which shooting plane

[David Christopher]

lately I have been making some boxes ( Ed Salee's fault ) and have a quest to find a better way to get cleaner miters/bevels. I looked at miter guillotine but mixed reviews changed my mind...sooo Im going to make a shooting board to shoot bevels but ( now the question ) which plane is better for this task..low angle, high angle, jack, jointer, block, wooden ?????

most woods used will be domestic hard wood..walnut, maple and such

any help would be appereciated

[Gary Benson]

David,
Nearly any plane with square sides will do. I have the LN low angle jack that I use primarily for shooting, and I like it. But, at Rob Cosman's class I used my LN #7, he feels a sharp blade is the most important item. Many people seem to prefer the low angle planes, many, many like the LV bevel up jack as it is larger and heavier than the LN. The dedicated miter plane from LN is nice, more comfortable, but is pricey, and not really useful for much else.

Once you get your board and plane set up, you will be amazed at how fast and accurate things are.

Gary

[Mike Cutler]

David

As Gary stated, folks have used a wide array of planes to perform this task. The only prerequisite being a sole and side 90 degrees to each other and a really sharp blade.
There are two plane I can think of off hand that are more or less purpose specific for this. The first being a Stanley #51 Chute board plane. The second being the Stanley or Lie-Nielsen #9, or iron miter plane, which is really kind of just a big heavy block plane.
I have an LN #9 and it works beautifully.

[Raney Nelson]

+1 to all the advice given above. If purchasing a new plane makes sense, I'd probably get either a low angle jack (either LN or LV) or, if you want to spend the scratch, the LN#9.

For shooting endgrain, the low angle planes have a slight advantage, but as noted already, almost any good plane with square sides will work just fine.

[Mike Henderson]

You can cut clean bevels on your miter saw (powered miter saw) if you put a backer board below and against the fence. I use scrap MDF. Clamp it to your fence. That will minimize tearout. A good blade and slow cutting will help also.

This assumes your miter saw makes accurate 45* cuts, of course.

If you're dead set on using a shooting board, I used to use a #6 Stanley until I built a wooden shooting plane.

Mike

[Richard Jones]

I use the LV LA jack and it does a great job.

Rich

[Graham Hughes (CA)]

I use a LV low angle jack. If you're going to shoot end grain a low angle is attractive but the only thing you really need is sides that are square to the body. The dedicated miter planes all seem to be low angle metal bodies, and I imagine they work a real treat, but I haven't felt the need.

[Jim Koepke]

David,

You do not mention what planes if any you already have.

They could help you determine what works best for you.

Mike Cutler mentioned the Stanley #51 Chute board plane. That has a skewed blade. I can see this as an advantage. There are skewed block planes that may work.

Try a bevel up low angle block plane if you have one.

Then comes the question do you want to get a plane specifically for this one purpose or do you want to use a plane that serves other duties?

One tip someone posted in an earlier thread was to put a chamfer on the back edge of the work piece to avoid blow outs.

jim

[Casey Gooding]

I use a Stanley #6 with a super sharp iron. Works great.

[Tristan Raymond]

I'd recommend the David Charlesworth DVD - Precision Shooting Simplified. He also shows an easy way to compensate if your plane does not have sides that are perfectly 90 to the sole. I think that same information was covered in a article that's in one of his books.

[David Christopher]

thanks for all the advice guys, I just ordered a LV low angle jack...it should be here in a few days.....then more questions to come

[Danny Thompson]

Too late for the Marcou?

http://www.marcouplanes.co.nz/images/stories/planes/m12/m12-top1-av.jpg

The LV LA Jack is a great plane! You'll love it. And the good news is you can easily vary the cutting angle to fit the task at hand.

[David Christopher]

Too late for the Marcou?

http://www.marcouplanes.co.nz/images/stories/planes/m12/m12-top1-av.jpg

The LV LA Jack is a great plane! You'll love it. And the good news is you can vary the cutting angle as you see fit.
Danny, I dont think I could afford the one in the picture

[Mike Cutler]

Danny

WOW! That's a really beauty. Now I want to use my LN #9 as a doorstop, and get one of those.:cool:

[Danny Thompson]

Danny, I dont think I could afford the one in the picture

Right there with you, David. This pic made an appearance in the recent sharpening debate. What a beauty.

[Bryce Adams]

Mike,

You mentioned building a wooden shooting plane. Could you post more information (and maybe a photo) of that plane?

Thanks.

[george wilson]

We actually had an old,but excellent condition Stanley chute board outfit in Williamsburg's tool collection. Someone gave all their old tools to the museum.

It's plane wasn't square to the surface of the cast iron base,so I couldn't use it for some patternmaking I was assigned to do. The director,former curator of tools,wouldn't let me remachine the groove the plane ran in,so I never used it,though I wanted to.

So,here was a situation where they had a bunch of non 18th.C. tools that they really didn't want people to use,and they couldn't exhibit them,or sell them off either.

They also had a Sandusky boxwood center wheel plough plane in that set,which in the 70's was worth $3000.00. Guess it's still sitting on some shelf,too. That is a real rare plane. Also,a Stanley 444.Another valuable plane. The guy must have had every plane Stanley made,and they were all old and in fine condition.

