The scrub plane is a type of plane used to remove large amounts of wood from the surface of lumber, such as when eliminating cup or twist in the first stages of preparing rough stock, or when reducing the thickness of a board significantly. Scrub planes generally have a short soles, a relatively narrow but thick blade, a very wide mouth, and a deeply curved edge (of about a 3 inch radius) to make a deep, gouging cut.
A scrub plane is generally used in diagonal strokes across the face of a board, rather than parallel to the length of the board (along the grain) as with most other bench planes. In thicknessing or preparing rough stock, the scrub plane is usually followed by the jack plane, jointer plane, then smoothing plane.
Its function in modern woodworking has been largely replaced by power tools such as the thickness planer. A scrub plane can still be useful for planing boards too wide to fit through a thickness planer.
Famous quotes containing the words scrub and/or plane:
“I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till the stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean?... Did you ever hear music up there?... It’s the music a man’s spirit sings to his heart, when the earth’s far away and there isn’t any more fear. It’s the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)