Try plane
Also called: trying plane, jointer plane, jointing plane
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A try plane, known in England as the trying plane, is a long bench plane used to true a surface that a jack plane has already roughed out, leaving it flatter and more even than the jack alone could manage. Once a board's face has been planed first by the jack plane and then by the try plane, that face is said in the trade to be tried up.
In the sequence of bench planes
The try plane belongs to the bench planes, the family of planes used in order to flatten and true timber, and typically measures about twenty-two inches long, three and a quarter inches wide and three and one-eighth inches tall. One older classification lists the jack plane, the fore plane, the trying plane, the long plane, the jointer and the smoothing plane together under that heading. In a fuller sequence a scrub plane comes first, then a jack plane, then the try plane, with the smoothing plane last of all; its mouth opening is set between the smoothing plane's narrower one and the jack plane's wider one. After a jack plane has cleared away the bulk of the waste, the try plane is applied to the surface, producing a more even result than the jack alone; timber worked this way is described in the trade as faced, shot and squared up, meaning its faces and edges have been planed true. A fore plane does the same job: straightening and smoothing the rough, irregular surface a jack plane leaves behind.
The iron
Sharpening the iron, and the motion of planing itself, are much the same as for a jack plane, though the try plane carries a double handle, called a tote, where the jack has only a single one, for extra strength. Sources disagree on how the iron should be ground: Audels (1923) states that it is ground straight, not curved, and set to take a fine shaving, while Hayward (1950) holds that, like a smoothing-plane iron, it should carry a very slight curve along its edge rather than being dead straight.
Truing an edge and a face
The try plane serves both for jointing edges and for the final flattening pass on a board's face. To true an edge, it is gripped firmly with both hands and started at the near end, aiming for one continuous shaving the full length of the piece, repeated in successive strokes across the width. One edge is trued straight and square first; the other is then marked out parallel to it and planed to width. To straighten an edge, the plane is set for a fine cut and worked only on the high part in the middle of the edge until no more shavings come off it.
The jointer and the shooting board
An even longer version of the try plane, called the jointer, was used for jointing long boards; it resembles the try plane in general form, but its extra length earns its keep wherever high accuracy is needed, as in edges that are to be glued together. Since machinery became available, the longer jointer is rarely used now, though a wooden-bodied try plane or an iron jointing plane can equally be used to true up the work, and edge and face surfacing were traditionally carried out with a long-soled jointer plane before modern alternatives; a hand plane used for jointing does the same job as a power jointer machine, though with a smoother result. On a shooting board, a jig with a rebated board forming a rest for the plane and two fences set across its top at forty-five degrees, a long, heavy try plane is well suited to the work. One modest tool kit thought sufficient for a particular job held nothing more than a tenon saw, a mitre block, a shooting-board, a trying plane, a hammer and bradawls.
On the workbench
The jointer plane doubles as a bench-making tool. Landis (1987) describes one craftsman who flattens each new benchtop by hand with a jointer plane, checking that the surface is out of twist, free of any twist along its length, with winding sticks, a matched pair of straight-edged sticks sighted across the surface to reveal any twist, and finishing by levelling the top with a sharp jointer plane before sanding it smooth. Landis (1987) also records a maker who demonstrated his workbench's usefulness by working it with a Record No. 7 jointer plane.