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hi I'm and some of you may know me as an

of all trades and I have my own YouTube

channel and Instagram account that

focuses on a lot of antiquated

traditions hand tool woodworking

blacksmithing homesteading skills and a

whole lot more today I'm going to talk

to you about my very favorite tool the

low angle Jack plane I'm going to go

through how to set it up how to sharpen

it how to use it properly and talk about

all the various jobs that it can perform

so how can this tool actually be a jack

of all trades where it's a scrub plane

and a finishing plane the simple answer

to that is that you just have two

different blades and for me having two

different blades for this one tool has

made it universally useful now let's

take a second to talk about what it is

that sets the number 62 low angle Jack

plane apart from these other tools and

also how it can emulate those tools the

first thing is that this tool just has a

whole lot less parts than these tools do

if there's one thing that I'd like to

emphasize with young or inexperienced

woodworkers it's the importance of

having the ability to is eliminate as

many of the variables in your work as

possible so if something is going wrong

you can easily hone in and isolate what

it is that's going wrong and fix it one

of the simplest differences between this

tool and this tool is the number of

moving parts this tool has a frog it is

possible that it could be cocked

laterally which would cause you all

kinds of problems you could be having

problems with your lateral adjustment

you could have problems with your back

and forth adjustment there your blade

could be too thin your chip breaker

could be crooked or set improperly your

lever cap could be set too tightly or

too loosely there are so many things

that could go wrong with this tool plus

the very fact that there are so many

moving parts in this tool causes you

issues if you are young and

inexperienced and you're kind of have a

tendency to knock the tool a lot around

a lot and it's used if you just bump the

tool or you set it down too hard or you

RAM in too

cut over here you're actually going to

change the setting of the tool so you

could have spent 20 minutes setting this

up so it would cut the most perfect

gossamer shaving but then if you set it

down too hard one way or another you

would have completely messed up that

setting the cool thing about this tool

is that it has very few moving parts

once you have the blade in the tool its

bedded directly down to it and without

an extreme bump or drop that blade is

going nowhere so you can get your plane

set up properly if you have a misfire

here or there you can still be pretty

much assured that you're going to be

making the same cut 15 minutes from

setting the plane up that you were when

you first set it up the other thing that

sets this tool apart from these older

tools is that these tools have the blade

bedded on a frog at 45 degrees with the

bevel of the blade pointing down because

of that there is a straight edge being

presented to the work when you're using

the plan to cut the only way that you

can change the angle at which it cuts is

by physically raising or lowering the

blade to do that you would have to have

a different frog to physically raise or

physically lower that blade in a bevel

up tool the bevel is what is being

presented to the work so if you want to

change the angle at which your blade is

cutting your work then you can just

sharpen a different angle into the blade

but the last difference between these

tools is the ability to open and close

the mouth on these traditional style

planes with the Frog the way that you

open and close the mouth is by loosening

these two screws and then tightening the

screws down at the at the back of the

Frog to move it forward or backward now

that's a bunch of extra tools that you

have to get out and a bunch of extra

steps to be able to do a operation that

if you only have one tool is going to be

extremely cumbersome as you move through

the different planning exercises whereas

with a low-angle jack plane you can

simply twist the handle open shut open

shut change the adjustment of or change

the depth of your cut and you're good to

go

and the final thing that makes this a

jack-of-all-trades is the size of the

tool this is incidentally the same size

as a jack plane in the traditional style

and you'll notice that it's kind of the

middle size between the smoothing plane

and the jointer plane so if you have a

very short plane bed for example like in

this tiny little cutie there's only this

much material keeping your chisel away

from the cut so it goes it stands to

reason that this is going to be a

fantastic tool to get into those little

tough spots that you really can't get

into any other way now if you're using a

huge long plane like the jointer plane

then you have this much material keeping

your your chisel away from the cut so

where this tool really shines is the is

its length you're using this tool to

joint your wood to make it straight

along its length and so it stands to

reason that you would have a long

registering surface here and a long

registering surface here but that long

body is also going to disallow the blade

or the chisel and the jig from following

the hills and valleys of your work so

when you're trying to make a perfectly

square surface this is the tool that you

go for but when you're trying to get a

very smooth surface that just is nice

along its whole length but squareness

doesn't matter that's when you want

these really really short

plenty buddies I mean that's why a

