David writes:

Bruce, I don't own, nor have I ever used, a wooden plane. What
advantages and disadvantages do they possess? Except for one tiny
cheapy, all have are the LV planes ductile cast iron planes. (I think
that's the correct description)

I'm not an expert, but I have one (1) wooden/Japanese plane I bought
about 20 years ago, and the Toshio Odate book on planes.

The slight concavity of the sole I described is to reduce friction.

The scraper is a bit convex?

No. You scrape fron one side to the other side - across the grain.

If you look at the side of the plane, it touches the surface at the
front edge, near the throat, and at the end.

I think the LV planes have sides that touch the surface. This is
different from the Japanese style of reducing friction, where the
sides do not touch the surface.

A long Japanese joiner can have several "points" of contact, so the
bottom is like a "wave" if you understand what I mean.

As to advantages - Wooden planes can be cheaper, and you can modify it
easier, and you can make your own wooden plane easier than making an
all-metal plane.

IMHO the biggest difference is that you pull the Japanese plane
towards you, instead of pushing. The blades tend to be made from two
kinds of metal, and are thicker. These bi-metal blades allow a harder
edge, while retaining flexibility. You can now get bi-metal blades for
metal planes, and thicker blades.

A second difference, given my limited experience of one, is that the
budget Japanese plane REQUIRED tuning. One can use a cheap metal plane
without tuning (if one is woefully ignorant), but until I tuned my
Japanese plane, I couldn't even get the blade to approach the throat.

Here's a short article on tuning a Japanese plane.
The Odate book gives more detail.

http://japanwoodworker.com/page.asp?content_id=2659

You have to remove the blade when you are not using it. Moisture
changes etc. Metal planes are indifferent to humidity.

I can't compare a western style wooden plane to a Japanese style, and
I don't know if I have covered everything. Perhaps Mr. Knight and
others will elaborate and correct my mis-understandings?

I think the biggest and more important thing is how well the plane is
tuned. A well-tuned metal plane will out-perform a poorly tuned wooden
plane, and vice versa.

HTH


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