Shooting Board (Chuting Board)

Very nice. Any thoughts to adding a removeable 45 degree fence similar to the one posted in the Lie-Nielson site.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Wayne, yes. I’ll be adding a 45 degree fence tomorrow night. I just ran out of time. I’ve also decided to edge band the melamine as it’s pretty sharp the way it is. I played with some cherry and am very happy with this one. It’s heavier than the MDF boards I was making before, so I’m even happier about that. Clamping it in the front vise makes it as stable as the bench is. It should be a worthy tool. I’m going to dimension some cherry parts and make a small box later to test if for square. It should be bang on, but there’s always a chance it’s not, typical of anything that I build. LOL

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

That’s a good looking board, Tom. Wayne has an incline on his. They say it makes the plane shear more. I didn’t put one on mine because I thought of it after I was done. The one I built uses cabinet plywood for the base and I waxed it pretty heavily. I think your laminate would be better and never wear. I need to build a longer one like yours for edge work on small parts. I finished mine and used it on the face frames on a set of cabinets right away. I have a #3 that is a true 90. It sure made those pocket screws go together tighter.

-- Thos. Angle

Mot, I hear that low-angle Jack plane calling your name. : ^ )

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Oh yes, yes, Mot. mournfully calling, calling…...............

-- Thos. Angle

I was just thinking that, Wayne.

Tom, I really like Wayne’s ramped one, it’s just too much trouble for me. LOL. That laminate slides like greased lightning. I’m very pleased with it. I really like the longer board as my bench is sort of low and I really like to get my forearms down on the bench so I use the longer board to accommodate the reach. It’s the longest one I’ve made and seems to be doing what it was supposed to do.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

And when you get that low-angle jack it will realy work better.

-- Thos. Angle

I have a stupid question regarding planes. How do they work? I mean I know how they work, but when the board/edge is flat what prevents the blade from digging/gouging the surface? On a jointer the outfeed is the same height as the blades so I can see how that works, but a handplane just seems to be an upside down jointer with an incorrectly set outfeed table… What is it that I’m missing? In essence why doesn’t the plane just keep on cutting the shooting board once the edge is flat?

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

Basically the plane blade does not go to the edge of the plane. There is a 1/4 inch or more of the shooting board that is not touched.

Check out the video in my bench hook post. Chris Schwarz explains it well.

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/3000

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Damian,
I’ve got to think on that one. I don’t think you’re missing anything. A well tuned plane takes such a thin shaving that in-feed/ out-feed is of minimal consequence. Many hand plane users sharpen a camber on the blade and then proceed to use it to make perfectly flat surfaces. David Charlesworth does the face of boards this way as a reference surface.(latest issue of FWW). a plane shears the surface and there by produces a far superior finish to sanding. By the way your question is not stupid. Many woodworkers have tried to use a poor plane that was not sharp or tuned or adjusted and threw it into a corner and forgot about it. With all the power I have in the shop I still rely on that rack of planes to do what they do best. Today I was fitting and installing cabinet doors. I still don’t know what was the reason but I seemed to have a plane in my hand way too much today. They are inset doors and they now show the proper reveal and fit. It would have been immeasurably more difficult without the planes. I’m sure the jointer would have taken too much and an edge sander would also. With the plane I could customize exactly where I needed to take off more or less. Try a well tuned and sharpened plane and a whole new world of accuracy in woodworking will open up for you. Not that you don’t do excellent work already. Your work is very good.

-- Thos. Angle

I’m with you Damian….I need a hand planes for dummy’s book….but that is a sharp looking jig/board Tom. Thos., I fit inset doors by dry fitting with shims and marking the high/wide side, then use paper shims on the opposite corner and run it through the table saw till the reveal is correct…but i guess a hand plane could accomplish this..just work the high side a little with the plane….like I have said before hand planes are a mystery to me!

-- David, South Windsor, CT "I love the smell of sawdust in the morning"

By far the best book I have seen on hand planes is this one: Making & Mastering Wood Planes
Everything you ever needed to know about hand planes including how to use them.
It’s mainly about wood planes but does go into metal ones also. A real fantastic book.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Mastering-Wood-Planes-Revised/dp/140272022X

And for the price of $12.21 it’s a steal.

