Welcome to the porch Rod, you're in the right place for some zen
woodworking.

you asked. . .
>Question 2: Flattening a board. My method for identifying high spots is
>to mist my reference surface
i confess I've never done this, or heard of it being done on wood. The
fact of absorbing water will alter the timber you're trying to
dimension.

The common way is to use a long plane, which provides its own reference
surface. If you span the board with one corner of the plane you can
squint down and check for light. You will see deviations down to about
10 thou. Jeffs site has excellent instructions on the procedure, and I
can do no better than advise you go there.

>Question 3: Tear out - planing some white oak. There were sections
>where the grain

Start by adjusting for a finer shaving, perhaps a much finer shaving.
and resharpen your blade. If you haven't already, look at the references
to how to sharpen. The famous scary sharp with a roller jig of some sort
is a near foolproof way of getting a good sharp edge. Once you're
familiar with what a *sharp* blade does, you know what to aim for using
any other sharpening method. Apprentices used to do sharpening because
its a long old job on an oilstone, and it's a fundamental skill and item
of knowledge all woodworkers must have to be any good at their chosen
pastime. If a really shrp blade set for a fine shaving still has some
tear out, then alter the direction of the cut to favour the tear out.
One never planes *into* the grain, so if the grain, viewed 'sideways'
runs like ///// plane left to right, if it's \\\\ go right to left (or
turn the work around of course) The next step would be to move to a
smoothing plane with a very tight set mouth, and an even sharper blade.
Then you might finally need to resort to scrapers.

Or throw away that component and remake it from more tractable timber. -
Success sarts with the timber selection for appearance *and grain
direction* you know.

and finally
>Question 4:
Recommendations for wood that has nice properties and works easy with
hand

tools.

This is personal preference stuff - I like oak, for its appearance,
strength, and the smell when I'm working it. Chestnut, Ash maybe. Beech
is good, but plain in appearance. i try not to use foreign hardwoods
these days.

You may receive lots of 'conflicting' opinions - there are lots of
ways of working with wood. We spent most of human kinds history
inventing them..

Enjoy

Richard Wilson Yorkshireman Galoot

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