Anthony VanCampen wrote:

Key word in the paragraph is "rabbet plane." A rabbet plane has two extra
blades one on each side called nickers that take a veritical slice through
the wood, this prety much prevents any tear out along the edges of the
rabbet.

Are you sure you're not thinking about a dado plane? Or are you
referring to the retractable nickers like on the #78?

FWIW, I almost never even extend the nicker on my #78 (and the
nicker is really intended for use on crossgrain cuts). If I'm worried
about tearout, I use a marking gage to scribe the rabbets first. It
works better than a nicker (it produces a cleaner line).

For crossgrain rabbeting, a skew rabbet plane is the preferred tool.
Again, I score the line with a marking gage first to insure a clean cut.

The other thing to remember is that there are usually several different
ways of getting any woodworking task done. So if you want to hog out the
bulk of the wood with a saw, and then fine tune the result with a plane,
do it that way. There is no law preventing you from doing it the way you
want to.

Absolutely. But for doing a rabbet, I can't see any advantage to
sawing first, unless he's simply sawing the kerf for the side of the
rabbet. As a matter of fact, removing some of the stock for a rabbet
could even make it harder to finish the thing with the plane.
(Irregularities can make the plane harder to keep level, which is key to
getting a good rabbet.)

I'd say he's better off to just get a #78 and learn how to use it.
Rabetting and grooving by hand are fun to do. Plus they give you an
excuse to buy more tools. :-)

BTW I've got the book in my shop, when I find the floor again I'm going to
take a swing at cutting some dove tails.

It's a fun book. As usual with Kirby, you have to take some things
he says with a few pinches of salt. (Afterall, he's the guy who said
the only planes you need are a #7 and a #4-1/2. Silly man. :-) But,
he does give excellent advice on various techniques that can help you
improve your dovetailing. Plus I like the variations he shows.


Chuck Vance