Bevels on a shooting board

[steve355]

Evening

If I want to put a bevel on an edge of a piece of wood, I can hold it at the required angle on my shooting board, and it planes a lovely crisp bevel very accurately and quickly on the edge of the board,

But if I want to put a mirror bevel on the other side of the same edge, I flip it over, and it tears out. Im planing against the grain.

Anybody got any clever ideas for doing this?

Thanks
Steve

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

You need a double-sided shooting board ...



This one has runways in each side, as well as a fence that turns each way ...



However, if it is just a simple an small bevel, it can be done with a plane on a bench. High cutting angle or closed chipbreaker.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[steve355]

You need a double-sided shooting board ...



This one has runways in each side, as well as a fence that turns each way ...



However, if it is just a simple an small bevel, it can be done with a plane on a bench. High cutting angle or closed chipbreaker.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek you are a genius. I’d been wracking my brains all day about that one.

Although, it wouldn’t work with my Veritas shooting plane, because that’s specifically right handed, but no problem, I can just use a different one.

Up to now I have been doing them with a block plane, but for very shallow bevels it’s really hard to get them dead on and crisp. One ideally needs to be planed left handed which is doubly hard.

What I’m actually trying to achieve is to get a similar result to Matt Bickford on his planes. They are all 3/8” down and finish 1/16” from the plane wedge - so different angles.

M S Bickford planes

Interestingly, the mitre gauge I’d need would be a vertical one, like an adjustable donkey’s ear.

I know I’m probably overthinking it but that often seems to lead to the best solution.

cheers
Steve

 

[Jacob]

Evening

If I want to put a bevel on an edge of a piece of wood, I can hold it at the required angle on my shooting board, and it planes a lovely crisp bevel very accurately and quickly on the edge of the board,

But if I want to put a mirror bevel on the other side of the same edge, I flip it over, and it tears out. Im planing against the grain.

Anybody got any clever ideas for doing this?

Thanks
Steve

Don't use a shooting board.
Mark up the bevels with gauge or pencil and plane. If necessary reverse direction perhaps holding it vertically in your vice.
Also try finer set etc
You need the practice and to aim to be able to do it by eye without marking or accessories.

 

[steve355]

Don't use a shooting board.
Mark up the bevels with gauge or pencil and plane. If necessary reverse direction perhaps holding it vertically in your vice.
Also try finer set etc
You need the practice and to aim to be able to do it by eye without marking or accessories.

I know Jacob, you aren’t wrong. And the results I’ve been getting are pretty good Doing exactly that - planing vertically round the back. Most people wouldn’t notice it isn’t quite perfect.

Larry Williams uses a plane with a heavy set, cambered iron, apparently. Perhaps that allows the final stroke to be full width, in one pass, which seems to be the key.

One possibility is to have a vice that can hold the plane at a 45 degree angle to the bench. To make “planing around the back” much easier.

Edit: actually, I have one. I knocked this up for doing spring angles. Not 45 deg but gives a better angle than reaching right over the top.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Steve, unless you wish to do them with great accuracy, you could go freehand. However, for perfection in wide bevels you need you need a shooting board. For example, when planing the long mitres for joinery.

The shooting board below is for long mitres. It just does the one side, but you could keep the runway and donkeys ear, and simply reverse the direction of the plane. This would involve a modification to the donkeys ear (that is, adding a stop at the far end).

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[mc281]

Evening

If I want to put a bevel on an edge of a piece of wood, I can hold it at the required angle on my shooting board, and it planes a lovely crisp bevel very accurately and quickly on the edge of the board,

But if I want to put a mirror bevel on the other side of the same edge, I flip it over, and it tears out. Im planing against the grain.

Anybody got any clever ideas for doing this?

Thanks
Steve

Swap hands

 

[steve355]

Steve, unless you wish to do them with great accuracy, you could go freehand. However, for perfection in wide bevels you need you need a shooting board. For example, when planing the long mitres for joinery.

The shooting board below is for long mitres. It just does the one side, but you could keep the runway and donkeys ear, and simply reverse the direction of the plane. This would involve a modification to the donkeys ear (that is, adding a stop at the far end).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek, that’s a pretty snazzy jig you have there!

I planed a blind side bevel on one of my planes this morning using the shooting board. Luckily it was with the grain. I got an absolutely crisp result. No donkeys ears needed, I marked some lines and did it by eye. Worked a treat.

But no matter how sharp the edge was or how tight the mouth, it still will tear out against the grain.

I could try putting another stop on the shooting board and do it backwards as you say, Japanese style

- but not with my Veritas shooter as it’s right handed. Or I could make another board from ply. Some experimenting required I think.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Steve, if you are shooting edge grain with a bevel up plane (Veritas Shooting Plane, LA Jack, etc), then to avoid tearout you must use a high cutting angle. A 50-degree (secondary) bevel will create a 62-degree cutting angle. I suspect that you are using something a lot lower ..?

If you are shooting with a double iron plane, close up the chipbreaker.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

Evening

If I want to put a bevel on an edge of a piece of wood, I can hold it at the required angle on my shooting board, and it planes a lovely crisp bevel very accurately and quickly on the edge of the board,

But if I want to put a mirror bevel on the other side of the same edge, I flip it over, and it tears out. Im planing against the grain.

Anybody got any clever ideas for doing this?

