shooting board material

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Ken viciously twisted my arm to get me to go with him to the recent woodworking show in Saratoga. :rofl: While we were there, we had the chance to see a live demonstration of a shooting board. I think this demonstration / seminar was of far, far more significance to me than to Ken. Anyways, the speaker had brought his demo board, which he had made from a particle board.

Ken got talking to me later and mentioned that he'd be concerned of such an engineered material prematurely wearing out the plane iron that time and effort was taken to sharpen.

So I was thinking to make one from some wide ash I have (11" or so).

I started jointing my ash plank Thursday, but then today got to wondering if seasonal movement might end up making the fence not perfectly square over time. I'm going to also be making 45 degree miter and bevel attachments for my shooting board in order to be making miter joinery, so am now wondering if I might be served better with a particle board shooting board and just breaking down and learning to sharpen my irons. :eek: :doh: :rofl:

What do the rest of you think?
 
Why couldn't you use something like baltic birch or mdf:dunno:. I just looked up what a shooting board was and once you make the first pass or two the plane won't be cutting into the board anymore unless you extend the iron some more.
 
Plywood or MDF

<snip>Ken got talking to me later and mentioned that he'd be concerned of such an engineered material prematurely wearing out the plane iron that time and effort was taken to sharpen.

So I was thinking to make one from some wide ash I have (11" or so).

I started jointing my ash plank Thursday, but then today got to wondering if seasonal movement might end up making the fence not perfectly square over time. I'm going to also be making 45 degree miter and bevel attachments for my shooting board in order to be making miter joinery, so am now wondering if I might be served better with a particle board shooting board and just breaking down and learning to sharpen my irons.<snip>

IMHO it's the seasonal movement thing that'll be a killer. It doesn't tale all that much to throw a shoot board out of kilter. And having the shoot board made from solid wood is asking for movement. Personally, I'd save the ash for another project and get some nice birch ply. After you're done making the shoot board, give it several coats of penetrating finish (I used Watco's Danish Oil). That'll protect it!

shootboard1.jpg


Last year I used some birch plywood to make mine and so far have only had to adjust it slightly. If I were to do it again, I think I'd have covered the "plane ramp" in laminate so that it would be slicker. I used UHMW and have noticed it picks up the wax/oil from my planes way too easy.

BTW when you learn to sharpen your irons to perfection, give me a call so you can coach me through it. I've yet to be able to replicate an "atom splitting edge" without LOTS of work.:rolleyes:
 
Whatever the shooting board is made from, the blade of your plane should not cut into it beyond the first time when you "season" it. After you use it the first time, the plane will ride against a ridge at the bottom of the slot and your plane blade will only cut the wood you're trimming. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with making a shooting board out of MDF or plywood or anything else.

Solid wood does move so I favor some kind of man made product, but our ancestors used solid wood and it worked fine for them.

Mike
 
Over on Wood Central, Australian Derek Cohen has recently posted some pictures and a tutorial on the making of his ramped shooting boards. His are solid wood - Jarrah, or Sheoak, I think - and have an adjustable fence and a 'donkey's ear' accessory.

You might want to take a look over there.
 
Over on Wood Central, Australian Derek Cohen has recently posted some pictures and a tutorial on the making of his ramped shooting boards. His are solid wood - Jarrah, or Sheoak, I think - and have an adjustable fence and a 'donkey's ear' accessory.

You might want to take a look over there.
Just a comment - there's no advantage to a ramped shooting board except it "might" allow you to use more of your blade. But that's only if you shoot thin material. Ramping reduces the maximum thickness that you can shoot.

It absolutely, positively does not give you a skew cut (which some people believe).

Mike

[In case anyone thinks it offers a skew cut, see this thread at Sawmill Creek where it was discussed to death.]
 
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Mark, actually I wouldn't want a portion of the sole of my plane rubbing on particleboard. Less worried about the blade, because it doesn't run against the shooting board. Worst case scenario,, in my mind, is that the plane gets alot of use on its side, rubbing the 3/4" or so against the p-board, and loses a tiny fraction of flat. Sound OCD to you? It does to me. Oh well.
 
HI Mike,I don't know whether there is a skew motion on a ramped board or not, I've read the post on SC twice and I still have my doubts either way.

Anyway, here is mine, it is not ramped, it is made of mdf and masonite and it serves me well.
I do not have a miter accessory but I might make one someday.
 

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Mine is made of MDF with a hardwood fence. I don't think I would use particle board; not very flat or smooth.

I still need to incorporate Dominic's nice micro-adjusting fence. I liked it the first time he posted it and it still looks good to me.

Mark, a low angle bladed plane works best, but I have used my normal jack and jointer plane and it worked fine; you just really need to make sure they are sharp and not try to take off too much. Actually that advice goes for any plane you use, but especially a normal angle plane.

Dominic, Mike or Ken, have you made a mitre block yet? It is next on my list of fixtures. Just curious how it worked out.
 
