I am just finishing up the glueup of a large walnut table for my wife. It's my first really big project.
I'm a hybrid woodworker, out of necessity, but I love working with edged tools.
The tabletop is made of 8 rows of 5" walnut planks, 1.5" thick, biscuit jointed together. The planks are pretty uniform, out of the jointer and planer. However, there are slight ridges where they glue together, nothing extreme, but present. By no means do we need this table to be perfect, it's modeled after a simple farm table, albeit a long one (9' long).
Now, on to my question. I have a few handplanes, that are sharp. A cheap #4 Stanley with the plastic totes, and a decent corrugated bottom #5. Both are tuned up pretty well, and take decent shavings (the #5 better than the #4). I have a couple of block planes, also.
My thoughts on finishing this tabletop were to convert the #4 into a scrub, like Paul Sellers does in his YouTube video, and then use the #5 to run along the grain to even up the scrub marks. From there, I'm thinking about purchasing a Mujingfang plane to do the final smoothing. I have cabinet scrapers, but the thought of 30 square feet of scraping makes my thumbs hurt.
For a tabletop of this size, would the 11" Mujingfang jack be more appropriate than the 8" smoother? I notice that both of them have the same bedding angle and blade assembly. As much as I'd love to buy ALL OF THE PLANES, I have three boys under 6 to feed, and my tool budget is limited. I've read tons of reviews of the Mujingfang planes, and they are pretty much universally known as a fantastic deal.
I'm also open to other suggestions. Or donations.
Nick