Hi, I'm working on building a desk here and one of my first steps is
getting the hang of using a jointer plane (hand plane). It's a 22" long
plane and I've spent almost the whole day trying to perfect my skills
with this plane. After a lot of trial and errors; I find that I can get
a flat edge if I plane off the high spots and THEN plane the board
from one end to the other (now mind you, I am clamping the boards
together so I can plane the edges). Does anybody here have a better
technique to flatten the edges? I did try using a shooting board but I
can't seem to get good results from it.

Overall, I can never seem to get the edges flat if I don't plane off
the high spots first before planning from one end to the other.

Also, even once I get to the point of flattening the edges...I do have
a very slight gap between the boards in certain spots. Is there an
acceptable gap? My gap is about 1/32" or perhaps 1/40" - it is paper
thin. I feel it is impossible to get these boards any flatter! And my
GOD I spent a LOT of time just getting to this point ( shaved off about
1" of wood off of a 1x6x6!) and honing in on my skills. I hope no one
here says..."they MUST be near perfect...no light shining thru
what-so-ever!" Please don't say this!! If you do then that means only
one thing...I'm either not using the right techniques for using the
hand jointer correctly or the sole needs to be flattened.

oh and the length of the board is 1x6x6. I have about 5 of these and
I'm using them to make the top of the desk.

thanks for any help!

-Jer