Dealing with the tough wood, can be the most rewarding. It is often dramatic and richly shaded. I tend to take too much time on it out of fear.

I decided to be bold here and show plane use done plainly. It really hurt to rip up such lovely wood, but if this sacrifice helps someone else to avoid such errors, know how to get around them, and not give up on hand tools, then this was well worth doing.

Bob

And Bob, you have also raised the issue of knots. I nicked and dulled a lot of plane blades before working up a strategy for knots. I started using thick blade jacks to take the knots down first, now I use a very thick blade scrub to cut’em down below the surface level. Then I just smooth the surrounding wood down almost, but not quite to the knot level. Then scrape it and it’s flat as a pancake!

Of course, I prefer to cut’em out and glue up a panel without knots - but it sure uses up a lot of expensive wood!

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