Gary

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I second Gary’s recommendation. It is a great book.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Good man Tom.
That’s still on my list .
Good move to use the laminate as a slider.
p.s. You should have made two. <g>

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

Damian, I tried to show in the second picture why that doesn’t happen. With the width of the planes blade being about 1/4” to each side, narrower than the sole of the plane, the initial passes on the shooting board make a ledge. As the plane rides along on it’s side, it can’t continue to cut any further into the baseboard than the depth of the blade. They work really well, and the book and resources that Gary and Wayne have mentioned are really invaluable.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

I third or fourth the book – and what Tom said is dead on with regard to the fine shaving that our hand planes can take. A jointer set to a 1/32 cut is pretty large when compared to say a .002”-.003” shaving which is like 1/512” to 1/333”!!! It’s all relative – what flat really is. So, the heel end of the plane doesn’t need to be set to the height of the blade extension, because the distance to “flat” is so close. Also, when using a finely tuned plane (or even a farily well tuned plane), the tool is pretty sensitive to the surface and takes off primarily the high spots as you approach flat. Set well for a very fine shaving, and easing up your pressure on the tool, when you get to “flat,” you can almost run the plane over the surface without shaving off any more of the wood. Planes really are like micro-jointers and micro-planers that produce a cleaner surface than the machine tools do – and a cut srurface rather than a scratched surface, which lends to greater chatoyancy. Word of the day: chatoyance. I think it’s funny but I like it.

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

neat word,Dorje.

I also recommend Garret Hack’s book, “The Hand Plane Book”.

When I figure out how to insert photos into a blog I’ll do one on how I set inset doors and wrap around hinges.

-- Thos. Angle

Hey Tom:

As the cut-off pile builds, and my desire to work smaller, I’m gonna need a shooting board too. What dimensions do you think are optimal for this “appliance” (as I heard mentioned in the bench hook video) if one plans on building smaller solid wood projects such as Boxes????

Thanks…......Neil

Hi Tom;

This is a great topic, as it’s a mystery to many woodworkers. Gives me a topic for a new page in prowoodworkingtips.

To Tom Angle;

The inset doors that you installed on your caninets are a tricky situation. You can spend countless hours perfecting the gap around them, only to look at them two weeks later and find them binding, our worse, with a large gap around them.

Obviously this is due to the movent of the wood in response to changes in moisture content.

Also, the changes of the seasons cause size changes, especially if the home they are installed in have hot air heat, and no humidifier.

It’s a good idea to let the doors acclimate to the room they will be installed in, if possible. (same as you would for a hardwood floor installation).

Then sizing the doors, and sealing them with a finish as soon as possible, will keep the movement minimal.

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

I think I’m spoiled….
while Tom is the first to request pictures, I think I’m going to start requesting videos!! :)

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Okay. another plane idiot here…I’m going to order the book.

I can understand how a plane can trim an edge…I’ve even managed to do this. But I’m sorta like Damian when I start thinking about flattening a surface with a plane. Intuitively, it seem like the blade would have to be as wide as the surface you are flattening, or else every pass would create a slight channel in the surface.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Hey Neil,

As you know, the optimal size is pretty subjective. My bench is lower than I like and so I prefer the shooting board to be a bit longer with a wider runway so I can rest my forearm on the runway. I hook my shooting board in my front vise and shoot crosswise to my bench. It therefore has to be long enough to totally bridge the channel in my bench. Hence the dimensions of my board.

I’ve seen woodworkers shoot lengthwise down their bench, using bench dogs to keep it from sliding. In that case, I’d want one not so wide, and length would only be dictated by what “looked” right…provided it was long enough to provide stability for the cuts being made. As these are such light dimensioning cuts, that criteria might be moot.

So optimal? Yikes. As I’m just a hobbyist, optimal become whatever I currently have, or whatever I can get used to. I asked my dad what he thought was optimal and he said, “It’s just a board with a runway and a fence…why make it so complicated?”

I’ve just tried to give my personal criteria as to why I made mine the size that it is. I hope that helps a tad.

Debbie…it looks like a good episode of LJ-CSS, doesn’t it.

Lee, I think that’s an excellent idea for your prowoodworkingtip site.

