First I had to sharpen the stupid thing. When I bought it I didn't own any other planes or good sharpening equipment, just some terrible floppy little diamond sharpening "plates". I had to resurface the entire sole and grind a whole new bevel in the iron. The body is so light it's actually awkward to use. Setting it is also a pain, the cap is either all on or all off, there's no in-between for incremental movements. I should have spent time sorting out the #3 instead..
If anything, it's proof that even the cheapest tools will do the job.
Again, sans any real research and going completely by gut, I went ahead and marked something out that is absolute overkill. I checked out the forearm cut on a couple of my strat style guitars when I was done and they look positively petite compared to the chonk I removed. I'm hoping the bridge won't be effected, but I'm sure I avoided that area.
Trying to plane with the grain caused this thing to just dig in and chatter. Cutting 45 degrees across the grain provided the smoothest cut. If I had better depth control I wouldn't have even needed to sand this section, it was glassy smooth.
Here's the pile of shavings from when I finished.
Caesar literally just sat there and let the shavings fall on his head while I was working.
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