I'll be shooting with my LN #62 LA Jack. As with most of my tool purchases, it was a good deal for a really good tool before I knew anything about planes. I'd be sure to screw up a purchase if I buy more as I learn about them though. :rofl:

The reason I was asking about particle board is that I have some 3/4" particle board bits that used to be the DC cabinet for my router table. That space got taken up by bowl blank storage before I got around to rebuilding the router table DC cabinet after moving into the house here though, leaving me with a pile of particle board that I was hoping to retask.

Regarding the possibility of premature sole wear from the engineered materials, would laminating the edges of the material with a little bit of hardwood do the trick?

Having asked this, I suspect that Ken does a lot more handplane shooting than I anticipate doing, so maybe this whole thing will be a non-issue for me. I suppose I could also start with an engineered board to get me going and then make a hardwood board later and see which one I prefer.

Many of you have posted pics of shooting boards with an integral plane-sliding-support (the ramp, whether or not actually ramped). Is this so that you know your plane is perpendicular to the board as opposed to referencing the plane off the bench the board rests on?

Thanks for the discussion so far! :thumb:

Hmmm... you know, if I get cracking on this, maybe I can have it done before Larry gets home. If that happens, maybe I could surprise him with some pics of shavings from the wood he delivered to me as the first shavings made from the board.
 
Ok, I'm going forward with my original ash plan. Mostly because I want to use it for my walnut desk to true up the ends and I was already using the planer for some apron pieces and tossed the already face jointed ash board through too.

No pic yet because I need to go to the store and get a 2" galvanised steel coupler (I think 1/2" diameter) that I use as spacers for my RAS table tensioner knobs. A knob loosened off while I was using the RAS table to support the desk table top on while using the ROS and I can't find it from the floor. Found the knob and the SAE washer, but no coupler.

I should predrill in ash for trim head screws, right? Is there any reason to glue the fence to the shooting board?

Thanks!
 
Well, we went to Lowes, I picked up the 2" long 3/8" iron pipe nipple I needed for a RAS table tensioner knob spacer and I'm back in business. I cut off the knotty portion of the ash board that gave some planer tearout. As seen below this still left about 22" of shooting board length.

There was a bit of ash left on the offcut before the knot proper, so I cut off another two pieces - the first will be the fence and the second a cleat on the underside. My planer has suddenly decided to start sniping on me, so the sniped side of the shooting board is on the bottom. My planer blades have seen more than there fair share of hard knots and are leaving stripes on the board surface. Should I hit the surface of my shooting board with the ROS to smooth these stripes out?

I measured the fence piece for uniformity (parallel ends) with my Mitotoyu calipers and the difference across the fence was 0.02 mm. I'm satisfied with that. The fence is being glued ad screwed to the shooting board. It's long enough that if I don't like it I could just cut off the fence. I also don't want the fence to loosen over time if just screwed on.

The next step will be to use my EZ Smart 32" rail and square to rip the sides, using the fence as a reference. Note that the fence is a bit proud of the shooting board. These rip cuts will ensure that the edges of the shooting board are square to the fence.

fence_glueup.JPG

My immediate plans for this shooting board are to true up the edges of the walnut desk table top that I am working on. I'll be using my LN #62 low angle jack plane for this task. After that project is complete, I will add miter and bevel (45 degree each) attachments to my shooting board.
 
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Mark,

Just my opinion, but you should change the fence to a piece with the grain running perpendicular to the shooting board. I know you already glued it on, but when I saw your picture, it reminded me of the description of you using a cutoff from the top board for the fence, and I thought I'd comment on that.

I'd make the change. Looking at the link Rob gave us and at Dominic's board, I believe I would follow that design and have the fence grain run crossways to the top board.

You are doing good Sir. Much better than me right now. I want one too, so I got a lot of catching up to do.

Aloha, Tony
 
Well, I read the site Rob linked to and there wasn't mention of which way the grain should run, so I'm just gonna use it as is. Don't want to lose any time right now on my desk project anyhow - I hear the nasty hot weather is on the way in. :(

I just ripped the first side using the EZ Smart system. A friend had accidentally ripped part of his EZ rail and gave me the ripped part. I've finally gotten around to rigging things up to hook up that ripped piece of extrusion to the square to act as a square side clamp.

EZ_setup_top.JPG

EZ_setup_bottom.JPG

I'm using a DeWalt 369 7 1/4" saw with my EZ system. At full depth of cut I'm only getting just shy of 1 1/4" depth of cut. Is this normal?
 
Made the second rip. Since my CS didn't clear the whole depth of cut I have some cleaning up to do. Flush trim bit in router setting the bearing to follow the part that the saw did cut all the way through?

Careful use of chisels?

I think a larger CS has just been bumped up in priority for new tools. Still need to invest in a PAPR system for health first, but then the larger blade CS will be next major purchase. Time for a 10" CS.

EZ_setup_2.JPG
 
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