Shooting board for Mitres

[Dazm]

So both my table saw and Mitre saw are incapable of cutting accurate mitres. I am building boxes and would like to make some with mitre splines so I need perfect mitres. I think I need a shooting board with a donkeys ear but I have no idea where to start making one, does anyone know of plans to build one of these?

I'm going to buy myself a Veritas Low Angle Jack https://www.carbatec.com.au/handtool...ane-a2-veritas but I need the shooting board.

Cheers.

Daz.

[wood hacker]

Hi Dazm

One of our forumites, Derek Cohen, has an excellent website with lots of shop made tools and jigs, including a number of shooting boards. This one in particular has the donkey ear shown. No plans but the pics show pretty much the details of construction.

regards
WH

[justonething]

The bevel shooting boards usually come two main favours. You either have the workpiece flat and plane is held at 45 degrees or you have the plane at 90 and the workpiece at 45 degree. I am partial to to the shooting boards that have the work piece laid flat for 3 reasons. Long boards can be cumbersome to hold at 45 and the jig to holding boards at 45 tend to be bulky and not as easy to put away. The plane is also easier to use when is at 45 degrees rather than 90 degrees.
Fine woodworking has quite a handy jig for beveling at 45, at about 8:00 mins in this video

To make this jig, you will have to cut a 45 deg fence for the plane and a 45 deg edge for the jig, as close to 45 degree as possible.
You already said that your table saw isn't accurate at ripping at 45 degrees. To fix this, you can do one of the following:

1. after cutting with the table saw, fine tune your stock to 45 degrees free hand by first of all have it marked accurately the knife wall at 45 degrees and trim it right to the wall with a hand plane. It's not difficult to do, accurate marking is essential. This is my preferred method
2. if the cut from the table saw is only slightly off, you can leave the fence/edge as it is and compensate it by adjusting the blade to get a 45 degrees by trial and error.

Another option is to tune your saw to get accurate bevels to start off with, by investing in a accurate digital angle gauge like this one: Wixey.com - Digital Angle Gauges

[Luke Maddux]

I agree that there is much info to be had online.

With that said, I recently picked up a copy of "The Woodworker: The Charles Hayward Years" from Lost Art Press (available at Carbatec) and it has a ton of information on mitres, their associated jigs, and using them. I consider it an extremely valuable set of books.

Cheers,
Luke

[Vann]

...I'm going to buy myself a Veritas Low Angle Jack https://www.carbatec.com.au/handtool...ane-a2-veritas but I need the shooting board.

Great choice, great plane. When I bought mine it was a revelation - and brought me back to handplaning (I'd never really mastered it before then).

But I prefer a No.5, 5 1/2, or T5 on the chuting board (wider wings).

Cheers, Vann.

[Dazm]

Hi Dazm

One of our forumites, Derek Cohen, has an excellent website with lots of shop made tools and jigs, including a number of shooting boards. This one in particular has the donkey ear shown. No plans but the pics show pretty much the details of construction.

regards
WH

Yes I am a big fan of Dereks work, I was just looking for some plans as I'm not confident enough to wing it yet )

[ian]

Yes I am a big fan of Dereks work, I was just looking for some plans as I'm not confident enough to wing it yet )

is the attached any help?
Unfortunately, I didn't keep a copy of where I found the information -- apology to the original author

[Dazm]

is the attached any help?
Unfortunately, I didn't keep a copy of where I found the information -- apology to the original author

Thats awesome thanks

Shooting Boards.pdf (1.94 MB, 22 views) this one is a great article

[GraemeCook]

Yes I am a big fan of Dereks work, I was just looking for some plans as I'm not confident enough to wing it yet )

I also like Derek's work, and his tireless advocacy.

But the way to get confidence is to practice. Perhaps plan on making four or five "prototypes" in MDF (or something else that's cheap) and watch how they slowly get better.

I often make two or three marquettes (small models, fifth size or even tenth size) as I work out aesthetic and construction details. Never thought of a scale model shooting board, but it now seems like a good idea - many very small parts need shooting.


Cheers

Graeme

[IanW]

...... many very small parts need shooting.....

Good point, Graeme, in fact I find small parts often need more adjusting & fiddling than larger parts. Often it's because it's hard to hold the piece firmly in a normal-sized mitre box or bench hook, & having stock move even a teeny bit as you saw is a sure recipe for inaccuracy! So having a selection of jig sizes on hand is a good idea if you have room to store them conveniently. I sometimes make simple mitre boxes to fit a particular job since they are quick to make & I always have plenty of suitable offcuts. When I'm finished I toss it up on a shelf where I keep old jigs & patterns in case I can use it again, sometime. I should know by now that I rarely do, and they simply become dust collectors, but old habits die hard!

Cheers,

[Madyank]

I have to admit that my background is that of a boiler maker/welder. This is a job where half an inch is good enough for government work. In my dotage I make picture frames from recycled Australian hard woods. While I use power tools for breaking down timber I have chosen hand tools for framing and other wood work. I fail to understand why a wood worker would fail to build a shooting board to meet their needs. If you know the the job the shooting board needs to do then you should be able to make the desired shooting board. Now before you jump me for being a smart ass, I had never seen or used a shooting board in my life, currently 67. Making picture frames requires good miters as do box's. Any way this is the shooting board I built for picture frames. Included is the miter plane from Vertas, (far too much money, but worth it) and miter box I picked up for $5. from the Bendigo swap.


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[Madyank]

Have you considered <https://www.carbatec.com.au/handtools-and-handplanes/handplanes/bench-planes/veritas-rh-shooting-plane>? wonderful tool for mitres.