RM MS wrote:
" . . .start by reading as much as I can about how planes are supposed
to work . . ."

Sounds like you never had to do it for the money. Like I have said
over and over here, many of you folks worry too much, spend way too much
time buying crap, and too little time actually messing stuff up---and I
mean that in the positive way: GET TO WORK, as often and as long as you
can. So many questions I see here are answered by themselves by just
DOING IT.


I respectfully disagree. I don't think there is any inherent benefit to
starting out not knowing about your tools and methods. Even if someone
learns as much as he can from others he'll still make plenty of mistakes
to learn from. Of course to work wood at some point you have to pick up
the tool and start doing it but there is nothing wrong with learning
what you can from others so that you don't learn everything the hard way.

I'm strictly a hobbyist woodworker but you can rest assured that
if I dit it for money I'd read everything I could get my hands on
just as I have done when learning skills that I did for a living.

Learn what you can from workshops, books, magazines, videos, the
internet and then go work the wood.