Hand Planes: Who Would Have Thought

So I have been getting more and more comfortable with hand planes and they are not as scary as I thought they were.  It actually is easier sometimes to grab the plane over sandpaper.  I am not good at flattening board and probably won’t be anytime soon.  My latest discovery is using it when doing panel glue ups.  I would take it off the saw and glue it together.  It was close enough in my opinion.  The glue would “fill-in” the saw marks.  The saw did a good job, but there was always a glue witness line.  I started using the plane to clean the saw marks off the edges in hopes to get a cleaner glue line.  The difference is very noticeable.  The joint is tighter and if the grain is straight and similar it is tough to tell were the piece are put tighter.