20 Best Hand Planes For Beginners (2023 Updated)

I bought this plane to use for shaping balsa parts on model aircraft. Firstly, it was not sharp when I tried it. So, I sharpened it a little with 600 grit. It was still not taking a clean shaving of balsa.

Then I reversed the blade to reduce the cutting angle and had a better result. Next, it is quite difficult to adjust to take a light shaving. I’ll keep it and tinker with ways to adjust the depth of cut.

The blade needs more sharpening too. Other than it not being sharp out of the package, it seems well made.

Handy little plane for doing detail work, but there are 2 things wrong with it out of the package. 1. the blade is installed upside down 2. the blade has a really bad unfinished grind on it. Both are easily fixable.

Just takes 10 minutes on a whet stone to hone the blade properly and then reinstall it with the bevel down not up and it then cuts great.

Never knew such a tool existed and bought it as a suggestion from a yt video. The video presenter used it for shaving the locking lip off the female side of laminate flooring when installing laminate in tight areas such as under door facings etc.

It allows the planks to fit together when you don’t have vertical room to tilt and lock the planks together. Use this pocket plane to remove the lip and use good wood glue to glue the planks together.

Apply strips of painters tape across the joint to stabilize the joint while the glue dries. Now that i have the tool i can see the potential for lots of uses. It’s the perfect size for getting into tight areas and the blade is easy to adjust.

Thanks ACE for stocking it. no one else in my area carries it.

There are some which were manufactured in China, and are about as good as a standard homeowner grade that used to be sold at Big Box stores. There is a second version manufactured in Czechoslovakia, by a company which makes planes for one of the German premium brands.

That version of the Stanley are excellent planes and equal to any I have owned or used from Lee Nielsen, or the Veritas planes from Lee Valley. Or, my old Millers Falls planes that I have tuned up. (Thirty or forty years ago Stanleys sold for top dollar.

The Millers Falls were about a fourth to half as expensive. So, Millers Falls it became. ) I own one of the ones out of Europe, and it is great. My brother bought one, after he used mine. Which came from China, and is a bit too light to be a good boat anchor.

I use about 5 other planes, can sharpen blades and rescued 2 planes by flattening soles and other mods. I am no expert but i use planes. I like this plane because straight out of the box it was a well tuned plane and the blade sharpness matches my other blades (micro levels at 8000 grit).

Second, it is an inch longer and heavier compared to my type 11 Stanley no 4. I was expecting kind of duplicate but the new Stanley feels to me more like 4 1/2. The machining of the adjustable mouth, sole, sides is best I have seen.

For instance when i tried sole flatness on 1200 paper the sole was flat including the movable mouth plate! Bravo Mexico. The only modification I plan to do is to round a bit the perimeter of the sole, the perfect edge this plane has is a little bit too sharp.

The adjuster has about 1/2 of the play of my old Stanley but who cares. The lateral lock of the adjuster is a great idea and it actually works. I could do a micro adjustment of blade depth without disturbing lateral position.

So in conclusion here is a plane with two fantastic additions to # 4 plane that no other manufacturer has (adjustable mouth and lateral lock) manufactured to (Maine or Canada) boutique plane quality and sold for a very reasonable price.

Absolute bargain.

In response to Mr. Van Sant’s comment:’I rate this plane as only good because the adjusting mechanism for the iron is very sloppy and it is impossible to make minute adjustments so the plane will operate properly.

The looking screw itself causes the iron to shift to one side when tightened’. The adjuster is a Norris style, so swinging the knob from side to side makes your lateral {side to side} adjustment to the blade.

It’s easy to accidentally bump the knob, so there’s a locking knob underneath to lock down the lateral adjustment while still allowing depth adjustments. The tightening screw {the knurled jack screw} on the cap iron will place sideways pressure on the blade if the cap iron screw {the slotted screw} is not adjusted quite right.

The tightening screw should be at right angles to the blade when it gets snug, or else the rounded foot will contact near its edge rather than at the center of the knob’s rotation axis. Try adjusting the cap iron screw so the cap iron sits with the tightening knob in the correct alignment when it gets tight, and I’ll bet that solves your movement problem.

