Glossary of Hand Plane Terms

The terms you need to read a listing, a type study or the rest of this site.

Parts of a plane

Bed — the main casting the whole plane is built on.

Frog — the separate wedge-shaped casting that supports the iron at its cutting angle. Sliding the frog forward or back changes the mouth opening. Bailey planes bed the frog on two narrow pads; Bedrocks bed it on a full machined surface.

Iron (also cutter, blade) — the steel cutting blade.

Chipbreaker (also cap iron) — the curved piece screwed to the front of the iron, which curls and breaks the shaving to reduce tear-out. It must meet the back of the iron with no gap.

Lever cap — the sprung clamp that holds the iron assembly down against the frog.

Knuckle joint — a hinged two-part lever cap found on some block planes, which folds flat into the palm.

Tote — the rear handle. The most commonly broken part on any bench plane, almost always at the horn.

Knob — the front handle.

Sole — the flat working underside.

Mouth — the opening in the sole the iron projects through. A tight mouth reduces tear-out.

Frog adjusting screw — a screw behind the frog that shifts it without unclamping the iron. Introduced on Stanley bench planes in 1907.

Lateral adjustment lever — the lever behind the frog that swings the iron sideways to square its edge to the mouth. Introduced 1885.

Nicker (also spur) — a small rotating cutter ahead of the iron on a rabbet plane, which severs cross-grain fibres before the iron reaches them.

Materials and finishes

Japanning — the hard black lacquer finish on the inside of a cast iron plane body, baked on. Chips rather than flakes. Replaced by ordinary paint on Stanley planes from about 1962.

Rosewood — the traditional handle material, used by Stanley until war production in 1942. Dense, dark and close-grained. Later handles are stained hardwood, then plastic.

Corrugated — a sole machined with lengthwise grooves, denoted by a C suffix (a No. 4C). Intended to reduce suction on wide boards. Whether it helps is one of the hobby's permanent arguments.

Plane types

Bench plane — the general-purpose planes used at the bench: smoothers, jacks, fores and jointers, iron bedded bevel down on a frog.

Block plane — small, one-handed, iron bedded bevel up at a low angle, no frog. For end grain and fitting work.

Transitional — a wooden-bodied plane with an iron top casting carrying the Bailey adjusters. Cheap when new, cheap now, and often excellent.

Shoulder plane — a plane whose iron spans the full width of the sole, with the sides machined square to it, for trimming joinery.

Rabbet plane (also rebate) — cuts a step along the edge of a board. A fillister adds a fence and depth stop.

Combination plane — a fenced plane taking interchangeable cutters, replacing a rack of wooden moulding planes. The Stanley 45 and 55.

Router plane — a cutter on a post between two handles, for levelling the bottom of a dado or recess to a repeatable depth.

Scrub plane — a narrow plane with a heavily cambered iron and an open mouth, for fast rough stock removal.

Collecting vocabulary

Type study — a reconstructed sequence of a manufacturer's design changes, used to date a tool. The Stanley bench plane study runs Types 1 to 20, 1867 to 1967. Type numbers are a collector's convention, never a manufacturer's.

Marriage — a tool assembled from parts of different ages or different tools. Extremely common on well-used planes and not in itself dishonest, but it reduces collector value and should be disclosed.

User grade — honest condition, works after cleaning and sharpening, not collectable. The right thing to buy if you intend to plane wood.

New old stock (NOS) — unused, usually boxed, often decades old. A separate market with separate prices.

Sweetheart — the SW-in-a-heart trademark used on Stanley irons from about 1920 to 1935.

Bedrock — Stanley's premium bench plane line, 1898 to 1943, numbered in the 600s, distinguished by a full-contact frog seat.

Japanning loss — how much of the original black finish is gone, the standard shorthand for condition on a cast iron plane.

Pitting — corrosion that has eaten into the metal surface. Cosmetic in the middle of an iron, serious within a quarter inch of the cutting edge.