Woodworking Glossary

Fillister Plane

A fillister plane is a specialty hand plane purpose-built to cut a rabbet, with an adjustable fence controlling the width of cut and a depth stop controlling how deep the rabbet goes -- both built into the plane itself, unlike a standard rabbet plane (or a bench plane pressed into rabbet duty), which needs a separately clamped guide board to control width. A moving fillister has an adjustable fence that slides along the plane's body; a standing fillister has a fixed fence position, generally faster to set up for repeated identical cuts but less flexible for varying widths.