Finish straight on to planed surface?

[Jacob]

Plane enthusiasts can get very fine test results through a combination of immaculate sharpening and fine adjusting, but whether or not this is relevant the practicalities of actually making and finishing stuff, is another question altogether.

 

[thetyreman]

so from what I gather, you can use a decent well sharpened smoothing plane as the final finish if you are planning on using oil, it might be superior to sanding in that case, it's interesting to me how furniture from the 18th and 19th century looks so good even now, didn't they use scrapers back then?

 

[Jacob]

so from what I gather, you can use a decent well sharpened smoothing plane as the final finish if you are planning on using oil, it might be superior to sanding in that case, it's interesting to me how furniture from the 18th and 19th century looks so good even now, didn't they use scrapers back then?

Yes of course they did. And sandpaper. And 18C furniture has been polished for 300 years.

 

[D_W]

Plane enthusiasts can get very fine test results through a combination of immaculate sharpening and fine adjusting, but whether or not this is relevant the practicalities of actually making and finishing stuff, is another question altogether.

OR you can do it with mediocre sharpening and mediocre adjustment as long as you use a cap iron and a reasonable amount of camber.