Dave in Fairfax wrote in
:

Nate Perkins wrote:
Wow. I am a middle aged guy in pretty good shape, and when I tried
to do it all with an old #4 it was a heavy duty workout. Just taking
a 4/4 roughsawn board down to 3/4" is a lot of wood removal. Even
face jointing a board with a lot of bow or twist in it is fair work.
I did it that way for a while, and it sure made me appreciate a power
jointer and planer.
That's great. The only time I joint by hand anymore is when I've got
a nice-grained board that's wider than my power jointer.
You bet! Only thing that matters more than the results is the
enjoyment :-)

Sorry you had such a hard time of it Nate. Just FYI, a #4 is a
smoother, that's why it was so hard for you to remove the 1/4" of
wood with it. A #6 or so would have been a better place to start
and then, when you had it down to nearly the right thickness and
flatness, switch down to a #5 and then a #4. Least that's the way
I do it. As for jointing, it's simple. Clamp the two boards on
top of each other on your shooting board and run a #6 or #7 on its
side along the sandwiched sdes of the boards until the shaving is
full length, doesn't take more than a couple minutes unless the
baords are amazingly shaped. The sides will match up and be ready
to glue.

Right, I know how to do it (and have done it with most of the planes you
suggest). The fellow I was replying to was considering doing it all
with a #4. Having tried it once, I was trying to caution him that
(while possible) it is a lot of work.

It sounds as though you are missing some planes from your
collection. But then, who isn't. %-)

Planes that help me mill lumber wouldn't be of much use to me, since I
do most all lumber milling by machine. I admire the skill and
persistence of the neanders, YMMV.

The planes I would find handy a
- a Veritas medium shoulder plane (upgrade for my Record 077)
- a Lie-Nielsen low angle block (upgrade for my Stanley 60-1/2)
- a Veritas scraping plane (upgrade for my Stanley 80)