Pat, why do you use two planes?

I do mine a bit different. I move the wood not the plane. Plane is held down by a few toggles, and is registered off a few blocks for alignment. Made from Phenolic faced plywood for smoothness/slickness. Plane is a Lie Nielsen #7

Lillian,

Couple reasons.

The little one is lighter and I use it to sort of "pick and choose" the high spots. It's set up for a bit more of a bite, though still small. The #5 is the no-brainer. It's set up to barely make a shaving, and in two passes, if I hear the sssssss the full length of the stroke, it tells me I have a straight edge and I'm done. I could do with just the #4, but the #5 gives me an extra margin of comfort.

Also, I try to use different height pieces on the bottom so that different parts of the planes' irons get used, rather than the one part of the iron that would always make the cut if I always had a piece of 3/4" on the bottom.

Pat

I do it sort of like John Mayes - except I have a granite plate. I lock down a No. 5 LN along side the granite plate and slide the two pieces of wood to be joined. Works like a charm. And shouldn't everyone have a granite plate laying around? Darn useful. Wish I had room in my shop for a granite top workbench. You can't beat a good, flat surface for some things.

Filippo

John,

With your setup, moving the wood, do you do both halves of the plate at the same time?

Pat

I'm thinking the jointer needs to be setup pretty good to get good results.

Well, After gathering some of your ideas I broke down and whipped on together today with parts I had laying around the shop. It has a front hook that hangs under the front that also butts against my vise or I can secure it in the vise too. The back fence is adjustable. I had a piece of track left over from my router table. I figure it can be used as a bench hook too and I can make a 45 degree piece that can bolt down to the track too for miters. I could probably slide the fence up and put some wet stones there to . Made from Malamine.