I've purchased or acquired several hand planes recently and have been practicing to the point where I was comfortable trying to incorporate them into my work. I am working on two 18" x 23" tops for a pair of nightstands using #1/#2 air dried walnut (11% moisture content). After power jointing and thicknessing the boards, I flattened the glue-ups using a #5 jack at 30-45 degrees followed by a #4 smoother parallel to the grain. On one top I used a #6 parallel to the grain after the jack and prior to the smoother. On both tops, but particularly on the first top with knots and heavier grain swirls, I had some areas of significant tearout. The tearout occurred near knots or where grain changed direction.
I realize I need to evaluate my technique and it's quite possible my approach was flawed. I tried to pay attention to grain direction and had a closed mouth on the #4. When I started seeing the tearout, I also tightened the mouth on the #5. I honed the blades before I started and again in the middle of work on the first top, then repeated on the second top (rehoned 4 times). I also waxed the soles of the planes and was confident they were tuned relatively well considering how they worked previously.
So, how can I correct this? I prefer to not resort to ROS sanding but that is my back-up plan. I own a 24" transitional jointer which is currently out of commission, a 16" wood plane, a Stanley #6, #5, two #4s, a #3, a converted #4 scrub, a standard Stanley block plane, and a LN low-angle block plane, plus an Anant spokeshave. Or is there another plane for this job? A low-angle jack or scraper plane perhaps? Or a toothing blade? I do have a card scraper but the tearout is deep in many areas.
Any advice is appreciated.