How to Use a Block Plane | Woodworking

- - Hand planes can be a useful to way of smoothing and squaring boards in the wood shop when you don&have access to a planer or jointer. And, so I thought it would be useful if we looked at a couple different types of hand planes that we have in the shop here. These are basic models that, basically, any beginning woodworker might want to have possession of. The block plane is sort of a multipurpose plane. Its real purpose was invented for smoothing out end grain on boards. But, it actually has a lot of uses in the shop. And that&why I always recommend that beginners start with this one. Block plane is very simple. It has the cap, the cutting iron, the blade and the frog. The frog is the part where the blade rests on and it provides all of the adjustment features on the plane. So, let&look at how this works. After you put the blade in, and the cap back on, there&a couple controls here that allow you to make adjustments to how the plane works. The first one, and the most important one, is on the back. There&a brass knob here that you can turn clockwise or counterclockwise. And, what it&function is is to pull the blade in or push it out of the mouth down at the bottom here. The other control on here, these silver levers back here, these are adjustments to make the blade be parallel in this opening. You just move them side to side, like that. And, it moves the blade in the opening. So, if you sight through here, looking for something light behind you, it&pretty easy...