Ok, this is a stupid question, and maybe one of those 'duh' ones.
Is it called a 'smoother' - because its used to 'smooth' boards?
Ive been working on a batch of chairs. Hard maple. And given I dont like sanding, decided I would go over everything with planes and scrapers. I tried a number of different planes (a different story all together - and the LV low angle jack was NOT the one that worked best). In the end I got a pretty good workout, and no chipout and glass smooth surfaces (and no sanding, yay!). (dang hard maple.... lots of swearing when working with this stuff). I started by spending some time sharpening EVERYTHING.
Then the light went off - thats why they call them 'smoothing' planes? (which begs the next question - what is it about the smoothing setup that makes it a smoother, vs some other function?
I tried:
LV Low angle jack
#5 Record, with Pinnacle blade
#4 Record, stock blade (purchased new some years ago)
#5 Bailey with stock blade (yard sale item)
#2C with stock blade (given by wifes family)
Card scraper
Stanley #80 Scraper
LN 112 scraper plane
LV skew block
Old cheapie Stanley block plane
These all worked differently. Some worked better than others. There were two that worked the best. Note that the boards were a maximum of 3.5" wide, with most surfaces under 2" width (made it easy to get a full shaving each pass)
Ok, I only got one set of chair parts prepped, but had some pretty fun time making shavings.