HNT Gordon Plane Selection Guide

Choosing the right hand plane is much easier when you start with the type of work you want to do. This guide is designed to help new and developing woodworkers build a practical set of planes in a sensible order, based on the furniture projects they are most likely to tackle.

Woodworking begins with a solid foundation: a well-constructed bench equipped with reliable hardware for holding, clamping and supporting your work. From there, choosing the right hand planes becomes essential to producing smooth, accurate surfaces and joints.

By combining a suitable workbench setup with a considered selection of planes, you’ll have the versatility, control and precision needed to tackle a wide variety of projects, whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your craft.

Workbench and Bench Hardware

A sturdy, well-built workbench with a flat top is the foundation of any woodworking endeavour. It provides the stability and precise clamping needed for sawing, planing and shaping wood.

HNT Gordon’s range of bench hardware can significantly enhance your workholding options, while also improving ergonomics for complex carving or shaping tasks.

Beginners benefit greatly from having both a front and tail vice for handling boards of different sizes. Holdfasts, used in combination with a tail vice and bench dogs, are also essential for tackling joinery with planes.

For added inspiration when constructing or upgrading your bench, visit HNT Gordon’s Legendary Bench Builders blog and explore the Bench Vices & Clamps collection to find the hardware best suited to your needs.

Basic Kit: Four Essential Planes

This basic kit gives you a strong foundation for furniture making. With these four planes, you can complete a wide range of projects while building skill and confidence.

Specialty Planes: Based on Project Needs

The following planes are selected according to the type of work you want to achieve. They are not listed in strict order, as the best choice will vary from person to person.

Aussie Jack Plane

This is necessary if you want to buy rough sawn wood and dress it without a machine. If you plan to prepare timber by hand from rough stock, this may be your first plane.

Large Flat Spoke Shave

This is necessary if you are profiling straight pieces of wood into round or oval shapes, such as making spokes, chair parts, table supports or other shaped components.

Large Curved Spoke Shave

This is necessary if you want to introduce inside curves into your work, such as curved chair legs, chair backs or other concave shaping tasks.

Small Curved Spoke Shave

This becomes necessary if you want to work very tight inside curves, such as those found on a cabriole leg or in lutherie work on the neck of a guitar.

Jointer Plane or A55 Jointer

This is desirable if you are planing lengths of wood over 1.8 metres, such as long tables, benches or larger furniture components.

Skewed Rebate Planes

These are desirable if you are doing a lot of long rebates. They are also useful when making mouldings in conjunction with hollows and rounds. The size depends on the task at hand.

Side Rebate Planes

These are necessary if you want to do advanced joints such as sliding dovetails. They are also very good for trimming dados and grooves when you want the perfect fit. They are desirable for moulding work as well.

It is best to have both the left and right-handed planes, but you can get away with one plane. However, you will most likely encounter grain direction problems at some stage. If you are making sliding dovetail joints, the dovetail fence makes the task much easier.

Snipe Bill Planes

These are highly desirable if you are using hollows and rounds to make mouldings. They simplify starting the profiles for hollows and rounds, helping keep the profiles parallel and correctly positioned.

It is best to have both the left and right-handed planes, but you can get away with one plane. As with side rebate planes, you may encounter grain direction problems at some stage.

Hollow and Round Planes

These are essential if you want to make mouldings for your furniture. The size depends on the moulding that you want to make.

1/2" Shoulder Plane

This is desirable in box making for small decorative rebates or small joints.

1 1/4" Shoulder Plane

This is desirable when making large mortice and tenon joints. It also works well as a rebate plane if you prefer a square blade setup rather than a skewed rebate plane.

Dado Planes

These planes are very efficient for making accurate dados, or grooves, across the grain or with the grain at a specific size. They are used to make joints in bookshelves, cupboards and carcass work.

They are very intuitive to use. As long as you can hold the wood flat on your workbench, you can mark the position of the dado, set a fence in position and plane away.

As a guide, the 1/8" and 1/4" dado planes are most useful in drawer making or very small pigeonhole shelving. The 3/4" dado is useful for larger carcase work, such as bookcases. The 1/2" dado suits in-between size work and can also be used where you want to convert the 1/2" dado to a tapered sliding dovetail joint using 3/4" thick wood for shelving.

Tip: For holding your work flat on a benchtop, our Tail Vice is very useful.

Radius Plane

This plane is specifically designed for shaping the seat of a Windsor chair, or other tasks where the radius of the sole suits the work.

Plough Plane

This plane is very desirable as part of your joinery plane collection. It cuts grooves of various sizes up to 45 mm from an edge.

A simple example is drawer bottom grooves. More complex joinery is also possible, such as the grooves required in a raised panel door.

Moving Fillister Plane

This plane is very desirable if you want to do furniture joinery with hand planes.

With good workholding, you can very accurately and neatly plane one side of up to 12 tenons at a time. Flip them over to complete your tenon with even, crisp shoulders and precise thickness on the tongue of the tenon to fit your mortice.

Other joints are possible where precise rebates are required, such as raised panel work.

Used properly, this plane can change the way you do joinery.

Choosing Between HNT Gordon Plane Styles

HNT Gordon makes two styles of smoothing, trying and jointer planes. If you have used metal bench planes quite a lot, the tote and knob style with a mechanical adjuster is probably your best option, as you will be familiar with that style of plane.

If you have not done much woodwork and have no preconceived ideas about handle designs in planes, the horizontal handle style has some good advantages. It allows you to push or pull the plane with ease, which is especially useful when planing long tabletops.

Conclusion

By combining a solid workbench and reliable hardware with the appropriate mix of HNT Gordon planes, you can efficiently handle everything from initial stock preparation to detailed finish work.

Start with the four-plane basic kit for everyday tasks, then add specialty tools as your projects diversify. Each plane’s distinct features and benefits help you craft fine, long-lasting furniture with confidence and control.

If you need additional guidance, explore the HNT Gordon Hand Planes collection, browse the Joinery Planes collection, or contact us for personalised recommendations.