3-day Foundational Course—day 2

We made good progress yesterday and this morning we will learn about the Bailey-Pattern No4 and No 4 1/2 smoothing plane, the smallest of the practical range of planes we call bench planes. Bench planes are used at the woodworker’s bench and they are used in a wide range of woodworking crafts. At one time they would have been one in a series of planes starting with two-foot jointers and then dropping incrementally in size to the smaller smoothers, but that shifted with the development of machines and the shift from benchwork to machine-only woodwork and especially our use of machines from preparing stock and milling it foursquare. The smoothing plane smooths machined surfaces to refine poor levels of machine work and also levels and trims adjacent surfaces on a wide range of jobs. Understanding the mechanisms and the dynamics that give confident use of this tool takes a few hours, mastering planes it takes a few months. Once you have it, you have it for a lifetime. You reduce sanding time by up to 80% by using this one tool alone. We focus on the essentials today, so look in tonight to see how they did.