: Hey guys,

: Working on my first GP. On Holst's step 2 (mark the narrow faces
: and cutting) I did the first cut by hand with a saw and block
: plane, and it took a few hours. The next three cuts I did with a
: band saw and jack plane and it took a fraction of the time.

That sounds about right.

: However, after doing step 3 (mark wide faces and cut) on the band
: saw, I see things are coming out a bit rough. Part of this is
: probably just needing to smooth out the bandsaw cuts (I did this
: on step 2 with the plane), but I see my edges looking a bit
: rough, and I'm worried if I start planing everything even after
: each step I'll end up with too narrow a paddle.

That's why you should cut outside your layout lines, so you can plane down to them, rather than past them.

: Since most of the uneven cuts are getting planed/shaved away
: anyway, I wondered how important it is to have everything dead
: even before moving onto the next step. Thoughts?

If you want the paddle to come out even, you need to keep it that way during the process. Otherwise, you may find errors stacking upon each other and creating a very uneven result.

That said, GPs are pretty forgiving and it's more important to get the cross-section of the blade right than the overall shape.