Flattening hardwood board (to mount a natural sharpening stone)

Hi,

I bought a piece of beautiful Bahia Rosewood that I plan to use to mount a sharpening stone. The problem is - the board has rather coarse finish and there is some tear-out from the saw too. In other words - I need to remove about 2-4 mm of wood from both sides to flatten it.

To me it seems that that is that it would take way too long to do that with a sanding paper.

I do not have a powered tool that would be suitable for the job. What are my other options? Some sort of a plane? (I neither have one, nor have I ever used one)

I would appreciate your advice.

All the rosewood ive handled was oily. Perhaps this is not the case with the kind you have. If it is, wouldn't a rough surface good for adhesion?

I will post a photo tomorrow
The surface as is now is very uneven and rough. I want to flatten and smoothen it and then treat with a few coats of shellack, before gluing the stone to it.

Well if you were in the states, I'd say send it to me and I would run it through my planer and sander for you. Any cabinet shop should do it for you for little money.

That is a good idea, thanks.