71 vs. 271 vs. Butt mortise plane???

Re: 71 vs. 271 vs. Butt mortise plane??? *LINK*

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>Considering that I have only one house and that I'm a weekend warrior, my day job being a desk one, I've done quite a bit of door and architectural hardware installation. I only recently scored a 71 and have yet to find a 271 in the wild, so can't really speak comparatively...but I can't imagine either of them being better than a butt mortise plane for hinge and hardware mortises on existing doorways/window frames. Why, you ask (c'mon, just pretend you asked; humor me)? Because the plane can snug up next to the stop, though not as close as I'd like (see attached article, as I once again blow my own horn about my homegrown hinge mortise plane), which I'm not sure a 71 or 271 could do as well, becase they'd be cutting cross-grain in bullnose configuration.


Ranting on about my hinge mortise plane

Re: 71 vs. 271 vs. Butt mortise plane???

David Miller from Iowa

>Hands down the 71, IMHO. I use it primarily for cross grain dadoes (yes, I do have dado planes incuding a couple 39s). However, for shorter spans, I can whip out the backsaw, rough chisel and clean up with a 71 in less time. Sometimes I have to get the side rabbet out, and then it's probably a wash on time with a dado plane. Also, it's great for wider dados, like those 2x back stairs I put in over the winter. I use power tools when remodeling and hand tools for woodworking, and a few zips with the circular saw and the 71, and the dadoes where first rate.

Have a 271 but don't use it much, I prefer a good paring chisel for letting in hinges or other shallow/fine work - maybe because that's just the way I learned. Don't have a butt mortise plane, but I can see how it would be advantageous if one were hanging a lot of doors.

Re: 71 vs. 271 vs. Butt mortise plane???

Robert Tarr

>I have the LN butt mortise plane. It does a wonderful job for strike plates and hinges...just a sharp knife to strike the area and the plane cleans it up very quickly...much faster than jigging up a router.

One use that I have not seen on this site, that sort of suprises me, is for furniture veneer repair. If you need to pull off some old veneer, without damaging the substrate, I can't think of a better tool. I have done several veneer replacements on old furniture and think it is the best tool I have ever used for such a task. Gring and hone the blade, straight and set the blade height to just the veneer thickness and you can literally just peel it off. I got this tip from a guy that makes and repairs pianos.

Take care,

Robert

Different animals...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Mostly that is. A butt mortise planes does just that and that alone (although some use it as a scrub plane with the addition of a rounded blade).

The 71 is a multi purpose critter. It can do butt morti, it does dados and as its name implies route too. The 271 is its little brother and although nice you can't attach a fence to it as you can do with a 71. The 71 comes with more cutters (3) than the 271 (comes with 1). It's easy to make additional cutters for a 271.

That said if I had to pick one it would be the 71 open throat version with the depth stop and edge guide.

Sliding dovetails

Christof Hartge

>Hello Doug,

both planes excel in cleaning up the ground for a sliding dovetail. You can make cuts behind the corner and make clean cuts at an skew angle. This a problem a butt mortise plane can't solve.

I only have the European hornbeam version, which by dimensions is comparable to the 71. Sometimes when the surface is very small I wished I had a smaller router plane that would rest on a smaller ground also. So if you want a router for general tasks take the 71 if you have tiny work, the 271 would be better, I suppose.

Greetings Christof.