Plough plane recommendations

[tibi]

5 1/2 and a 220 block would be my desert island choice.
I see you are planing long timbers. Are you "dimensioning" long timbers for stock?
This isn't how it's done. Nobody "dimensions" anything with a plane until it has been sawn to length and width according to your cutting list taken from your design drawing.
A lot of people make this mistake, having bought PAR ("planed all round") in timber yards, but in a small workshop you don't prepare PAR. You don't plane anything until it has been reduced/sawn to component size for whatever you are making.
It's much easier and you get better yield with much less waste.

So you know how I feel if I walk into my shop with a lot of reclaimed painted wood and offcuts. My OCD would want everything square and trimmed, but my logic tells me that planning everything square and true without a plan and cutting it to length and width first is a waste of time and material

 

[tibi]

Wrong again sometimes Jacob. It's not always faster to plane sticking in small pieces, thin panels and moulding is struck in one long piece.

That is another approach, If I want a narrow piece to be exactly the same, I plane one long piece and then cut it to smaller pieces that will have identical cross section.

 

[Jacob]

Wrong again sometimes Jacob. It's not always faster to plane sticking in small pieces, thin panels and moulding is struck in one long piece.

Well yes I think most people could work that out. Some things like very short lengths are easier kept in one longer piece for easier handling.
But it's amazing how many people think they have to prepare their own PAR dimensioned stock! Easy mistake for a self taught beginner I guess.

 

[D_W]

well, everything is generally taught from someone who learned first to use power tools and they're not teaching people who actually work wood by hand, so you can expect their advice won't be that great.

One of the nicest things about working by hand is you can look over your stock for all but the runs that need to be straight, cut a piece out of it and turn it into a finished piece. It makes it much easier to not waste stock or have to think too hard to try to get the most around bad bits in lumber (and you don't need much space, because you're moving yourself and not the board.

The continuous shaving part is important as soon as you get to truing and working to a mark, though. It's nice to have good results, but it's important because it's lower effort.

Imagine if people tried to use power tools the way they use hand tools if they started only with the latter. They'd want a bandsaw with a 12 foot throat and a planer wide enough to plane a panel after it's glued up because they'd be used to the luxury of not caring if boards were slightly out of flat before panel gluing.