Shooting boards and shooting board planes.

[heimlaga]

I have a need for some way to smooth end grain and mitres and according to information on the internet I should build a shooting board.
I often work in our native pine which splinters easily so I will need a dedicated shooting board plane with a skew blade. I have made a dozen or so planes before so planemaking in itself is no problem. The problem is finding out the right size and shape of a good shooting board and it's plane,

Please educate me and save me from having to make too many prototypes!

 

[DTR]

I hope ALF doesn't mind me posting this...

http://www.cornishworkshop.co.uk/shootingboards.html

 

[Paul Chapman]

Some excellent stuff on Alf's website http://www.cornishworkshop.co.uk/rocketscience.html

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

Some excellent stuff on Alf's website http://www.cornishworkshop.co.uk/rocketscience.html

Cheers :wink:

Paul

Plenty of good info out there and Alf's is probably the definitive site. At the moment I'm doing a cunning conversion of a shute 'ordinaire' into a ramped variant, which is not quite as convoluted as I thought it might be :wink: - Rob

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Hi Heimlaga

Alf has a lot of good links. There is one there to an article I wrote of setting up and using shooting boards ..

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTo ... oard4.html

I have a bunch of others on my website. Here's a recent one that has a few new designs ..

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTo ... Event.html

Ramped board with sliding, adjustable fence ..

And two other articles I wrote on shooting planes compared. The first is a review of the LN #51 (compared to the original Stanley #51), and the second is a comparison of the #51, LN #9, and LV BU Jack ...

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReview ... Plane.html

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furniture/ ... pared.html

That should keep you so busy you wo't have time to build anything!

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[heimlaga]

Thanks. Now I know what the shooting board should look like.

Over to the plane. What is a good grip on a square sided wooden plane used on it's side?

 

[Jeff Gorman]

There are three articles near the bottom of the Planing menu on my website @ http://tinyurl.com/3pbxpwe

I hope they will be helpful.

Jeff Gorman
ww.amgron.clara.net

 

[Henry Disston]

I really like your ramped board, Derek. That will be the next one I build.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Hi Roger

Thanks for the compliment. Contact me if you need any construction details.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Jacob]

I have a need for some way to smooth end grain and mitres and according to information on the internet I should build a shooting board.
I often work in our native pine which splinters easily so I will need a dedicated shooting board plane with a skew blade. I have made a dozen or so planes before so planemaking in itself is no problem. The problem is finding out the right size and shape of a good shooting board and it's plane,

Please educate me and save me from having to make too many prototypes!

You don't have to get carried away! Just in case your priority is edge shooting itself: a working shooting board can be knocked up in minutes (basically a bench hook on a base board) and a very ordinary jack plane will do just about everything you need, quite easily.
The plane needs to have a precise and easily adjusted tilt (lateral adjustment) as per a typical Stanley. Modern bevel-up planes with norris adjusters are less good as they don't tilt so easily.
The tilt allows you to correct for a cambered blade or other irregularities, or to undercut for a tight face joint, etc.

 

[Alf]

My first shooting board was inspired by Jeff's ramped board - but I simplified it a bit and figured if anything was going to slope, making it the track for the plane and letting gravity do some of the work made the most sense. Worked too, but I was foolish and made it too lumpy and awkward to use much and thus ended up using a basic bench hook-stylee version most of the time instead. From the love of gismocity POV I'd like to say I missed the sloping aspect, but honestly, I don't. Which kinda sucks, but may explain why most shooting boards over the years simply haven't bothered.

Heimlaga, are you asking about a good grip as in "how to hold it" or grip as in "an additional handle/tote/grip attached to the plane"? For the latter, I've always fancied having a go with something like this but never got around to it.

 

[heimlaga]

All right.

I will make a simple shooting board and test it with a Stanley jack plane I have. If it does not work well on pine I will make a dedicated plane like the one Alf shows.
Therefore I am interrested in how the hand grip or additional tote should be shaped.

 

[bugbear]

All right.

I will make a simple shooting board and test it with a Stanley jack plane I have. If it does not work well on pine I will make a dedicated plane like the one Alf shows.
Therefore I am interrested in how the hand grip or additional tote should be shaped.

Does this help at all?

BugBear

 

[heimlaga]

It helps a lot. Thank you all. I do not have planemaking time on hand right now because I am busy making some windows for a customer and a small log barn for myself...... but after that I know what to do.

 

[Jacob]

A bit bonkers this ramped thing.
Derek has the ramp tilted the wrong way. Does everybody do it like that? I can't be bothered to check. :roll:
The ramp (if you must have one) should slope upwards away from you, so that the workpiece is pressed on to the board as you work it. Having it slope down means the planing action tends to lift the workpiece.
It's daft idea anyway but that doesn't mean I can't join in and be ridiculously pedantic about it!

Amused to see they are charging $6 for plans here.
A shooting board is about the easiest thing you could ever want to make. If you need to buy plans you really are in the wrong game. Knitting?

Most people mange perfectly well without one. I made one years ago but never use it, though I've made thousands of things.

A slight mystery is the the spelling "shuteing" for shooting. Shute doesn't appear (except after Neville) in dictionaries. I guess it started as a spelling mistake picked up enthusiastically by woodworkers for strange reasons of their own.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Derek has the ramp tilted the wrong way. Does everybody do it like that? I can't be bothered to check.
The ramp (if you must have one) should slope upwards away from you, so that the workpiece is pressed on to the board as you work it. Having it slope down means the planing action tends to lift the workpiece.

Jacob, have you forgotten that I am Downunder? Just turn it around, or over!

However I understand what you are saying (which is a worry :lol: ) ....

A furnituremaker mate of mine, Neil Erasmus, built this. The upward direction is used for shooting veneer. The problem with this particular design for general shooting is that it has a limited capacity for thickness. In practice, the direction of the slope of the board I built is absolutely stable - I have never experience any work pieces lifting.

Amused to see they are charging $6 for plans here.

Well it is quite a complex design! :lol:

Regards from Perth

Derek