Keep your plane irons sharpened the way they were meant to be and you should have no problem.
I consider sharpening to be one of my hobbies. I've got so many oil stones, water stones, and diamond stones it's ridiculous. Even stones to flatten the other stones. And I've got a wheel grinder that will take knife and tool sharpening stones, and a 2" belt sander. And I have angle guides/holders for everything imaginable. I even set and sharpen my saws.
I also cut up some scrap MDF into oil stone-sized pieces and use it for Knife Maker's Green. If you really want to go for zero bevel, keep going after the green and finish with the pink compound.
I'm retired military, and back when I was still on active duty, my buddies would borrow my knife and cuss me out when they returned it. "Why didn't you warn me about that thing? I didn't even know I had cut myself until I started seeing blood everywhere!"
My favorite sharpening book is, "The Perfect Edge" by Ron Hock of Hock Tools. Ron's company makes good plane irons from both O-1 and A-2 tool steel as well.
For saws I like, "Keeping the Cutting Edge" by Harold H. Payson. It's not very thick, but it's cheap and packed with information.
I'll second what Ernie said about Japanese planes and extend it to include Japanese tools in general. I love my Japanese tools.
Making your own planes is easy, from traditional wooden planes to the Krenov-style. You'll need a few tools, particularly planemaker's floats if you build traditional wooden planes. I own a lot of books on hand planes and can probably tell you most of the designs in history. But the big thing is knowing how to tune a plane. It's worth the time and effort.
If you tune your planes, and sharpen the irons as often as necessary, you shouldn't have any tear-out problems if you use the planes correctly. Those things done, bearclaw spruce should be no problem at all.
