Not much of a journey to use hand planes, though could see why someone might be intimidated
by the cost of those Shapton hones, or ductile iron planes.
That whole better steel thing, aswell as the results of those hones are a perfect example of the money pit some may fall into.
Rob specifically won't use a close set cap iron, as per David W or Derek Cohen,
to name folks who use it properly, and not say Graham Blackburn, who claims the same, but sets his mouths on the smoothers tight.
The difference is you'll be back to the hone before you know it, if you don't follow the recipe.
Saying that, Rob's got some good habits, and a lot of good videos.....
if you can find the useful ones.
David Charlesworth made the best videos on planing I've ever seen,
as there's no bad habits to be found, and between the two, is where I'd suggest looking.
Thereafter, should you have timber what's not so easy to plane, using those suggested preferences, then you can start using the cap iron to sort that out...
instead of being convinced a sharper edge is the solution, when geometry of the cap iron is.
This would prep your timber, and you'd ne'r have to pick up a sander,
which would be extremely arduous on the elbows, slow,consumptive, really dusty, noisy, and generally not feesable for prepping timber by comparison.
Happy new year
All the best
Tom
