rob, I have never used a plane and I would like to start. I am concerned how much it would take physically to do it. It sure looks like hard work. I will be 70 soon and am not sure I could do it successfully. Your thoughts please. Thank you Rob.

After reading a book on the owner of Bridge city tools . I was wondering if you’ve ever tried on of his hand planes? He focuses a lot on the chip breaker. And thinks about how a plane blade chatters. Just curious.?

29:35] "You only wipe one way." You only wipe the wrong way once.

Hey guys. Love the videos and have been watching a long time. Just to give some feedback, I find the new title blocks distracting and they don't add anything to the content. Perhaps others could give an opinion as well.

Yes, I'll use a board about an inch thick. I purchased ten oak board from a fellow who had a mill cut them after a tree fell and stored them on his garage floor until he needed space. They are 10 -12 inches wide and about 10 feet long. When properly jointed and thickness planed, it is beautiful. Now I need to man up, sharpen the WR 5 1/2 Jack, and see if I can do a little Rob Cosman magic.

You applied what you called magic wax to the soul of a hand plane. Is that wax available to purchase?

Question (hand)planing instead of sanding: On what surface will the paint stick best and why? If planing makes the wood flatter, will paint still get good adhesion? The roughness of the wood after sanding is good for paint. Some say don't sand above 220 grid because if the surface is to flat the paint won't stick to the wood. ~So this is somewhat confusing~. I will buy a plainer for sure. I won't buy the WoodRiver because where I live the delivery costs will be to high. What about the Axminster brand, any idea? (Looking at the Axminster Rider No 5 1/2 Jack Plane, €132,50 (euro))

I hold the high corners and rub the wood on my tablesaw. This leave burnished spots which I plane off. Doesn't take long to get it flat.

Rob Cosman you are a woodworking geek!

I see you wax....where do I find that and what is it called.