No. 6 plane: What's it good for?

[Strokes77]

It sounds like folks find a No. 6 useful  for:

a. shooting (presumably with a straight iron). But I suppose the sides have to be pretty square for this.
b. flattening and jointing on small-scale projects (with a slightly cambered iron?)
c. travel kits

Just fooling around with mine, making some shavings, this sounds about right.

The edge/sole of a plane doesn't have to be square for shooting board work... you can simply use the lateral adjuster to make the blade 90* to the table.  Easy peasy.

[AHill]

With a moderately cambered blade, it makes a great flattener for larger boards.  I think the mass of a No. 6 helps compared to a No. 5 with a cambered blade.  I'm not talking scrub plane camber, but something that's about 1/3 of the way between a smoother and a scrub - closer to the smoother.  I find the No. 7 and No. 8 configured as flatteners can really wear you out.  A No. 5 will get you close, but it requires a lot more smoother work to get you to the end.  Mine is a rehabbed Stanley.

You really don't find a lot of No. 6's in the wild, which is probably telling you something.  I think for most carpentry work, a block plane, a No. 5, and No. 7.  In the day, carpenters outnumbered furniture makers by a long shot, hence the proliferation of certain sizes of planes in the wild.

[JClark]

You really don't find a lot of No. 6's in the wild, which is probably telling you something.  I think for most carpentry work, a block plane, a No. 5, and No. 7.  In the day, carpenters outnumbered furniture makers by a long shot, hence the proliferation of certain sizes of planes in the wild.

That's funny because I was thinking the exact opposite. I see a ton of 6s here in New England, maybe eight or ten no. 6s for every one no. 7 I see. It's an even higher ratio to the number of 8s I see.  CA must have had a different tradition in terms of what tools were used.

I love the no. 6 for a couple of reasons. First it's extremely common. Second the number of people who bash it means it isn't very popular so it's very affordable (like Admiral said). Third most of the jointing work I do is for case and carcase work with pieces less than 4ft long so the 6 is more than long enough to joint them. 

I love my big jointer as well, but I'll pull out the no. 6 for most work.

Josh

[blackhat]

I had my 6 out last night. A minor shop rearrange has them closer to hand so it's easy to grab the plane I want instead of make do with what's already out. Cut some wedges from an old fir 2x4. The 6 breezed through the clean up of the pieces, flattening and straightening things pretty fast.

[AHill]

That's funny because I was thinking the exact opposite. I see a ton of 6s here in New England, maybe eight or ten no. 6s for every one no. 7 I see. It's an even higher ratio to the number of 8s I see.  CA must have had a different tradition in terms of what tools were used.

I love the no. 6 for a couple of reasons. First it's extremely common. Second the number of people who bash it means it isn't very popular so it's very affordable (like Admiral said). Third most of the jointing work I do is for case and carcase work with pieces less than 4ft long so the 6 is more than long enough to joint them. 

I love my big jointer as well, but I'll pull out the no. 6 for most work.

Josh

I guess it's a regional thing.  Any vintage plane is somewhat rare in my neck of the woods (SoCal).  When I lived in St. Louis, No. 5's were probably the most common plane I saw for sale, followed by No.4's.  No. 7's it seemed were more common than No. 6's.  No. 8's were pretty rare.  I found more No. 3's than No. 8's.  Perhaps the bad rap on No. 6's is partially due to the writings of Chris Schwarz, who doesn't hardly mention No. 6's when he recommends hand planes.  Maybe the reason you see a lot more No. 6's in NE is because the No. 7's cost more.  New Englanders are known for their thriftiness.

[JClark]

 Maybe the reason you see a lot more No. 6's in NE is because the No. 7's cost more.  New Englanders are known for their thriftiness.

This theory would seem to be corroborated by the number of full size handsaws I find sharpened down to the size of a keyhole saw.

[Admiral]

I guess it's a regional thing.  Any vintage plane is somewhat rare in my neck of the woods (SoCal).    Perhaps the bad rap on No. 6's is partially due to the writings of Chris Schwarz, who doesn't hardly mention No. 6's when he recommends hand planes.  Maybe the reason you see a lot more No. 6's in NE is because the No. 7's cost more.  New Englanders are known for their thriftiness.

This theory would seem to be corroborated by the number of full size handsaws I find sharpened down to the size of a keyhole saw.

Lots of saws I look at are indeed filed down. But today I just got a nice prewar #6C that is pretty nice and will clean up well. In NJ 7s are more common than 6s, corregated of either are few and far between.

[Adnick]

Have a corrugated 6 that is one of my most used planes, keep the blade straight across.

Used right after scrub plane type work for the most part, don't worry to much about tracks at that point and it's still a very capable jointer without a cambered blade....

Regards,
Andy
Mos Maiorum

[enjuneer]

Paul Hamler found a use for the adundance of under-used No. 6 planes by converting them into a long bed scraper plane. The inserts to convert a Bailey plane into a scraper have been out of production for several years, but they do pop up on eBay occasionally.

[tablesawtom]

I am glad to hear so many good words about #6s. It is a great size to have.

I don't know about regions or thriftiness but I lean more to time frames. There wasn't electricity until the late 1800s early 1900s . My wife did homework with a lantern between 1955 and 64 when she graduated and used ad an outhouse for most of those years.  I grew up in a town of about 60,000 and we had electricity but I remember how excited my mother was to get a refrigerator back in the middle 50s. Before that it was an ice box.

My point is everything before that had to be done by hand. There were and are a lot more people living on the east coast than here and SoCal is a newcomer to the seen. I was out in Socal in 1961 and the LA airport was way out in no mans land. I studied catalogs and in early 1972 I decided to buy a RAM saw over a table saw because it could do more operations. And the only place, that I knew of, that a person could get either, was sears. Delta was an unknown name in Waterloo Iowa at that time for the average person.

As many of you know I restore hand planes and what is available to me today, Admiral wouldn't even look at but move on. And I doubt if Ahill ever goes rust hunting.

So in review I think it has more to do with time frames and how things were done than thriftiness and population centers more than regions. However as the westward movement happened one could say the east coast is
a region and had the most population.  But I still I think there is a difference.

6s are a great size to have and most miss out because of bad press  instead of asking themselves why did Stanley make and sell so many, if they are a worthless size. I have a couple ready to go and have my own that I use, but as a whole I just walk on by.

Tom