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Sharpening a Radically Curved Blade Most sharpening maestros recommend
you sharpen a scrub blade freehand and rock the curved edge on
the sharpening stone. I did this for years, and then I got
a bit wiser. The real trick is to make a concave sharpening
surface that complements the radius of the cutting edge.
And Then to Business Once you start working with a scrub plane you realize why they are so popular. They are a blast to use. Using a smooth plane seems fussy and slow once you’ve reduced a board in thickness with a scrub. It can be done by working diagonally across a face one way and back the other way. Then check your work with winding sticks and go after the high spots on the face. When the board won’t rock when this scrubbed face is pressed to the benchtop, you’re ready to move on to the jointer plane. This is a useful skill – even today – when dealing with boards that are too wide for your jointer or planer. Instead of ripping them into narrower widths (a crime, really), you can true up your wide boards to make impressive tabletops or door panels. And though I do regularly use my scrub for this sort of operation, I’ve found that my fore plane (a beat-up Stanley No. 5) is more reliable at truing a board’s face. The longer sole of the fore plane is one of its assets. I also use the scrub to simply texture surfaces before finishing. With a sharp iron and a steady hand, you can produce a regularly scalloped surface with a scrub plane. It can create a rustic look, and can even be successfully used in contemporary furniture. Another fine use for the tool is in removing the backsides of baseboard moulding to fit it against a less-than-stellar drywalling job. I found out this excellent use for the tool when trimming out an addition to our house a few years ago. But then there’s the matter of the scrub plane’s true mission in life. Could it be a good tool for reducing a board’s width? Is it a ripping plane? Intrigued, I fixed a long length of framing lumber to my bench and tried to remove 1/4” from the edge. Removing that amount of wood from an 8’-long 2 x 12 would be a good deal of effort with a rip saw. The scrub did the job remarkably well, especially when I didn’t try to use the tool like a jointer plane. Instead of taking a long continuous pass on the edge, I started at the left end of the board and took short, choppy strokes to get down to my scribe line. It was indeed faster than any ripsaw I’ve used and was on par with the stock removal rate of a drawknife (but with more control). I’m not ready to call this mystery solved. But I am going to start collecting some more books on early 20th century house carpentry. Maybe they will help reveal the true nature of this aggressive and durable plane.
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