With all of that said, I really do prefer this screw type of cap iron to the cam style used on the Bailey series planes: once the thing is adjusted for proper alignment, you can easily tighten the blade to lock it down, or loosen it for easier adjustments.

Hope this helps! – DT.

Having never used a low-angle plane before, I wasn’t sure if I would like this. A lot of woodworkers seem to dislike them, but I decided I had to try one out for myself. Well, I have to say that this plane is fantastic, and I love it.

The build quality is just as good as any of the old Stanleys. It’s not quite as perfect as a Veritas, but it’s very close, and appropriate for its price range. The cutter did come quite sharp out of the box, but I did finish it slightly on an ultra-fine diamond stone and stop before using.

Blade is A2 steel, thick and very heavy. The shavings this took off the first block of wood were superb. I gradually dialled it in until I was getting wafer thin tissue-paper shavings. It’s a beautiful plane to use.

Heavy and smooth. Does a fantastic job of end-gran work also. The key is keeping the mouth size extremely small. I think this is my new favourite tool. I highly recommend this product.

The blade bed in this tool came to me as being uneven. After many attempts to use all the adjustments available on this plane, I was unable to make a balanced, even cut ; the left side of the blade always took a deeper slice than the right.

Upon much examination it became obvious that the surface where the blade emerges from the plane is thicker on the right side than on the left, causing the uneven , unbalanced slice. By the time I realized what was wrong, ( I avoided using the plane, thinking it needed more time consuming adjustment by me ) more than a year went by.

I called Rockler; they offered no remedy for me. “too much time had past” ! It sits under my bench unused,, a waste of $179. 00.

I had a door in my house that had swollen in the summer humidity, plus the house has sagged a bit. Needed take some off the top of the door quickly, and this tool did the job. Its made of stamped metal and cheap plastic, but I bought this tool for one job, and it did it.

I don’t intend to cherish this tool and leave it behind me as part of my legacy — I’m just a home owner, not a wood worker.

It would appear from all the other reviews that this is a good tool until the handle breaks. I had the same problem as other reviewers. The description say ‘ High-impact polymer handle holds up to heavy use’.

it doesn’t. clearly. Having said that, customer service were very good and they are sending me a new one without any quibbles. Fortunately, I’ve made a new handle from a piece of timber so I’ll have one surform for ‘heavy use’ and the replacement for everything else!.

It works good. But I had to build a stronger handle on it due to the plastic one breaking off the first day. I think they could try to re-engineer the durability of the handle in my opinion. Other than that, works good.

My wife bought this for me nearly a year ago and I had my initial doubts on it as it doesn’t adjust very easy. After giving the iron a proper sharpen on the oil stone and some fiddling around with the components, I now find myself reaching for this more often than I thought.

Once I had the iron scary sharp, its barely needed the oil stone since. Good value for its price, but for those looking for a professional quality, look to restore a second hand one with an iron depth adjuster.

On my copy, the pin that holds the chip breaker against the blade is not parallel to the sole – thus making it impossible to clamp the blade square to the mouth. The mouth is also poorly machined, and at an angle.

I spent hours with a file correcting this, and ended up shimming the pin with some tape to square up the chip breaker. Packaging is that horrible heat welded plastic bubble, making it impossible to return the item intact.

Yes it is a bit tedious to adjust. Takes a bit of time to get it all square and adjusted to the depth required. Once this is achieved, works just as well. I used it for minor adjustment work/fixes. I’m happy with it.

You get what you paid for. But it works for me :).

This is my first plane so I’m no expert. I wanted a No. 4 plane and have seen that you can spend over 100 on them but for my basic DIY needs I wasn’t going to spend that much. I was looking for a Stanley No.

4 plane but this Spear and Jackson caught my eye as the price was very reasonable and it was available. Delivered as promised, well wrapped. The plane was in a polyethene bag within it’s box with plenty of oil over the plane.

There are no instructions but it’s fairly obvious how to adjust the plane. The adjustment of the depth of cut worked very well and after about 15 minutes of trial and error I was able to get really thin shavings – so the blade is sharp as well.

This plane might not suit experienced woodworkers but for me it is an excellent buy and I recommend it for basic, and perhaps intermeidate, DIY’ers.

