Hand jointing and power planing : good compromise ?

[Joe]

I've seen the Christopher Swartz DVD and know his articles and blog a bit. I find them very excelent. A personal copy is currently on its way. Havn't seen Rob Cosman's might source that as well.

tnimble, if you've seen the Schwarz DVD I'm not sure it's worth buying the Cosman one too - you won't learn an awful lot more. "Rough to Ready" also gives the impression that hand tool preparation takes forever because it starts off with daylight streaming through the workshop window and finishes when it's gone dark. This isn't Cosman's fault, it's the filming and explaining that slows him down of course, but it does give an unfortunate impression of extreme laboriousness.

Joel

 

[Anonymous]

I used to prep all stock by hand, now I usually do part of it by machine. As Wiley said, most of the time I flatten one side by hand and then run the boards through a benchtop planer. If there is a lot of stock less than 6" wide to be done, I'll use a tailed jointer as well.
Philly is right about the difference in camber. I use a lot of camber in my scrub blade and it cuts deep grooves with little to no tearout. I also use wooden and metal jack planes with varying amounts of camber. Having just the right setup will reduce the workload substantially. As others have mentioned, working from coarse to fine is the principle to be followed.
Bench planes or leveling planes as Mercer classifies them do not need to be fine, precision tools. Wooden jack (fore, if you prefer) planes, Bailey type #5's are inexpensive and work great to quickly remove waste.
My benchtop planer is just an inexpensive Delta. If a surface is to be finished, I smooth it by hand.