If you're not already a master with a hand plane, a huge slab of rock-hard figured maple is a hopeless place to begin. I can't advise on a better method having had no experience finishing large slabs.
On the other hand, if you are interested in getting a hand plane and some skill with it, I can recommend the video(s) by David Charlesworth produced for Lie-Nieldsen. He covers the basic skills, beginning with how to sharpen the plane blade. The Stanley you mentioned is fine indeed, but the performance is all in the blade and its sharpness and you cannot just purchase that. You will need to learn to put a good edge on it. The Charlesworth video is the best detailed explanation of how and why. I can also recommend the book Sharpening by Leonard Lee. While it doesn't offer as thorough an explanation of sharpening plane blades as the Charlesworth video, it covers all kinds of tools and goes into more technical theory. The Charlesworth video is totall practical with an casual explanation of why, but no scanning electron microscope images of the blade edge or martensite crystalization and so on.
Last edited by Western_Juniper; 08/22/21.
