Tips for buying your first hand plane

Buying your first hand plane is one of the major decisions you'll make as a beginner. In this video, you'll find advice on that topic.

Dictum Jack plane:

Dictum smoother:

[ewejfio]

After owning some plane (26 in working order, 12 of them are bench plane) I just come up with the same thought, a 5 1/2 as first choice, if can't find a 5 1/2, a 5 will do. But specificly metal plane, because the sole stay flat for much longer then wooden body plane, and moveable frog to close and open the mouth as needed.
If your pocket is not so deep, at least go for a similar quality plane of dictum plane( luban, quangsheng, wood river etc.), I own a no.4 and no.62 from dictum, they work. If you have the buget, go for veritas custom.
Veritas custom have different angle frog as accessories, this allow you to use the same plane to do the job of many plane(high angle smother for large panel, jointer for short piece, jack/fore plane for fast stock removal and shooting plane), of course, you need more than one plane blade. You can still do all except high angle smother with an hand plane at dictum level.

[milanroljevic]

Greeting! I am a big fan of yours and love your work a lot. I live in Serbia, where the choice of handplanes (and hand tools in general) is very, very limited. only a few pieces can be found on the internet and those that need restoration. ordering from the European Union is not an option because I will pay more tax and VAT than the grater itself. now i'm using some really cheap planes (no 5 and 2) and i found some old wooden smoothing and jointer plane on the internet... but they work kind of ok for me.

[fulljackrackoboe]

Hi, excuse me but what you meant the bed it is actually the frog I'm afraid. In other words, the frog lies on the bed of the plane and the blade does it along with the cap iron on the frog. Just to make it clear. Nice video though, I agree a jack plane is the most versatile one. Cheers!

[markyoung]

As a complete novice in hand tools I have found myself reaching for my 5 1/2 all the time, I have found early on that I was getting snipe at the start of the board from my no4 but the longer sole to the blade on the 5 1/2 has stopped that and is teaching me to avoid it with the no4

[adamb]

Excellent video. I too agree that a 5 or 5 1/2 is quite ideal as a first plane, plus a block plane to work chamfers.

[joserivera]

Germán. Olvidé comentarte en mi mensaje anterior que te hice caso en otro de tus videos y adquirí el Líen Nielsen 5 1/2 con ranas de 45o y 55o respectivamente. Ahora estoy queriendo adquirir el “Low Angle Jack”. Es por esa razón que te preguntaba qué me sugerías para este modelo de cepillo. Y gracias por tu pronta respuesta.

[natalirivero]

Hi, awesome video, these come in different variants, do you recommend the SK4 or the HSS blade? Japanese gets expensive though...

[lornewalters]

What brand of hand plane were you demonstrating in this video? I didn’t quite catch the name.

[ikkiiiieee]

How do I sharpen the HSS blade compared to the regular blades?

[fabianchavezfach]

Porque no hablas español. Son muy pocos los canales buenos de carpinteria y ahora tenemos los de habla ispana uno menos 😢