Hey doc-
Maybe you could go through the entire Swaylocks Glossary and do a nice picture for each entry… 
funny you should mention that… http://www.swaylocks.com/glossary/index.cgi?batten among others.
hell, I gotta have some function around here…
Quote:
Tenover,
Here’s 2 cents from a guy who’s not an expert, but a few boards in front of you. I shaped my first five boards with a Makita planer. Or, I skinned them with the planer and shaped them with surform and sanding block. My skill improved when I bought the modified Hitachi. My advice is to buy the Hitachi and practice on a blank second or ruined blank. You can easily change the depth of cut as you plane. If you tip it side to side you get ridges. After a while you can tell how deep your cut is by the sound of your machine. Its just a question of practice. Mike
I think rooster hit it dead on… so I’ll just repeat what he said. My first quantum leap was when I bought the modified planer and started taking full cuts. I think it was more because of the full cuts than the modified Hitachi (I’m just now figuring out the ‘dynamic adjustment’ thing). I recently found half a longboard lying on the beach - 3 inches thick… I whitled that thing down to a skimboard - 3/4", it took me like 10-15 full passes to get the thickness down… I learned so much.
When you do the full passes the ledge you use to guide your next cut is a lot more obvious… all of a sudden I understood why you cut with your planer at an angle. It’s also how I figured out to put pressure on the back, not the front (also more evident with full cuts). After a few attempts I was able to make and entire pass, both sides of stringer, and hardly have any ridges to clean.
Get a second or a broken board and mow till it feels right.