Bench dog shooting board

[Cgcc]

Dear all,

I thought I would share a build that I have just finished (and shared some progress photos in an earlier thread, grateful for comments from IanW and others).

An idea I had was to develop a shooting board that differed from the standard by using precision bench dog holes and dogs to provide a fence for the workpiece, rather than a traditional separate 90 degree fence and 45 degree fences. The other notion was to use formply. This seems to be an underused workshop material, to my very newbie mind. It is cheap, but standardised, seems quite stable and provides a very smooth worktop. My limited experience has been that the coating is much tougher than one would assume. The photos below will show some scratches which initially worried me, in case they developed, but turned out to have been from dragging around Bunnings and no new ones have been noticed through the build and initial use.

I don't think the build requires much explanation save that I used the Parf guide system to do the dogs. There was no particular magic. I stopped drilling holes at what might seem like a random arrangement because it was too noisy at home.

I just did a test cut with my Veritas shooting plane (exotic feature - a lefty), on what seemed to be the most difficult thing lying around, which was a reasonably chunky piece of blackbutt. It went through as well as one could hope for, at least for me! It rapidly became obvious that 25 degrees is problematic for very hard Australian wood. I am fairly new to the shooting plane and will refine my technique but I am satisfied it is very straight and the shooting board is assisting well, and the remaining refinement likely to be to sharpening. I think I will start collecting aluminium cans to have a second blade at 30 degrees for Australian hardwoods.

The rationale and advantages of this board for me are:

1. The formply provides a very smooth surface, meaning nothing is needed by way of finishes or low-friction tape, for either the runway or the workpiece area. The smoothness facilitates easy adjustment of the workpiece by hand to sneak up the cut. But not so slippery you can't hold in place.

2. The moveability of the dogs to hold the workpiece (it would be easy to use the dogs to locate a scrap fence, or a wedge, if that was desired) means that you can always move the workpiece to where it is easiest to hold and apply the right amount of pressure to hold it while shooting. If you have a narrow workpiece, you can bring closer to you to get a good grip at a comfortable distance. If you have a wider workpiece you can move further away so you're not bunched up.

3. A practical "shop" matter - it is a bit smaller and more compact to store, without fences and additional jigs, with a huge range of adjustment possible with just a coupe of bench dogs. If you are satisfied with the precision of the dog holes you already have a fence at 90 degrees and 45 degrees in either direction, wherever you want, with just the board.

4. The bench dogs provide a ready method of seating any custom wedges at other angles like 22.5. I am thinking of making ones that will have a 20mm hole and let you simply use a Parf super dog as effectively a dowel to locate them wherever you want on the board.

Here are the photos. The end grain was not finished slicing on the blackbutt but I had very limited time and was worried 25 degrees was just causing problems, and will do more tests soon (on an easier wood to start with!).

IMG_20200508_160200.jpgIMG_20200508_161743.jpgIMG_20200508_161815.jpgIMG_20200508_160205.jpgIMG_20200508_160414.jpgIMG_20200508_160527.jpg

Some caveats and thoughts are:

1. I will be having a "watching brief" on the stability of the formply, in terms of the straightness and whether the shooting crushes the fibres to any detectable degree. I thought of a variety of ways to over-engineer it. However it will not be hard to correct and fix if it is not stable over time - just unscrew the top part, cut straight, and add something more stable.

2. I didn't use the groove for dust I've seen Derek Cohen recommend. My limited experience has been the formply is so smooth that it blows away easily. This may of course change but will be easy to add.

3. Yuck, the edges! I broke the edges and corners which snapped off pieces of the resin which makes it look a little dusty. But a nice, smooth hardwood edging would be easy and probably make the whole setup quite striking contrasting with the black formply, if one wanted to refine for looks. In fact to mitre some edges I have just the thing...

Any thoughts or views welcome! I am very new to all this and have a tendency to spend too long theorising rather than practising, so any constructive criticism welcome!

[Mountain Ash]

Nice work Cgcc. I agree with you about the usefulness of formply. I am still in the process of refining my formply shooting board altough it's a little more traditional than yours. I got some of the design ideas from a YouTube video, essentially using a timber spline housed in a groove on the board (perpendicular to the path of the plane) to mate with a corresponding groove in interchangeable fences.

[LanceC]

That's a clever approach to a reconfugurable shooting board.

My outfeed/ assembly/ glueup table is made with a formply top. After several years I wouldn't do it again. The problem I have found is that the surface coating is brittle. Rather than denting, it will crack, and once cracked it will lift a little, requiring sanding or pairing with a blade to remove the hump.

Where an edge gets knocked, it will chip. This is despite having a hardwood perimiter protecting it.

The result is a surface that looks like a patchwork quilt, but more importantly, offers no simple way way to seal it back up again.

Next time I will simply use MDF as I have on other working surfaces. Several coats of oil based varnish provides a very durable, good looking surface, and with a little wax, very slippery and resistant to bonding with glue squeeze out. It's also very easy to repair.

[derekcohen]

Lance, my concern with MDF is that is is fine while the top surface is intact. Under the surface the core is softer, and very susceptible to imitating a sponge. This section is also quite coarse - which is also my objection to using it for a strop.

If you plan to use MDF, cover working area with oil and wax. Add a hardwood strip to wear areas. Check out Bunnings. My local store is having a special on Merbau laminated panels. See my recent post on the Gigantic SB.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Cgcc]

Derek: I am also finding merbau fencing pales are a bargain at the moment. Wonderfully straight, regular. I paid attention after repurposing some palings leftover at my house from building work very successfully.

[Cgcc]

Late reply Lance, but if it was very satisfactory for a long time, wouldn't a setup where a replacement top could be screwed in be a good option? The first replacement as easy as flipping upside down. Nothing is going to survive years of use with finishes will it? Surely a little chip in the formply is easier to live with than re-finishing MDF?

[LanceC]

Just to be clear, I wasn’t suggesting an MDF shooting board, rather the general limitations of formply for workshop surfaces. Slightly off topic, for which I apologise.

[Cgcc]

Not at all - if it was, so was my reply.

One thing I am noticing in Brisbane is that even with a specialist supplier (I have taken sheets from a place that will deliver for $40), plywood seems to be very poor quality everywhere I buy. I think for panels I will start buying project panels from Bunnings for jigs and the like. An added bonus is they are an easy size to put in a dadmobile.