I'm making this atedai out of old red oak flooring. I've been trying to do as much as possible by hand. It's been a learning experience for sure. At this point I've got it to the size I want, and the surface very close to flat, but have a couple problems I need help with.
First, 90% of the surface is flat, but you might be able to see in the second photo where there is a dip, probably only about 0.5-1 mm, in a second about 4x8 inches. Should I plane down the entire surface until that is level, fill the gap with something, or just sand it leave it? The problem I'm having is that the surface is mostly flat but just ever so slightly cupped, so I'm getting almost nothing with the plan on each pass, so it would take a lot of time and work to bring the surface down. I'm not crazy about the other options though.
Second problem is the tear out. If I were to do this again, I would pay more attention to grain direction, but this is my first time doing something like this and was more focused on getting the floor boards shaped into something I could laminate to the piece and have a clean surface than anything, so the grain direction is difficult. Is there a decent way to fill tear out or just sand, cabinet scraper, or get extra sharp blades on the final pass?