Re: Spear & Jackson CSP4 No. 4 Smoothing PlaneS&J-CSP41 I bought this item to do some repairs on my gate as it was difficult to shut due to the damp weather mainly. An excellent product and very good value.

Quick delivery.

nothing special, not the best, certainly not the worst. for the money, with a little effort, it does its job. needed flattening, and iron needed a lot of work. for a budget it is a good buy, a lot better than likes of silverline.

The plane is a versatile traditional design that is convertible to a chisel plane. The Stanley Sweetheart line was a premium line of very well tools. The vintage originals are highly prized collector items.

This appears to be well machined and the two main parts of the plane body are machined for a near-perfect fit. The sharp edges will benefit from a bit of rounding-off where your hands grip the plane.

Unfortunately the plane iron did not fit parallel to the base. If I angled the iron to fit the base then the edges were not even on the sides. The good news is that this gave me an opportunity to find out how fantastic Tyler Tool’s customer service is.

I called, the phone was answered immediately by a very nice CSR who apologized – although this was not Tyler’s fault; Stanley just didn’t machine something correctly- and she immediately arranged for me to return the plane.

Dealing with new suppliers on-line is often a cause for anxiety – Tyler Tool has earned my support as an excellent supplier with fantastic support in the rare case you might need it.

I purchased this plane at Rockler. I went home with one and found out it didn’t work. The ramp was ground crooked. I went back to the store. Almost every one was crooked. The clerk and I found the least crooked one and I took it.

I wound up clamping the plane in my woodworking vise and filing the ramp myself until the blade presents the cutting edge flat to the sole. For what it’s worth, I checked for debris under the blade as well as whether or not the cutting edge was square to the side of the blade.

I hope the quality control issues have been fixed. This one was disappointing.

I have a Stanley 60 1/2 block plane from the 1960s. It is a good little plane. I use it almost daily as a carpenter. I wanted another for use at home so I ordered one which arrived very fast. It would seem however that the wonders of modern machinery and manufacturing techniques have been spurned by Stanley who have debased a once good item to one solely based on price and utterly unfit for purpose.

The base was so coarsely ground that I could have used it as an emery board and so far from flat that when I put it on a surface plate it wobbled like a round bottomed doll. The throat was out of level so I had to file it to persuade the iron to sit flat across it.

The iron as supplied was not square. The throat is too large and can not be closed to a small enough dimension for awkward timbers and the adjustable front sole is no longer made from cast iron as it used to be but a ghastly mild steel which does not respond well to machining.

All in all a dog. Avoid it. This plane is one sixth of the price of Clifton’s block plane. I would if I were making the purchasing decision again gladly pay six times more to obtain an item fit for purpose rather than this cheap travesty.

Wanted or to be totally honest needed a reasonably priced plane, that was small for light work and secondly not take up too much space in the tool box. Its size was a big factor for me as I generally would only be using it two or three times a week, but need to carry it with me just in case.

Sod’s law really if I didn’t carry it with me, that’s the time I would really need it. Well Sod and his Law happened again last Saturday morning, ordered it via the Screwfix mobile app and collected it 20mins later, it got me out of trouble where I had expected a quick pass with a surform would have been enough! The plane feels ok in the hand, maybe a touch too small for someone with sausage fingers but perfect for my needs.

Very quick and easy to setup and adjust straight out of the packaging. Anyone who ever did carpentry at school in the 70’s will be on auto pilot doing it in under 30 seconds. I’m not a carpenter or cabinet maker, but for me this plane feels solid, well put together and with care it should out live me! Long and the short of it is, its paid for itself within an hour of purchasing it, and will no doubt save me significant time and effort on future jobs, because it earned a permanent position in my general toolbox.

I bought this plane for general carpentry. Shaving door edges, frames etc. I was a little concerned about the set up but I have to say it was simple. The blade needed a minor adjustment but trust me when I say.

anyone can do it!!! It retracts easily for storage which prevents any damage to the blade. It is very good value for money. I would have liked a case or pouch but for the price I’m not going to grumble.

