Good day Scott,

I am also on the fence, and also have to say both, but for me personally I would get the belt sander first. The main reason is that the hand planes you have will do the job of a power plane, but hand sanding will not do what a belt sander will do. Well, I guess technically it will but with a belt sander you can shape things that would take hours and hours of hand-sanding.

Recently I built a stand up paddleboard with flamed maple, cocobolo rosewood, mahogany, and balsa. I found that the figured maple would tear-out using a plane no matter if it was a hand-plane or power plane, and no matter how thin I set the blade all the way down to 1/64th. Also mahogany is very difficult to plane because the grain goes from one direction to the other. I ended up using a belt sander to final shape the deck. That worked great, and I was able to get a nice fair finish over the maple, mahogany, and rosewood by keeping light pressure on the belt sander.

I also use the belt sander for shaping skegs, fins, paddle blades (wing type), and other items that need a nice fair curve. With some practice a belt sander and/or an angle grinder with a sanding pad make quick work of it.

All that said, it really depends on what you do most. If you're more of a cabinet, table, door, and other flat surface builder then maybe the hand plane is best for you. As someone else said, it's also good for ply construction. My comments above are just based on what I do most, and again the real goal is to get as many tools as you possibly can before you die, so ultimately- GET BOTH!!!

If you need justification to the wife/girlfriend I can post another response stating how both are absolutely nescessary and how you'll save much more time in your woodworking so you have more time to spend with her... if that helps. LOL

All the best, Malcolm