The Wright Name For All The Planes 

I call them all “thingys.” “I need to grab the medium-sized thingy.” Works for saws too.

Ah! The element of surprise, inspiration, and catalyst for hand tool arguments!!

I tend to go by older terms, from before Stanley even existed. Instead of a jointer plane, I'd call it a try plane (try/trying, trueing plane, same reason we call it a try square) "jointer" or "jointing" refers to edge work, where a lot of work with a long plane is done to get a flat face before we even touch an edge, so I call it a try plane because it trues a surface. A jack plane was not known as the jack of all trades until very recently in modern times, before that it was another type of roughing plane with a cambered iron used after a foreplane to get the surface closer to flat, sometimes it was used instead of a foreplane. The name Jack was used for this type of plane because Jack was a very common mans name, and every workshop needed a Jack plane to do the rougher work; you cant do the rough work with a finer tool, and you cant do the finer work without doing the rough work first, so everyone needed a Jack plane, it was so common in workshops they named it after the most common mans name of the time. Its known as a moving fillister because a fillister is an old name for a cross grain rebate here in Europe, that's why a moving fillister plane is always skewed for cross grain work. When Moxxon wrote, he used the term shooting like we would use jointing, and the way he describes shooting a mitre is with the moulding in one hand and the plane in another with the sole upturned, and the moulding passed over it (like the way we would chamfer a dowel) Moxxon called the plane for end grain a "strike block plane" (possibly taken from Dutch) it was longer than a smoother, but shorter than a jointer. That term is still in use today..... Our friendly neighbourhood plane maker Stavros Gakos uses that term as a plane for end grain, as does Derek Cohen. A mitre plane follows a pattern and is always metal bodied, and bevel up. The strike block plane is nearly always wood with the bevel down. The shooting board we know today was first mentioned by Nicolson in early 1800s, but he calls it a shooting block. Before that they used what we would know today as a mitre jack for shooting.

Thanks, James. Yes, please do a video on the bewildering number of saw names. Would be very helpful.

Interesting vid, never appreciated how confusing this was. Thanks for including 'rebates' for those of us this side of the pond! Andy 🇬🇧

Hi James, my head exploded about ten minutes in . Regards Jim.

Great topic, wooden planes made in Czech republic that are called smoothing planes do not have a chip breaker. But you can get the same plane, with chip breaker, that is named differently (loosely translated as capped planed, as in cap iron), if you get the same plane with higher angle, it will have a different name again and than one i cannot possibly translate.

Nice explanation... I always wondered about the types. My brother inherited a huge set of (mostly) wood planes from my grandfather... probably 30-40 of them all from the 1930s/1940s, along with a massive oak workbench. Some are tiny and some are huge (several feet in length). Each was built/used for a specific task he did. He was a master cabinet builder for Kittinger Furniture back in the day here in Buffalo NY and his specialty was inlay. Some of what he made actually sits in the White House.

James missed dad joke opportunity… Don’t call me Shirley!

Unfortunately, in Turkish, a plane is called 'rende' which means 'grater' 🙄 ... which sounds silly and when you tell the name of the tool to somebody that is new to woodworking, his/her face looks confused.🥴 Then I have to explain that it is nothing to do with a kitchen grater. This one 'planes' the wood, and you throw away the 'grates'... So at least you English speakers don't have that kind of confusion 😊 Great video 👏

Uh, James? You left out the plain Jane. I'll see myself out now... 😁😂🤣

just to make sure.....I need all of them!

Thank you for a very sensible approach. All but two of my planes are old and very used workhoses that I restore to functionality. I don't get wrapped up in normative descriptors from Stanley et al and I choose each plane for the job at hand. Only two considerations - feel and function. If my aged hands can easily steer it through the wood and the end result is satisfactory for my purpose, it is the right plane. I also liked your reference to planing end grain on butcher block. So many people will refer to any thick, strip lamination as butcher block and they don't know the end grain orientation served a purpose for - wait for it - butchers. So, sometimes the specific names are actually useful.

the important thing is for you to convince me I need another different plane. :D

Even Paul Sellers mentions multiple names for different hand planes and references that different brands might use a different number than the Stanley standard.

That was fun! If you ever get a Stanly No 1, are you going to call it "Sarah"? ;-)

James, yes, it can be confusing. Perhaps it does not matter what you call it as long as it does the job the way you want it to (because if it doesn't it will likely be called all sorts of names which have no actual resemblence to it, LOL). Anyway, loved your Tee shirt, very clever. Cheers.