Recommended.

like the other review says, it needs some setting up. The chipbreaker doesn’t seat well with the blade and is lacking rigidity so it can give some chatter if the chip breaker isn’t seated well. With a bit of work it will produce some nice Fibonacci spirals and after several years with it I’ve gotten better at setting it up.

It’s a good plane but is maybe let down by thin blade and chipbreaker, my guess would be that there are plenty of upgrades for it but for me it’s great. The finish is rough and can take some time to finish it but it’s worth it when those shavings flow.

After returning the 3rd one I asked for my money back. Very disappointed in the quality drop of these Bailey planes in recent times. This is old tech, which has been refined over years. It’s unacceptable to sell a premium priced product with parts that break (metal and plastic parts) Is not fit for purpose.

Works fine as a plane, although it needed some setup out of the box. The blade is ok. But you can see where Stanley have cheaped out in other areas; the lateral control lever is stamped metal and the handles are really nasty – plastic with big moulding seams.

Still did the job though.

Very disappointed with this purchase. With every plane you expect to spend a little time to sharpen the iron and tune up the body to get it to cut right. The grind on body of the plane was very rough, and after almost an hour of work the sole is still not totally flat.

Iron took a bit of work to get square and sharp too. But, after all that work, I got it to a usable condition and the iron seems to hold it’s edge pretty well. Bought this plane as an upgrade to a consumer level Stanley block plane I’ve had in my bag for 20+ years.

You can see how Stanley quality has really gone down hill. And no amount of “bells and whistles” (like the adjustable mouth and brass fittings) can be substituted for quality. Overall, the plane feels solid in your hand, but the adjustment fittings seem a bit cheap.

If I were to purchase again, at this price, I’d go with a different brand, probably the Taytools version, or just make the investment and go all the way up to the WoodRiver. Or, I’d save money and go back to the simpler consumer version at half the price.

Don’t be fooled like I was and think brass equals quality.

Absolute Garbage. I know what you’re thinking. It’s cheap I’ll just spend some time flattening it, make sure it’s square and be on my way. Wrong. The bottom of mine was horribly deformed and after a few hours of flattening, the far edges of the sole sides still haven’t been touched.

But even if you do get one that isn’t as warped or poorly milled, the frog doesn’t fit over the screw at a reasonable tension because the opening in the frog was machined poorly. So you’ll either have to file it open or use a screw driver every time you need to remove the frog.

All those issues aside it would still be a junk plane. The worst problem is that their mechanism for side to side adjustment adds so much extra metal to the plane that you can’t tell if your turns are actually pushing or pulling the blade.

I work as a luthier, I spend all day working with planes, it’s very easy to tell when the nob has engaged the blade and your making adjustments. This is all guesswork you’ll waste a ton of time twisting the nob and checking to see if the depth has changed.

And if you’re unlucky enough to send the blade too far, well that’s another 5 minutes wasted trying to back the plane out. Just post the extra 50 and get something else. Trust me, this plane is trash.

Pros: -Both the smoothing plane and block plane look and feel nice. -The smoothing plane required minimal work, 1-2 hours of flattening the sole and then sharpen/bevel the blade. 100% good to go. Cons with the smoothing plane: -Required 3-4 hours of flattening the sole.

-The smoothing plane’s cutting edge was not 90 degrees to the sides, 2-3 hours of whetstone work to correct the edge. -Only one side of the blade is 90 degrees to the cutting edge. -The slot for the adjustment wheel bar that hooks into the chip breaker was not cut in the correct spot.

This results in the blade protruding from the mouth too far with no more room to move it back with the adjustment wheel. Essentially making the plane completely useless as a smoothing plane as it is always taking too deep of a cut, no matter what.

This will take some trial an error file work to correct, then putting something in behind the adjustment bar so it doesn’t have too much slack when turning the wheel. Or go buy a new chip breaker and hope for the best.

Nice finish and packaging, accuracy of machining and assembly probably a little hurried. After examination, plane fullly disassembled and blade support cleaned, re-assembled and adjusted. Blade back flattened and re-assembled.

Depth of cut adjustment pivot, straightened and bent to fit adjusting wheel accurately. Blade re-sharpened with correct cutting angles and connected to blade back. Bent blade leveling lever and positioning finger to correct position.

