I'm having a real hard time with this stuff. I'm trying to make a small hammer of out a block of beach, I squared it up and I'm trying to plane the chamfers but it's giving me hell. a blade that is still sharp enough to glide through oak full width is requiring a lot of force on the beach, this stuff is like steel. the end grain is especially hard to work.. so I guess I'm asking is this normal? I didn't know beach was sooo hard.