I work in a hardware store and I'm constantly bewildered by the number of different names people use for a certain thing. You can almost tell which generation taught that person by what they call something. A 60 year old who was taught by their grandfather uses much different terminology than a 20 year old who googled a project. In the end it really comes down to whether or not you understand and are able to describe what you're trying to achieve.

Thank you! This was exactly what I was hoping to see. Even in the vagery of the naming it at least gets my head in the right place when names are tossed about. Also made note that if someone gets technical about the name of a particular plane shape and size or setup to simply nod and move on with the more interesting part of the conversation. 😉

My block plane is Ted, jointer plane is Ben, but I didn't know Jack.

What about chisel planes? Bull nose planes? Side rebate planes? Trimming planes? Finger planes? Moulding planes? Scraping planes? Toothing planes? Hollow planes? Round planes? Beading planes? Mortise planes? Try planes? Infill planes? Chamfer planes? Box planes?

Also, now I *really* want to see your upcoming video mini-series on saw names.

Please do one for saw names.

Great job.

Many thanks

Got an old#4 and#3 n been wanting a #2 for a while! Got a nice wood river low angle block plane n still want one smaller 😂

I use a scrub plane and powered planer for rough work. My No6 is set as a short jointer plane with straight edge blade and fine mouth. If I am jointing something under 30in, I reach for my No6 before 7 or 8.

Pretty interesting indeed, James! Thanks! 😃 I'm going to call my planes with names I'm going to choose myself. Let's make it even more confusing. 😬 Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

You call that a knife? This is a knife!

So it's a big minefield of vague terms with next to no standardized way of organizing or classifying things that varies wildly depending on manufacturer and country of use... just like firearms and bicycles. Worlds apart, but just the same, and just as convoluted!

You didn't even try to start an argument about what a try plane is?! Oh well, I just landed here because I was searching for videos about rolling Joints ;-)

The 4 is not a jack. And I will die on this hill. 🤣

I would call a no 10 or 10.5 a carriage plane

But which one is the trying plane? All of them, because I'm trying to get the wood flat. 🙂

Nice one ! But... wait... what about aeroplanes ?🤔

"Wood shaver" "Wood planer" and "Wood plane" is the Facebook marketplace tradition.

While you had all those planes out, did you sharpen them? lol Naming the planes ROFL! You could also go with Boeing, Lockheed, etc lol

I call which ever plane I happen to be using "Bill". Ba dump bump bump.

Why doesn't anyone make a 5 1/2 low angle plane. In a Bailey or Bedrock plane the 5 1/2 is very useful. Thanks for a great video - again.

Let's be real woodworking is mostly done alone we don't even need names :-P

I get confused between Jack plane etc.,etc.

"Names.... are really fluid." Gender as plane classification?

On Amazon, they listed no.7 grizzly plane as “smoother”. I guess you can smooth with the big monster plane too…

Great video as usual. I love that shirt.haha. Where'd you get it?

I just want to know what 3 numbered planes I should get for roughing out and mid plane and a finishing plane

Where's the 747 and the A380?

I've heard the #7 referred to as a "try" or "tri" plane... what was inferred by that name?...

I just call them a plain plane

N don't get me started n how long n much I want a compass plane!

You haven't talked about Kevin.

I have two planes that are the same size bases except one has a wide mouth and a cambered iron where the other has a narrower mouth and a straight blade. I want to call one, the later, a smoother but the other I would like a name that is not "Jack (of all trades)" since it is definitely not a smoothing plane - is it a "roughing" plane? Is there such a naming? And you did not speak of the planes with high angle and a jagged blade edge (whose name escapes my thinning brain) for dealing with highly figured wood with madly varying grain patterns. -- you'd probably be best suited to follow up with a card scraper.... Names?

SQUIRREL!!!

Woodworking politics…..you got my wrote James 😄

U be happy U no nead name it in Polish. Before WWII moste of names in Pl was.... of Germanic origin- long story short we are in this area od craft culture. But after war was big action of cleaning the language of Germanisms.... and we start use some of local tradytion names, but also create new one, and in the end stil was in use old names. And naw when lot of people wich do not have any books or internship experience, try use English names especially in context of stanley type of planes- which was no avelable in Poland to 90s (with exeption of soviet fakes. And on end in 80-90s Polish woodworking market choked pawertools and for 3 decades handtools was a forgotten cause of shame, and lot of words from craft language was forgoten. Then do not complain...

I also think you should do a video on saw names, however before that you must show a rip filed carcass saw from Veritas just to start arguments. **some men just want to watch the world burn

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