Thanks for looking everyone, and thanks for the discussion.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Neal, check out the below. It is to a set of shooting board plans from Lie-Nielson.

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/pdf/shootingboard.pdf

David Charlesworth has a great set of videos on shooting boards, sharpening, and planing.

Charlie for finishing cuts the plane is set to take a 1 mil shaving. This is a very fine shaving. So fine you cannot perceve the channel.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Wayne to the rescue!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Mot, I see the slight groove so the shooting board makes sense. I’m can also see how with a slight camber and such thin shavings (can you really get down to .002”?) would remove infeed/outfeed/blade width issues from the equation. Thanks for the clarification guys and I’ll check out the book Gary mentioned.

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

shaking me head for the CSS video!
I love your dad’s philosophy :)

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Mot,
Thanks a lot for posting this. These are the kinds of things that are really helpful to LumberJocks.

-- Tom, Surfside Beach, SC - Romans 8:28

I asked my dad what he thought was optimal and he said, “It’s just a board with a runway and a fence…why make it so complicated?”- Mot

Nice!

-- Tom, Surfside Beach, SC - Romans 8:28

Thanks Tom and Wayne….........got the pdf, for dimensions. I want it as small as can be. I wonder if Don uses one of theses????? I should ask him.

I too am a plane rookie. I have been itching to get my hands on a couple, but I have no idea which ones(s) to get. I believe that there was another posting here some time ago about planes.

Thos A . . . I believe that you posted a while ago your plane inventory . . . including what works and what does not work.

Oh well . . . something else to add to my to do list.

-- The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them

Neal, if your looking for small you can just use the bench hook. flip if over and use the stop.

Damian, if you want to see how it is done, check out David Charlesworths video on using a hand plane.

Volume 1 is sharpening, Volume 2 is planing, and volume 3 is using shooting boards. Here is a link to volume 2

http://www.craftsmanstudio.com/html_p/AV6-D.htm

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I guess I can stroke off one more project from my got do that list.

Like Mot I still have to make the jigs for the 45 degree attachment jigs.

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

Gosh dang, Bob, that’s fancy.

-- Thos. Angle

Nice looking guys.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Oooooooo….Tommy likey!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Hey Tom:

Made contact with Don (thanks Don) and he provided me with this info and a link:

Don uses 2 sized shooting boards, long and short, based of the link below:

http://www.michealconnorwoodwork.com.au/workbenchesaccessories.htm

It’s the beveled style that was mentioned above and thought you’d be interested.

I noticed the size was 1.? M and Wayne’s PDF showed 20”’s. So somewhere in-between will be my dimension, I’m thinking that inorder to have the beveled style, it would have to be longer to be more effective??? Intuitively, it appears Waynes style will allow me the smallest “shoot”. This winter time permitting, I’ll play around with it.

I mentioned to Thos….....that I’ve really been enjoying this Shooting Boarding, Bench Hook, Handplane discussion…...Thanks!!!!

Neil

Yes the ramped style allows for an oblique cut that I think would be especially efficient at shooting end grain. I’ve been playing around with shooting smaller pieces with different planes. I tried a bit of shooting with a small low angle block and with a #4. I like the low angle the best, but would like some heft. I think I want the plane fairly heavy so I can give it a shove and have it keep going. I’ll be adding a low angle jack to the mix for this purpose.

That link is great, by the way.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

As a side note, I’m currently using the short shooting board (connor) from the link above.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Neil, THanks for the link! I really like that sloped cutting board. It will work great for my frames and boxes.

Great post, Mot! We are having some inclement weather, so no working at my outside workbence, so I will use this time to make some jigs I never seem to find time to make….LOL
And, Mot (too manu Toms here), maybe you coluld hang the board from a rafter. That is wjhere I put most of my unused jigs till I need them. Of course being tall helps, too!

Gary, Amazon must have had a run on that book. They only have them used and starting at $24. I have it on my favorite list so will look it up after the holidays!

Bob 2, that is one sweet jig! I am sure you will get plenty of good use from it!

God Bless,
Hawg

-- Saving barnwood from the scrapyards

I like all of your jigs, Tom. I guess I should make one of these.

-- Check out my new website! http://www.blakeweberwoodworking.com