A sharp well tuned plane can be a joy to use, but I agree with Daan that sometimes sandpaper has its place. Try re-honing your plane blade and back up the strip as Bill suggests. If it still gives you trouble I've had good luck scribing a line for the taper, then using the bandsaw to cut close to the line followed by using sandpaper take it to the final fit. If you don't have some some power version of a belt sander sheets glued to a flat surface and stroking the strip over it by hand will give fairly quick, controlable results. If you have a fairly robust belt sander and a good way to control the dust created it's even faster to skip the bandsaw step and go straight to the sander.
Mark

: I am working on the deck pattern of my guillemot and have gotten on
: to using some 1/4 by 1/4 walnut strips. The prob I ran into
: today while trying to work a taper into the end of a strip was
: my plane didnt want to cut at all. I have used it on cedar,
: pine, lyptus. It was sharpened before I started on the lyptus
: and I did eight tapers, they seemed harder to cut than the soft
: woods, but the walnut is like planing a rock! and the end of the
: taper keeps breaking off just as I almost have the fit right!

: Is my plane dull from the lyptus?, or am I missing something? is
: there a trick to making tapers in hard, dense woods like walnut?

: two cents please,
: thanks
: dave g