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I've got my first top down to about 3.2 mm, and a number of sources suggest that I should be getting out the scraper and sandpaper. But I'm using a very sharp, well-tuned Lie-Nielsen 4.5, and I'm getting a beautiful surface and very light, fluffy shavings.

(FWIW, my friend Konrad Sauer - http://www.sauerandsteiner.com/ -refers to those gossamer-like shavings as "angel farts

My question is this. If I'm getting great results from planing, is there any good reason to switch to scraping or sanding?

Thanks in advance

Steve

Steve my friend - no, and angle farts must sound heavenly......

The idea is to get a smooth and uniform surface if that is the stage that you are at (thicknessing) and if you can do this with your LN plane good on ya!

What kind of top and what kind of guitar are you making? 3.2 mm is .12598" thick.

Hi Hesh, thanks for the feedback. It's a AAA Sitka top for a parlor guitar. I'm anticipating getting it down to about 2.7-2.8 mm.

Steve

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How do you avoid the ripples from the edge of the iron? I love the look of planed wood but have never been able to get it ripple free with just a plane. I've always had to scrape if I wanted to get rid of the plane marks and yes, I have eased the edges of the iron on my smoother.

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A planed surface is certainly the best to glue to: when you've got the cutter that sharp you're just shearing off the wood, and you can see the whole structure of it clearly under a microscope. A scraper crushes the surface a bit, and sanding can leave it looking like a plowed field unlsee you go to at least 220 grit. Even then, it's not as good for gluing.

The maximum variation from flatness is the going to be pretty close to the thickness of the shavings you're getting. If those 'angel farts' are much more than a half a thou I'd be surprised. That's not enough to hurt a glue line.

I use a modified smooth plane profile on my planes: the center of the iron is flat, and only the very corners are eased back so that don't dig in. Thus what's left after planing the surface is a series of narrow ridges the height of the shaving thickness. Not perfectly level, perhaps, but far supreior IMO to the sort of surface you get from a drum sander.