Lubed and re-assembled plane including tightening of wooden handle screws. Now a fine and accurate piece of woodworking equipment. Might also be worth mentioning that the bed needs the coat of varnish removing from the cutting face as uneven wear of the varnish will result in stickiness and not cutting smoothly and evenly.

Still, when done a nice piece of kit that will last years of use.

As with all hand bench planes, some tuning and polishing needs to be done. With the no. 3 faithfull I got, I needed to chip off paint that was under the frog. I needed to file down the mouth where the machine job was imperfect.

The part the iron sits on coming down from the frog. I had no problem with the frog adjustment screw, or setting the frog position. With the screw all the way in the frog sits perfect. The frog looks really good on both the no.

3 and no. 4 The iron on the no. 3 looks like it has a messed up bevel. The bevel seems to change as it goes from one side to the other. It does nothing bad for the performance. The no. 4 iron looked nice and straight.

The backs on both irons was already flat. I only needed to sharpen the no. 3 and no. 4 iron. The chip breakers are only polished where it counts on both the no. 3 and no. 4. The chip breakers looks good to me.

The sole/bottom of both the no3. and no4. looked almost perfect. No work was needed on it. I think the faithfull bench plane was taken from the blueprint of something other than a Stanley. Maybe Stanley is the origin, but I think it’s coming from something different.

I only needed little work to make these really nice bench planes. They say that any new tool, even used tool, has to be polished before use.

Good transaction. But quality of the plane absolutely terrible. Wouldnt buy another one. Sole was concave ! General grinding finish terrible. Chip breaker needed grinding. Locking lever too stiff. Took a day to get it usable.

Nasty plastic knob and handle. Get a good second hand one, not one of these.

I have both of these including the number 5, I also have 3 1950s / 1960s Stanleys but the Faithfulls beat them hands down, once set up, and they were not hard, they worked like a charm and kept their edge.

The only problem I had was with the small Block Plane, the edge of the blade had been incorrectly heat treated and was constantly chipping, I bought a new blade, I suppose I could have sent it back, but the new blade sorted the problem.

The good: This is as good as most name brand planes out of the box. As such it takes a bit of effort to true up the sole, but after buying several of them, I can say with confidence that most can be ready to use within 15 minutes – they are just that good.

The plane iron is a standard thickness and of adequate quality and hardness. It reaches a razor sharp polished edge with no problems. The not so Good: There is a fair amount of play in the adjustments, but not excessive.

Given it is mostly a matter of production tolerances, I feel a bit disappointed as a craftsman since it would not effect the price to do better.

Perfect for beginners and intermediate users! Now, some folks like a longer shoe for greater consistency, but this plane fits in every toolbox or bag that I own. this is meant for smaller tasks, and won’t replace longer shop planes.

However, it will follow you everywhere, and really comes in handy. Even though it’s called a bench plane, that doesn’t mean that it has to stay there. When I slightly retract the blade, I can place it loose in a canvas tanker bag with out any concerns over chipping or dulling.

I used it to remove the manufacturer’s round-over on a piece of 2-by, and it was much easier to use this, rather than setting up my jointer. Regarding tuning, I didn’t go through the whole process of flattening and edging the shoe, but I’m not sure that this size really needs it.

The blade was sharp from the factory, and I was able to produce some decent shavings. The frog was a little stiff, but that’s due to being brand new. I’ve every confidence that it will loosen the more I use it.

Get this plane. It is an essential tool and can be expected to make an appearance whenever your stock has to be prepared.

Single mom tired of calling handymen, so growing my tool collection instead. This little tool was perfect for fixing where my doors were sticking. It leaves the surface fairly smooth but I used a 120 grit sanding sponge after.

I was surprised now much material this tool can remove, and how quickly yet controlled you can work with it. Was also nice to have such a small tool, I could keep the doors hung while planing & constantly test them.

Perfect product, much better and easier to use than the more expensive alternatives.

This is actually Irwin brand, not Stanley, but both reputable names. The blade broke while taking it out of the package! I wish I was joking! Luckily there is a lifetime warranty. I was able to get a replacement from CT without issue.

I still haven’t used the tool yet. The body looks durable, but obviously the blade is questionable.

