When dimensioning rough lumber by hand which rule of thumb takes precedence, “Remove equal amounts of wood from both faces.” or “Plane over thick initially and let the board rest (move) before finish plaining.”?
In a power tool world following both rules seems easy enough, plane over thickness, let the board rest then use a jointer to flatten the face side again and remove a few 1/16ths then final thickness in a planer.
With hand tools I have always been taught and read that once the face side is flat it gets left alone. If that is the case and I remove 3/16ths from the face side, I can only remove 1/16-1/8 from the other side if I want to leave the board thick before final thickening. Now the board will be sitting days with unequal amounts removed from either face which is supposed to increase the risk for movement.
How do you approach dimensioning rough lumber? Do you give one rule more weight than the other?
Background
I am working on a project that has me dimensioning a lot of rough poplar by hand reducing from 9/8 to 3/4. I have dimensioned some rough boards before but never this much at once so I want to make sure I do it right before I waste a lot of wood. The wood is kiln dried and has been stickered for a couple of weeks in my basement shop. I do not get a lot of shop time so dimensioning all of the wood will span a number of weeks/months.