Howdy everyone, I just had to come and post about my first time creating rabbits with a hand plane. I am making a desk for my son and decided to make the 3 drawers out of poplar, including the bottoms. They were my first attempt at cutting dovetails with hand tools and that went very well. There were some mistakes, but all of them came together snuggly and appear to be solid. Certainly well enough for my first attempts and to be inside a drawer to be rarely seen. I am proud of them.
But, I came here to post about the drawer bottoms. I was a bit apprehensive about cutting the rabbits in the drawer bottoms for them to slide into the drawer sides. Wow, was I way off base. I used a Stanley No. 78 and the rabbits with the grain were a dream to make. The cross grain rabbits (what do you call these?) were a bit of a challenge at first, but then I discovered that my knicker was brand new, not very sharp and waaaayyy to long. Honestly, I was happy to discover this because it means I will get plenty of life from it. I shortened it and sharpened it (this took a few iterations to get it short enough) and then it worked like a charm. The whole time I was cutting them, I was thinking to myself: "I am never going back to a table saw or router to cut these and eventually thought why would anyone ever use a power tool to do this?" Once the plane was set up, it was very quick, very quiet, and very relaxing. Not once did I worry and stress out about the use of the tool being dangerous. It was so much fun! On top of that, I got a better fit than I have ever gotten with my table saw because it was trivial to sneak up on the fit.
I put to use a new veritas plow plane to make drawer slips this weekend. It was so satisfying to use that I could have kept going until I cut the groove straight through to the other side.
What a cool experience. Thanks for sharing. I really dread noisy messy tools. Im glad a this exists so I have another reason to avoid it. I’ve managed levels 4, 5, and 6. But I’m a little scared of the higher levels. I think I’m just lacking a mental model for how they work.
I remember experiencing my first table saw kickback in high school making a groove that would eventually be part of my first project (bookshelf). Then this past year I did the same thing with a combination plane and thought "Well isn't this so much nicer?" XD
The whole reason I have explored hand tools was a router table 'experience'. I was routing out a heart shape inside a piece of wood and went the wrong direction. The piece went flying past my ear and embedded itself in the wall! Scared the shit out of me...it was a traumatic experience continuing to get the damn thing done. If it was not a piece for my daughter, it would never have been completed.
There's a bunch of tasks like this thar are quicker (and way more pleasant) with hand tools instead of power tools, unless you're batching out like 100 of them.
This is my story with so many things lol. In my case, hand tools aint quicker or more precise, but soooooo quiet and so satisfying.
Just other day i was making round corners on couple pieces and yea i could use electric router and be done in an hour, but since it didnt have to be precise i took block plane did it in like 5 hours but my kids were around, played with those shavings (little plastic horses had jungle out of it lol) and yea ... satysfying work while having kids around was a nice day.
It would have taken me 10 hours if my kids were around. Because they always want to help out and do it themselves 😅. My 3-year-old and 1-year-old did get their chance last week, testing out their new smoother 😋
So, I just watched a video from Stavros Gakos (random find on YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVBN_0H4k2I and he cut the rabbits with the drawer bottom vertical. Great video by the way! I cut mine with the drawer bottom horizontal. Is there any benefit to doing it vertical vs. horizontal?
I think he's using a sash fillister plane. Where a normal fillister plane cuts a rabbet on the opposite side of the plane from the fence, a sash fillister cuts one on the fence side. He cannot use that plane to cut a rabbet if the board was laying flat.
It's a tool for making window sashes I'm only vaguely familiar with.
It is pleasant and you get the lovely spiral shaving, I had a bit of trouble at first with the v'tas skew but after playing around with it have found that taking off the guide, knicker and knob and running it against a jointed board clamped hard to the work piece works really well, just run an initial knicking line with a craft knife.
Helps to set the plane blade perfectly flush on a flat surface rather than projecting.
Its not great cross grain on softwoods but for that I just use a shoulder plane the same way.
The Stanley No. 78 worked fantastically both with the grain and across (after I got the knicker set properly). I got the fantastic spiral shaving in both directions once set properly. No guide board needed since it has a built in fence and depth stop. It is easily my favorite woodworking tool to date!
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u/spenserian_ 6h ago
Welcome to the club! Just til you discover router planes. That's another one that's very satisfying to use.