smoothing plane is so much shorter than

a jointer plane so where's the happy

medium here we are in the jack plane so

this tool gives you enough length that

you can really trust it to be able to

square up your wood nicely but it also

has a little bit of a shorter body so

that you can actually trust it too to be

able to follow those hills and valleys

when it comes to the finished planing of

your wood to leave a very nice beautiful

surface as well and the fact that this

one tool can either augment or replace

all of these other tools as well here's

what a typical piece looks like when it

comes into my shop and so I'll kind of

just give you a little example of what

the scrub plane is going

it's going to remove a China material in

our tree but it's also going to leave a

really scoop surface and I'm gonna have

to be really careful that I don't plane

away too much from a certain area if I

wanted to remove a ton of material in a

hurry with the jack plane I have two

options at this point I have the option

of just opening up my mouth and seeing

how the planes cutting with just its

regular blade because here's the crazy

thing about the low angle Jack plane is

that I've found that with a nice sharp

blade you can pretty much cut any

surface very well with this tool there

are only a few times when I need to

actually go ahead and change my blade so

at this point I would yeah be pretty

tempted to just open the mouth in my

plane wide up loosen my lever cap just

ever so slightly and take a more

aggressive cut with the tool and if I'm

not experiencing a whole lot of tear out

all the better I can just remove a bunch

of this material in a hurry and now as

the grains getting revealed I'm also

realizing that I may need to turn the

piece of wood around now if I'm taking

big little shavings like that I'm gonna

need a little bit of lubrication on the

bottom line plane so I'm gonna grab some

beeswax or some mutton tallow and just

use those to lubricate the bonnet for my

plane so it looks like the wood back

better and here we're getting a an

actually spinach ready surface just from

that nice sharp blade even though we

have a wide open mouth there and now

let's just take a look at what the tooth

blade would do one of the coolest things

about these low angle Jack plans both

the Lee Nelson Anna Lee Valley Fair toss

versions have what's called a tooth

blade and what this is going to do is

it's going to basically act like that's

like that scooped feature of the scrub

plane by taking little cuts all at once

but the coolest thing is that because

it's to store serrated in that way

those little cuts don't continue to

scoop if there is if it gets caught on

some curl or some tricky brain and so

what you end up doing is making a grated

looking surface but it's going to be a

surface that's completely flat and then

it only takes a few strokes of a regular

plane blade to clean that up the other

really cool thing about the tooth blade

is that you sharpen it just like a

regular clean blade and tons of people

really struggle getting the camber

ground and sharpened correctly on a

scrub plane but a touch sharpening job

is never a reason not to use a certain

tool so once we removed all that

material it takes just about it just

takes a few strokes with your other

straight blades to get it back to a

surface that's completely finished ready

and I'll just take a little minute here

to talk about proper planning technique

you'll notice that this bench is very

low this is actually a hand planing

bench it's set up for me to prepare

material and it allows me to be above

the workpiece with the ability to use

gravity to my advantage when I'm hand

planning wood as opposed to being up

here and being forced to use all of my

upper arm strength so here hand planning

is a core exercise I am actively

engaging my core I'm trying to use my

entire body to move the plane as opposed

to just pushing it with my arms like

this I have my dominant foot forward my

dominant hand forward and I'm yes in

guiding and pushing the plane here but

your pressure needs to be here and so

you'll notice that with every plane

stroke I am bringing the blade fully off

the workpiece and registering here

before I even begin my stroke that

ensures that I'm not you know going like

this and just being all crazy with my

hands

and strokes which is going to leave an

uneven and out of true surface

Stanley actually made a low-angle Jack

plane and number 62 in the Stanley

numbering system and the concept was

good but the execution was actually

pretty poor the castings were too thin

the blade was too thin the machining

wasn't great so it didn't quite work the

way that it was supposed to be it was

what I would like to call a tool shaped

object and the stanley number 62 is a

collectible item today because they're

fairly rare why are they rare because I

didn't quite work the way that they were

supposed to be and so they didn't make

very many of them now well a lot of

vintage tools are going to be

significantly more affordable than their

newer options and you can tune them up

and make them work great as they are I

really suggest that if you're going to

get a low-angle Jack plane that you

invest in a good quality one and you buy

a new plane my two favorites are the Lea

Neilson and the Lee Valley Veritas and

there are other companies that are

making them but they require a little

bit more work out of the box and what

you're paying for when you buy a

higher-end tool is that some of that

work has already been done for you if

you're buying a new plane and this is in

fact your first plane it's really really

