Originally Posted by
Eric Schubert
The difficult knots I tried and failed to plane flat. Everything inside the circle is too high.
I have that problem occasionally. My solution is normally to use a smoother or a block plane to knock down the high spot, then go over it again with my #7. The block plane works well on knots, probably due to the low angle, though it takes a finer shaving.
I have found that I don't seem to get the same high spots if I rough it all out with a heavily cambered blade, then take very light passes to clean up. If there are knots or twisted grain I move the plane faster to let the momentum of the plane work in my favor against the change in the woods hardness.
Making furniture teaches us new ways to remove splinters.