Thread: Shooting boards again

Originally Posted by jmk89

A many of you would remember, I have been thinking about building a shooting board.
I had decided to base it on Derek Cohen's board (although I think I will leave some of the adjustable stuff for later). That board, as you may remember, slopes down and away from the user to the fence and has the runway for the plane on the right-hand side.
While reading Garrett Hack, The Handplane Book, I noticed that his pictures of ramped shooting boards show the board sloping up and away from the user and, in the one case that also shows a plane, the plane is on the left-hand side.
So should the shooting board ramp up or down? I would have thought that down makes sense as it probably makes it easier to ensure that the work is firmly against the fence but the opinions of people who have actually used these things would be helpful.
Also, is there any reason why the plane runway for a right-handed user should not be on the right-hand side of the shooting board?

Jeremy
mine slopes down, gravity helps a little to keep the piece being shot in place.
David Charlesworth's is straight, drop me an email if you want a copy [and he runs his plane along his bench]

The angle doesn't have to be exactly 90° or 45° as you can use shims to get the angle exact.

left or right?
If you're right handed on the right, but sometimes you'll want to be able to use the plane on the left.


ian

Thanks, Ian. It's just that it confused me a bit.
I will email you for the plans

Jeremy, I think the reason boards often slope up is that it tends to minimise the stretch for you.

Thanks, Jon. I hadn't thought of that effect. If the board is relatively short (eg 500mm) it shouldn't be too much of a problem. But I can see how it would be an issue if you were shooting long boards down a ramp.

Something that I thinks worth remembering with shooting boards....

uno how shooting boards allow you to slice end grain cleanly, cause the backing board butts right up to your plane.....to stop the trailing side of your wood from tearing out.....

and uno how you 'run in ' your shooting board....which means the blades taking a slice of your backing board so they meet ideally.....(one pass is all it takes to run in)

Well, because you adjust your blade repeatably over time ( taking out to resharpen, trying different depths of cut etc) your run-in will be permanently set to the coarsest shaving you've ever taken on that board .....

Meaning ( I'm getting to it )......in time, you may find your shooting board doesn't work as well as it did the first time......and that may be because your attempting to shoot a shaving thinner than the board has experienced in the past, leaving a little tearout to your work( a little gap has developed between blade and backing board)..... Which can be annoying, cause you look at your shoot and you see this little taggy thing hanging off your moulding or whatever

So, try and avoid, (if practical) taking shavings coarser than you need....or just re-surface the backing board on occation and re-run in it.

or don't worry about it all....and just clean up the little tearout latter with chisel or whatever ...

Jake

Thanks for that - it makes a great deal of sense.

Cheers

Jeremy

As to the right side/left side thing - in books & mags, where something seems to be 'wrong handed', look carefully & try to spot something written - the 'Art Department' of many publishers still have a bad habit of reversing pictures to comply with the convention that everything should point towards the centre of a double page spread. The biggest giveaway is that the lettering is reversed.

Or, you can make a shooting board that can shoot either side.

The "miter head" sitting beside the board is removable and is held in place with the two 3/8" rods laying beside it. I have a couple replaceable miter heads for the couple angles I use frequently. Any other angle are done via shims off one of them.



Though 90 percent of what I shoot is either at 90 or 45 degrees, if I were ever to make another it would be adjustable, much like the Stanley shootboard.

Take care, Mike

Jeremy, have you read the extensive thread on shooting boards from a while back?

The sloping ramp issue was discussed and tested in detail then, I think the rationale was that it makes for a smoother start to the cut.

A search would pull it up, or may be in Best of the Best.


Cheers.................Sean

Originally Posted by scooter

Jeremy, have you read the extensive thread on shooting boards from a while back?

The sloping ramp issue was discussed and tested in detail then, I think the rationale was that it makes for a smoother start to the cut.

A search would pull it up, or may be in Best of the Best.


Cheers.................Sean

Yes Sean I had read that (I've been part of the Forums for long enough now to know that you should search first! ) and that was why I was going to make a ramped shooting board.

It was only when I read Hack that the question of whether the ramp should slope up or slope down occurred to me, which I don't think has been covered before.

Originally Posted by bsrlee

As to the right side/left side thing - in books & mags, where something seems to be 'wrong handed', look carefully & try to spot something written - the 'Art Department' of many publishers still have a bad habit of reversing pictures to comply with the convention that everything should point towards the centre of a double page spread. The biggest giveaway is that the lettering is reversed.

All the lettering on the picture looks OK, so I think it is intended to slope up and the plane is meant to appear on the LHS.

I think that the time has come for me to just go ahead and make the bl**dy thing and see what happens.

Sorry guys for this dumb question but I have never really used a shooting board before.

I hope I can make this clear!

Does the stock overhang the base a little,so the plane blade only runs along the stock and not the base/edge ???

I am going to build one and am just trying to get my head around using it.

Thanks

If you look at the picture above, you'll see that where the stock sits is 1/4" higher than where the plane sits. As a plane's blade does not go all the way to the side of the plane, it cuts a little into that surface. But the sole of the plane prevents it from continually moving closer towards the stock.

So in the case of the plane above the blade's lowest corner is just barely below the surface the stock sits on. It is important to not adjust the blade deeper once you begin using it as then the backer board--the ply in the picture--and the surface the stock sits on--will no longer support the fibers and the stock will get breakout.

Take care, Mike