I’m sure there must be some confusion among those who don’t study the history of woodworking tools, as to what, if any, is the difference between a fore-plane and a jack-plane. I remember being confused about it when I started in woodworking. The metal bench planes of Leonard Bailey’s design still that were still being sold by the Stanley Company were described not by name but by number, the famous #1 – #8. That’s eight planes to the four that Moxon lists. I didn’t know then about Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises. (There were no modern reprints yet, and of course no internet where today scanned facsimile copies can be accessed.) 

My first entry into the nomenclature of planes came when I purchased With Hammer in Hand by Charles Hummel in 1983. In the catalogue of wood and metalworking tools used by multiple generations of the Dominy family of cabinetmakers and clockmakers, Hummel covered his bases when two planes were listed as “Fore or Jack Plane.” The first sentence of his entry is the quote from Moxon also used in my first blog post on making a fore-plane, “It is called the Fore Plane because it is used before you come to work either with the Smooth Plane or with the Joynter.” Further on in the entry Hummel writes, “Over the years much confusion has arisen about the names of bench planes used by woodworkers, especially in connection with the fore, or jack, plane.” He gives a brief history of the two differing names for the same tool but stresses that “What is most important is the fact that the purpose of these planes, whatever the name, was identical.” 

I have not researched how long the terms “fore-plane” or jack-plane” were being used in the English language before Moxon’s publication. I assume they turn up in earlier joiner’s inventories, advertisements for the return of stolen property, poems about the woodworking trade, and, no doubt, in Shakespeare. Moxon was familiar with both designations, writing in his section on house-carpentry, “The Jack-Plane, called so by Carpenters, but it is indeed the same that Joyner’s call the Fore-plane,” though gives no explanation why there are two names for the same tool and does not assign a length or width for either. Richard Neve in The City and Country Purchaser’s and Builder’s Dictionary, London 1736, makes no mention of a jack-plane but describes the fore-plane as about 18 inches long, with a cambered iron set rank. 

The remarkable of Benjamin Seaton tool chest contains tools purchased in 1796 from C. Gabriel & Sons, London along with an inventory taken by Seaton of his new purchases. His “1 dble (double iron) Jack 3/ and 1 Single d(itto) 2/1” are both 14 inches long with 2-inch irons. Also listed in the inventory but missing from the tool chest is “1 d(itto) Fore 3/6.” By the end of the eighteenth-century plane-makers were selling both jack and fore planes. The higher cost of the jack plane may indicate a longer body, 17 or 18 inches. We don’t know why Seaton needed three similar planes or how he intended to use them.

Peter Nicholson in The Mechanical Exercises, London, 1812, lists both jack and fore planes but only illustrates the jack-plane, describing it as seventeen inches long.

We now know that “fore” and “jack” have been used for centuries to describe the same plane, one 14 to 18 inches long with a cambered/radiused iron used to take the rough surfaces off boards coming from the mill or pit-saw. We know the terms were used interchangeably throughout the eighteenth century. The 1708 inventory of the Philadelphia joiner Charles Plumley lists 4 “Jack Plains.” (He had at least two indentured journeymen working in his shop.) In 1779, the cabinetmaker Jeremiah Cresson had for sale in his shop in Chestnut Street opposite Carpenters Hall “One double-iron fore plane” among other woodworking tools. It would have looked very much like Seaton’s double iron jack or fore planes.

I mentioned earlier that commercial production of wood bench plane ended in the mid-twentieth century. That is true, but there is more to the story. In the late 1990s, Bill Clark and Larry Williams established Clark & Williams, plane-makers, in Arkansas, reproducing mid-eighteenth century style single-iron bench planes for sale to the public. Don McConnell joined them in 2005 and in 2010 the company was renamed Old Street Tools. Recently, they have discontinued the production of bench planes while continuing to take orders for moulding planes until their supply of suitable beech for those planes is also exhausted. Today there are few commercial makers of wood bench planes made in the traditional style for sale in the United States, the two most well known being Red Rose Reproductions (side escapement planes, panel raising planes, and more) and Steve Voigt (specializing in double-iron bench planes). (There are several businesses making “Krenov” style planes and woodworkers around the world make solid body planes for their own use.) Hats off to them for continuing the tradition, and to Larry and Don for laying the foundation for traditional wood plane-making and who Dan at Red Rose Reproductions and Steve have praised for their generously sharing knowledge as Dan and Steve began their careers in plane-making.

Next: Using the Fore-Plane.