helpful to start with what I would call

a gold standard tool from the get-go so

that you know and understand how a tool

is supposed to work

and I actually got my start in this

whole woodworking industry restoring

antique tools for folks and it wasn't

really until I had purchased my first

benchmark tool that I really understood

how these older tools were supposed to

work and so if there's one area that you

really should spend some money and

invest I would definitely say that it

would be a great investment to buy a

low-angle Jack plane so why do I keep

calling it a low-angle Jack plane who's

Jack well it's a jack of all trades and

generally speaking I am NOT a big fan of

tools that do every job this stanley

number 55 is an example is a total joke

but this tool actually is a

jack-of-all-trades and really

does a good job at what it's supposed to

do and so we're going to explore that

more in this video there's a couple

things that need to happen to get this

ready to use and one of those is closing

up the mouth and that's the mouth of the

plane that's the opening here between

the bottom of the plane soul and the

front of the plane soul and where the

blade projects at the front you want

just a slightly larger mouth opening

than the shaving that you intend to take

and this is probably one of the single

most awesome features about this tool is

that the mouth opens and closes with the

simple turn of the knob the mechanism

works a little bit differently on both

of these tools the Lee Nelson has a

little lever adjuster and the Lee Valley

has this little screw that you can put

in and out based on how far you want

that mouth to like basically a stop and

so I'm going to close this mouth up ever

so slightly so why do we want to be able

to change the opening of the mouth a

hands land body is basically just a jig

that holds a chisel it's what's making

sure that the chips are stopped ahead of

the cut and so on and so forth so

without the mouth of the plane to stop

it this chisel is going to as we push

this chisel across the wood it's just

gonna want to continue to dig further

and further into the wood because you

know there's nothing stopping it from

not doing that and so the mouth of the

plane basically keeps it so that those

chips don't continue to get deeper and

deeper ahead of the cut and then the

body of the plane basically keeps this

so that it's cutting at exactly the same

depth along the entire cut which is

obviously impossible to do with just

without a plane body to hold it so once

we have the mouth of the tool set

properly we need to set the blade as

well so what I like to do is I like to

put the blade forward until I can see it

looking down the tool and then I want to

retract it until it just disappears

throughout this process I'm going to

continue to inch the blade forward as I

use a scrap piece of wood to test and

see how far it's projecting so once I've

got the blade position all sorted I want

to tighten the lever cap not to a

Herculean amount but you don't want that

thing to scoot around when we're using

the tool and this is also a great

opportunity to just double check your

mouth opening and to scooch it back ever

so slightly if it needs to be squashed

that looks about good now let's take the

tool to somewhat here we are getting

really nice shaping a nice sharp blade

and nicely setup tool is going to give

you a whole lot of success

and even on that really curly walnut we

get a fantastic finish ready surface

from the plane set up this way I

mentioned earlier in the video that my

favorite of the newer low-angle Jack

planes are the Lee Valley Veritas

version and the Lee Nielson version so

what are the differences between the two

here they are the Lee Valley Veritas

obviously looks a little bit different

Lee Valley tools are a lot more sleek

and modern looking whereas Lee Nielson

tools are designed to be replicas of

their older historical versions the Lee

Valley Veritas version is significantly

heavier than the number 62 and so in my

own shop this is the one that I end up

gravitating towards a lot more if we're

talking about an eight-hour day where I

am using this tool for the majority of

that eight-hour day preparing stock or

planing stuff that weight difference

becomes a whole lot more noticeable that

said that a ton of people prefer more

weight in their hand tools and I think

that that's why Lee Valley went with a

heavier model is that if you really are

using this for the majority of your

planning purposes then that extra weight

that extra gravity pulling your your

blade down into your work is going to be

a huge benefit and for someone who

doesn't have a smaller frame as I do I

can a hundred percent see that being the

benefit the other major difference

actually is the tote size and the the

grip size once again I have very very

small hands so I tend to gravitate

towards tools that more comfortably fit

my hands but that's just my personal

opinion

and these are both fantastic tools and

an excellent value should you choose to

not like using a low angle Jack plane

both of them are going to hold their

value incredibly well and you can resell

them on Craigslist or on eBay but as

much as I love cutting straight brain

cherry

the real test of whether a plane can

actually do every planning job or not is

on some extremely curly violin back

maple thank you so much for taking the

time to watch this video if you have any

other questions about the low angle Jack

plane or hand tools in general please

feel free to head over to my channel and

of all trades

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you