As hardware stores don't carry any hardwood, I reverted to riving logs from the firewood pile for my practice lumber. So far, I had pretty good success with oak and beech. I do find those wood species to be a pleasure to work with, compared to the soaking wet fir locally sold. My smoother plane was able to make gossamer-thin shavings without any extra sharpening, with the resulting planks looking ready for finish. I'll try riving the cedar we had to fell a few weeks ago, I am sure I can find something to do with this beautiful aromatic timber.
After spending years trying to get a wooden jack plane, I found out I actually have a pile of them in the garage (thanks to Steve from Close Grain for this revelation). German wooden jack planes are actually way shorter than English/American ones, and I was looking for the long model. It also turns out that I have a perfectly fine German wooden scrub plane which has now been fully integrated in my dimensioning steps. That plane adjusts thickness in mere seconds, at least for oak and beech... now coarse/medium/fine works perfectly for me. I still have a cheap metal Jack coming in as an alternative to the scrub plan, I'll just need to camber its iron... maybe I should do the same with one wooden jack.