I have all the versions of Stanley’s Surform tools. They make quick work to smooth a surface. The surform blade has 100’s of miniture planes in it. It works better than a plane on wood filler and wood with difficult grain patterns.

It’s a great addition to the traditional block and bench planes.

Easy to prepare before use. Disappointed with the quality of Stanley planes Poor milling and PLASTIC handles. Managed to swap them for wood from an old plane. Stanley used to be brand leaders, now they have been overtaken especially by Wood River.

Excellent service by Toolden, Plane arrived in 2 days. Well done.

I’ve been using Stanley planes for decade and always find them a joy to work with once I’ve sharpened and set them up (fettled) the way I like.

The plane arrived in good condition, no problems. As usual, Stanley planes can be used straight out of the box, but will perform better with putting more edge on the cutting blade and setting the plane up to your requirements.

Like any decent tool of this type, the blade is made of steel: it keeps its sharpness for a long time, gliding effortlessly over the wood. It’s also easy to sharpen as required. The adjustment mechanism is well thought-out, easy to use, and very comprehensive (depth, cant and mouth) and doesn’t slip during use.

I guess a professional with high volumes of work to complete would choose an electric model instead. But for an amateur who enjoys the feel of a hand tool, not to mention the lack of noise, this planer is an absolute pleasure.

Overall the plane is fine and I am happy with it, but there were some issues that I had to fix right out of the box. The adjustable mouth wouldn’t sit flush with the bottom of the plane when tightened, which prevented the plane from cutting well.

After spending a bit of time lapping the bottom of the plane with some sandpaper and float glass, I was able to get the adjustable mouth flush with the rest of the plane’s sole. After which it worked great.

The only other issue was the iron not extending far enough out in order to actually cut much of anything. I was able to fix this by messing with the depth adjustment screw a bit. There’s two parts threaded on to the screw.

To change the range the iron is able to move in, I moved the smaller of the two parts (doesn’t have a name/label on the parts diagram), a couple of turns away from the nob on the end of the screw. This fixed the issue, and I was able to adjust the iron as needed.

I have owned a Stanley Sweetheart block plane for around eight years and used mine regularly for professional joinery work during this time. The treaded brass bolt for securing the blade was the first thing to go but you can get around that by replacing it with a tough metal one.

The adjustable plate at the front looks impressive but I have found no discernible use for it and lock it off tight to avoid it slipping. This aside it has been a useful tool My main criticism is that the blade needs throwing after sharpening it only a few times compared with all my other plane blades.

What a swizz. This is due to the fancy adjustment system which has limited travel and once the blade has lost any length it is unusable. What a poor design.

I like it! As a woodworker, I admit I don’t have tons of experience with handplanes, but I have been starting to use more and am developing a great appreciation for them. I like the size and weight of this Stanley Sweetheart.

It seems well sharpened to me out of the box and it is nice to look at, especially next to some of the older planes that I have restored that belonged to my dad and grandfather.

I have bought several Cliftons over the years and all needed minor fettling but something seems to have changed lately. Clifton stopped polishing the lever caps and also other surfaces on the planes leaving sharp edges that make them uncomfortable to use.

The tote on my new no7 was not sanded and the bolt holes significantly off centre. The y-lever was not filed down properly preventing the blade from reaching down far enough to take a thick shaving. The back of the blade was not flattened and the cap iron not mating to it fully.

All things that you would expect to be done on a nearly £400 plane. Some of the Asia made planes are a lot better finished and prepared for much less money….

Really well-made tool. Solid and obviously high-quality. Good weight, so minimal effort needed to use because less need to push down. Compared alongside normal Stanley plane the improvements in manufacture and thickness of metal are very noticeable.

Expensive, but worth it. One of those tools that makes me smile when I use it.

The best plane I ever used! You feel quality in every detail of this tool. Very rigid and sturdy. Rather heavy and wide to make the work itself without applying additional force. Takes very thin and smooth shavings surely after some sharpening.

Despite it is said “ready to work from the box” it definitely needs sharpening as any blade from the factory. Side is truly squared against the sole which is a plus for your shooting board. Despite it called No 5 1/2 it is my number one plane in my works now).