Planing wood with awkward grain?

[woodbloke]

Hi - in an earlier post you say that you are using a reconditioned No 4 from Ray Isles. Have you checked that the sole is dead flat, even a tiny high spot behind the mouth will cause poor contact between the edge and the effective point where the sole touches the timber in front of it. Also, I assume that the mouth is set as fine as poss - Rob

 

[Midnight]

I can't claim to have any experience planing cotton wool, but wild grain seems to be a habbit of mine... Ive found the best (for me at least)way to tackle it is with a fine honed blade, high angle frog, plane with some heft to it and an ultra fine tune... try reading the grain and use that to direct the best angle of attack... At times when I'm just shy of tearing my hair out, I've resorted to waxing the board (it never seems to stay on the plane long enough to make much difference) ... it can make a difference sometimes...

Don't be afraid to experement with your blade angles... there's times when my #62 makes light work of something that my #6 struggles with. To date I haven't needed to resort to doing the entire board with the #112... come close a time or two though...