Just bought the Lie-Nielsen no. 4 smoothing plane in iron and wanted to give it a test drive on some Maple and tricky Sapele (interlocked grain). The result was an absolutely silky smooth finish, way better than sanded IMHO. Also used my Veritas low angle jack plane to prep the Sapele surface. That's an amazing plane too.
Apologies for the camera's focus issues! Will work on that.
