scrape away
janderr
>as i type this i hear the click of my thumb callous on the spacer bar of my keyboard. i cant help but notice the lack of scraping threads on the hand work site. i work with figured wood to pay the mortgage, without a wide belt, and in most situations my smoothing planes remain in their cabinate and the sanding doesn't start until the 400-1000 grit polishing.
i can remove all the revolution marks and flatten with my stanley 80's, and then move to finessing the surface with card scrapers. i find it faster than sanding and less frustrating than the hand planing i thought i'd love, not to mention the money i could have saved. my scrapers probably cost me less than three hundred bucks, my planes; sheesh.