Rebate plane

Also called: rabbet plane, fillister, moving fillister, sash fillister, shoulder plane

A rebate plane cuts a rebate: a stepped recess, square in section, run along the edge or face of a board, usually to receive a panel, a pane of glass, or the edge of another piece in a joint. The tool takes several distinct forms, from the plain rabbet plane and the fence-guided fillisters that cut a rebate, to the small shoulder and bullnose planes that trim and fit a joint once the main cut is made.

The plain plane and the fillisters

The plainest version has an iron running the full width of its sole and nothing to guide it sideways; some catalogues call this tool a rabbet plane, using both names for the one tool. Because the iron runs the full width of the sole, careless handling can easily cut a finger. As Audels (1923) put it, "On account of the difficulty of using a rabbet plane with accuracy, it is usual to use a plane with an adjustable fence or guide that may be attached to the side of the plane, and regulated according to the width of the rebate to be made." A plane fitted with such a fence is called a fillister, and joiners use several kinds. A side fillister is the one reached for whenever a rebate has to be cut right against the face side of the work, the surface meant to be seen. On a moving fillister the fence is fixed to the underside of the plane, held between the two sides of its body. A sash fillister differs from the moving fillister in several ways: its fence can slide much farther out from the body, it has no rebate cut on the left side of its own body, and it throws its shavings clear of the bench as it works. Strip the arms and fence from an adjustable fillister and what remains is a plain skew-cutter rabbet plane, its iron set at a slant across the mouth rather than square across it. Like a grooving plane, a rebate plane is begun by working back from the far end of the workpiece, and it, or a chisel, can also touch up the centre groove of a spline, a thin strip glued into matching grooves in two adjoining pieces to align and strengthen the joint, when that groove has been cut on a table saw.

Shoulder and bullnose planes for fitting a joint

Two smaller relatives are made specifically for joinery rather than for cutting a rebate from solid wood: the shoulder plane and the bullnose. The bullnose has its cutter mounted close to the toe, the front of the sole, which lets it work into a tight corner and gives it several other uses besides. Both true up tenon cheeks and shoulders so that a tenon fits its mortise precisely, and for precise joints in hard timber, metal-bodied shoulder and bullnose planes, together with a steel smoothing plane, are treated as essential. For a clean shoulder on varnished or polished work, or on hard timbers that resist sideways pressure, the shoulder is trimmed with the shoulder plane specifically. A shooting-board jig can support it so that a mitre is trimmed, or shot, accurately and with ease. For trimming the end grain on wide tenons, a large, heavy shoulder plane works best, and on the final passes it should not be run the entire length of the workpiece. The same plane also trues up a chamfer once the waste between its top and bottom edges has been chiselled away. Bird (2004) reports that a well-tuned example of the tool yields clean, controlled cuts once its user has mastered it.