> ​I am NOT a wood snob, but North American beech I tried was hard to 
> work
> with hand tools, whereas European beech was easy (I bought some 8 qrtr
> recently to try it out again- seems totally different, but it just may 
> be
> the actual specimens I had to work with).

I suspect you had a problem lot of beech.  I haven't had these problems 
with
the beech I've bought from a local supplier.  Still have a short piece 
of
8/4 stock that I will soon be using to repair an Eastlake child's 
platform
rocker -- that will all be hand tool work.

Mike in Sacto