Cambered no. 6 vs scrub

[Sergio Escudero]

Hello.

I have an old Record with a thick blade (not the original one) with a medium camber and another Record No. 4 in the process of being converted into a scrub with a strong camber iron (I would like a Stanley 40 or Record 400, but they are very expensive here), but I am confused about them. Is one typically used before the other? Are they redundant, and is the preference for one over the other purely personal? Does it depend on the size of the piece being worked on?

So far, I've used my No. 6 to remove material or twisting from the boards on my workbench, and I really like it.

[wtnhighlander]

"Scrubbing" a board involves removing matarial quickly, usually across the grain, to get it near flat. The scrub plane has a smaller radius csmbet, and a wide open mouth to pass the large chips. 

Follow that with the standard "jack" type plane (medium length, medium mouth, larger camber radius), working with the grain, to make the surface fairly flat & smooth. Longer planes achieve truer flatness along greater distances. Last, the "smoothing" plane is usually shorter (to fit tight areas), has lttle to no camber, and a tight mouth opening.

Under these definitions, any plane CAN be used for each task. The different sizes and settings simply OPTIMIZE a plane for a particular task.

[Von]

+1. Coming from a power tool world, I think of my scrub plane as the hand tool equivalent of my belt sander. It's what I reach for on rough sawn board to get it smooth enough for other tools or when I have a warped board that I need to flatten a corner or two enough to get it through my planer.