See earlier thread on some tearout I was experiencing with purple heart and edge grain plaining using a mostly untuned Stanley No 4.
My "new" number five arrived middle of last week, after some gunk cleaning and placement of a professionaly sharpened blade (original was badly pitted for about 3/4" behind it's existing edge and needed MAJOR removal to be used), I used it to surface the same purple heart. I experienced less tear out than with the No. 4 and I expect this was due to a much smaller throat opening I was able to achieve with the No 5.
Still a bugger to plane, there is tearout on all the boards and it will take quite a bit of sanding to "fix it".
Are there Stanley planes with higher bed angles better suited to tropicals or will I need to move into Asian planes, Knight toolworks type planes?
Alan