Chris Knight
Established Member
I actually wanted to make a few inserts for my drill press table which uses replaceable inserts made from 9 mm MDF. The only piece of MDF I had to hand was a rectangle measuring about 21 inches by 14 with a piece of 1 1/2 x 3/4 inch oak glued along one long edge (left over from some long-forgotten project). As I took it to the table saw - inspiration struck. My next little job on the todo list was to make a small shooting board and it occurred to me that was exactly what I was about to turn into inserts.
Simply by cutting the MDF, parallel to the short edges, through the oak (at right angles to it) and creating two pieces but one about 3 inches wider than the other I had the top and bottom halves of a shooting board. I used impact adhesive to glue them back to back such that the oak strip on the larger piece served as a bench hook cleat and the narrower upper piece as the platform for the work-piece to be shot and I had my shooting board in about 10 minutes.
With hindsight this seems to be about as obvious as anything can be but in the past I have made shooting boards in a way that required quite a bit of faffing about to get the fence exactly at right angles to the platform. In this case, I used the accuracy of the table saw (OK you have to get that set up but that's always true) to give me a right angle by cutting through a pre-glued fence.
I now await the ignominy of being told that is the way everyone does it...
Simply by cutting the MDF, parallel to the short edges, through the oak (at right angles to it) and creating two pieces but one about 3 inches wider than the other I had the top and bottom halves of a shooting board. I used impact adhesive to glue them back to back such that the oak strip on the larger piece served as a bench hook cleat and the narrower upper piece as the platform for the work-piece to be shot and I had my shooting board in about 10 minutes.
With hindsight this seems to be about as obvious as anything can be but in the past I have made shooting boards in a way that required quite a bit of faffing about to get the fence exactly at right angles to the platform. In this case, I used the accuracy of the table saw (OK you have to get that set up but that's always true) to give me a right angle by cutting through a pre-glued fence.
I now await the ignominy of being told that is the way everyone does it...