Bench&Brace

Stanley

Stanley No. 40 Scrub Plane

A dedicated roughing plane: narrow, thick, heavily cambered iron and a wide open mouth, made to take deep bites across the grain and reduce a board fast.

  • 1896–1962
  • Bench Plane
  • medium confidence
Specifications
ModelNo. 40
Production1896–1962
Sole length9-1/2"
Cutter width1-1/4"
Bodycast iron, japanned
Handlesrosewood knob and tote
Beddingsingle thick iron with a heavily cambered edge, no chipbreaker

How to identify it

  • No chipbreaker and a wide-open mouth - that combination separates a scrub from a narrow smoother immediately.
  • The iron is noticeably thicker than a bench plane iron and is ground to a pronounced curve.
  • A No. 40-1/2 exists at 10-1/2 inches; the 40 is the smaller of the pair.
Photograph needed: Stanley No. 40 Scrub Plane - overall view, plus a close-up of the toe and bed markings
No image is published here until its rights are cleared. Sourcing policy.

Buying and using

Genuinely useful if you dimension rough stock by hand, and increasingly priced as though everyone does. A cheap jack with a cambered iron does the same job for a fraction of the money.

Dating this plane

This maker published no dating information, so collectors reconstructed one. Work from the body casting rather than the knob, tote or iron, all of which get replaced. The Stanley type study lists the features era by era, with a dating marks table at the foot of it.

What it is worth

  • user / incomplete $40–$80
  • complete, honest wear $90–$170
  • excellent, pre-war type $180–$350

Estimated USD range as of 2026-Q1, from a sample of about 60 sales. manually filtered sold listings Confidence: medium.

These are researched estimates for a private sale in average light, not an appraisal. Condition, completeness and type move a price further than any of these bands do.

Sources

Others in this family