I've used my new smoother on a REAL project and thought I'd let all of you who encouraged me to get a quality low angle plane as my first plane, how much I appreciate ALL of you for steering me in the right direction. The Veritas is a quality tool that I'll be able to proudly hand down to my son should he get "the bug". I needed to surface 5 sides of a block of oak about 4 inches long, so using a jointer wasn't an option. The plane gave me those "cottony" shavings and left a perfect surface for finishing. Thanks, guys!
dave