Thanks
Steve

Leave enough material for a few, very fine finishing strokes with the workpiece held in your vise, planing with the grain. The angle is well-established and you should have no problem make a few cleaning passes with a plane held freehand, i.e. not jigged. Or, you could use your European sliding table saw to build a new jig (when the saw would have made the cut just fine in the first place and perhaps even better).

Your woodworking forebears were not using extremely accurate and expensive power equipment to make shop hand planing appliances. Your job is to understand how they still got the work done. Or just skip the pretense and braggadocio and make the cut with the power tool directly thereby sparing us the "look at this hand planing jig I made with $40,000+ worth of power tools" rigamarole.

 

[steve355]

Leave enough material for a few, very fine finishing strokes with the workpiece held in your vise, planing with the grain. The angle is well-established and you should have no problem make a few cleaning passes with a plane held freehand, i.e. not jigged. Or, you could use your European sliding table saw to build a new jig (when the saw would have made the cut just fine in the first place and perhaps even better).

Your woodworking forebears were not using extremely accurate and expensive power equipment to make shop hand planing appliances. Your job is to understand how they still got the work done. Or just skip the pretense and braggadocio and make the cut with the power tool directly thereby sparing us the "look at this hand planing jig I made with $40,000+ worth of power tools" rigamarole.

That’s kind of where I got to in the end, I’ve been using the shooting board, one side is usually fine, but the other is prone to tearout as quite often you are planing against the grain, if tear out occurs, stop and finish it by hand in the vice, planing with the grain. As you say the bevel is well established and so finishing passes are quite easy to do accurately.

 

[ChaiLatte]

Anybody got any clever ideas for doing this?

Have a quick look at the latest video on YT by Stavros Gakos.

He makes a plane iron wedge from ebony with bevelled sides. He double-sided-tapes simple wooden wedges to the shooting board. One side, the thick edge of the wooden wedge is adjacent the sole of the shooting plane; for the other side he reverses the wedges so the thin side is against the sole of the plane.

 

[Adam W.]

Learn to plane bevels by eye with your left hand and your right hand, then you never have to plane against the grain again.

Ditch the jigs and the unsuitable shooting board plane gizmo thingy. Incidentally I own one of the things, but it never comes out of its box.

Perhaps one day I may get to use the thing.

 

[Jacob]

Learn to plane bevels by eye with your left hand and your right hand, then you never have to plane against the grain again.

Ditch the jigs and the unsuitable shooting board plane gizmo thingy. Incidentally I own one of the things, but it never comes out of its box.

Perhaps one day I may get to use the thing.

Same here. I've made a couple of shooting boards over the years but never really found them necessary. I suppose they might be if you were doing multiples and repeating the same op, but even when I used to make dozens of boxes at a time (for jackinaboxes) I didn't need one then either.

 

[Adam W.]

To be fair, my stuff is nowhere near as precise as Derek's, as I like a lot of wonkyness.

 

[steve355]

I agree in general that an over-reliance on lots of jigs isn’t a good thing, and indeed I’ve found myself ditching them as my skills and knowledge has improved. But a shooting board isn’t a jig, it’s a legitimate part of hand tool woodworking.

Unless we’re saying now that real woodworkers don’t use shooting boards

In fact I’ve been doing them again by hand recently, the “trick” is a fairly heavy set blade to try to hit the entire bevel in one final stroke, and achieve the crispness. But I can’t do the left hand. I really can’t. I am very right handed.

 

[Jacob]

......

Unless we’re saying now that real woodworkers don’t use shooting boards
.....

No but there is a massive emphasis on short cuts for the "gentleman woodworker" which sells books, magazines, gadgets etc.
End up not quite knowing what is traditional (i.e. of the trade) and what is not. Most noticeably with sharpening which has been re-invented to an astonishing degree, become expensive and very profitable!
Robert Wearing was particularly bad with whole books of gadgets, jigs, crafty wheezes etc. I'm sure he meant well.

 

[thetyreman]

I use a shooting board for dovetailing boards together as part of the prep work, it's essential for me, wouldn't be without one.

 

[Adam W.]

I agree in general that an over-reliance on lots of jigs isn’t a good thing, and indeed I’ve found myself ditching them as my skills and knowledge has improved. But a shooting board isn’t a jig, it’s a legitimate part of hand tool woodworking.

Unless we’re saying now that real woodworkers don’t use shooting boards

In fact I’ve been doing them again by hand recently, the “trick” is a fairly heavy set blade to try to hit the entire bevel in one final stroke, and achieve the crispness. But I can’t do the left hand. I really can’t. I am very right handed.

Have you tried sawing left handed, it's very funny to try it.

 

[steve355]

No but there is a massive emphasis on short cuts for the "gentleman woodworker" which sells books, magazines, gadgets etc.
End up not quite knowing what is traditional (i.e. of the trade) and what is not. Most noticeably with sharpening which has been re-invented to an astonishing degree, become expensive and very profitable!
Robert Wearing was particularly bad with whole books of gadgets, jigs, crafty wheezes etc. I'm sure he meant well.

I have to admit that ditching the sharpening jig was the best thing I’ve done. It was massively holding me back from learning to sharpen properly.

The only jigs I use for sharpening are the ones that came with the pro edge for sharpening turning gouges. If I did more turning I’d probably ditch those too in favour of freehand,