[Terry Beadle]

I recommend using a woodie with standard angle of 45 and a heavy blade. I use one from Steve Knights wonder works. It's made of cocobolo and is an extra two inches than his standard of 15. So at 17 inches it weighs in a little higher than a #6. It has a 1/4 inch thick blade. I also use the techniques demonstrated by Charlesworth.

For shooting, I recommend a heavy plane. I have a LN Low angle jack and it also works very well. I use the LN LAJ for a lot of planing jobs. I don't understand the comment that it is a plane only suited for shooting. It can do smoothing, jack, and especially good on butcher block cutting boards.

Dem's my 2 cents.

Enjoy the shavings!

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,

You mentioned building a wooden shooting plane. Could you post more information (and maybe a photo) of that plane?

Thanks.
Sure. It's actually a dual use plane because I felt that a plane dedicated to shooting was used too little. It can also be used as a jointer.

The plane is about 20" long and 2 7/8" wide. The iron is bedded at 35* and is an antique laminated iron with chip breaker, 2 1/8" wide (this one is a Buck Brothers - you can pick them up on eBay pretty cheap). Because of the low bed angle, you need a fairly long iron. If you used one of the Hock irons intended for wood planes, the iron would not stick up enough to be able to tap on it easily.

The body is birch with lignum vitae bottom and sides. Since I carve, I put some crosshatching where you'd grip it. I don't know the weight.

I thought about putting a removable hot dog or knob on the plane to make it easier to push when using it for shooting but never did.

That's about all I can think of to tell you.

Mike

[Richard Dooling]

Thanks Mike. I've been thinking about this for a while and you may have just saved me a lot of frustration - the blade I had in mind for this is probably too short. Dang.

.

[Mike Henderson]

If you bed at 45*, a short iron (like a Hock) will work. I needed a long iron because of the 35* bedding - it makes the "ramp" a good bit longer.

In fact, you can see my learning in the plane. If you look at the closeup of the iron and notice the body behind it, you'll see a glue line in the body. I originally made the plane for the 2" Hock blade. After cutting the body to width, I realized the iron would be too short. But the Buck iron was wider (2 1/8") so I had to glue the birch cutoff back to the body and recut it wider. It's actually a bit too wide but I wanted enough to be able to adjust the blade laterally and the long ramp affects the lateral space.

Of course, if I had drawn everything out first, I might have noticed that the iron would be too short but I rarely do drawings - just work from ideas in my head - and then pay for it.

[Just an added note about the bedding angle: This is a bevel down plane so the bed angle is the effective cutting angle. Many low angle planes are bevel up so the effective angle is often about 35* anyway (maybe 12* bed angle and 25* bevel)]

Mike

[Rick Erickson]

LN 5 1/2 works for me. Just grab anything with some weight.

[george wilson]

We used wooden shooting planes for many years in the museum situation. I'm sure the cabinet maker still does.

[David Keller NC]

thanks for all the advice guys, I just ordered a LV low angle jack...it should be here in a few days.....then more questions to come

Since you've got your plane ordered, here are some considerations for what you want to do (shoot standing miters for boxes):

If you're using very hard woods, especially the rosewoods, you will do considerably better with a low-angle grind (the standard grind on the LV plane). Lower cutting angles will give you a cleaner surface on any wood, but it's especially noticeable once you move to harder ones.

Consider building a "donkey's ear" shooting board. While the appliance David Charlesworth uses with his traditionally-designed shooting board will work, it's been my experience that the donkey-ear design is considerably easier to use - I've built and used both.

It's critically important that you have very fine control on the blade advancement on the plane - much more so than when planing face-grain on a board. There is a very fine line between "doesn't take a shaving" and "stalls in the end grain" - and razor sharp is way more important here than it is when planing face or edge grain. Ideally, you want the iron sharp enough that you're spilling little contiguous shavings of end-grain out of the plane's mouth. If you're getting just dust, a sharper iron is called for.

[David Christopher]

David, what the h52ll is a donkeys ear design. and do you have a picture of one.......Im good with pictures

[Pam Niedermayer]

We used wooden shooting planes for many years in the museum situation. I'm sure the cabinet maker still does.

I still use mostly wooden planes for shooting, mainly the HNT Gordon try plane (http://www.hntgordon.com.au/prodcattry.htm) and the Mosaku shooting plane (http://web.archive.org/web/20020222151643/www.japanesetools.com/tools/mosakuplanes/mosakuplanes3.php). Both are made from very heavy woods (desert ironwood and hon red oak respectively) and have very thick blades.

If the LN LA Jack is hanging about, sometimes I'll use it for shooting.

Pam

[Bryce Adams]

Sure. It's actually a dual use plane because I felt that a plane dedicated to shooting was used too little. It can also be used as a jointer.

The plane is about 20" long and 2 7/8" wide. The iron is bedded at 35* and is an antique laminated iron with chip breaker, 2 1/8" wide (this one is a Buck Brothers - you can pick them up on eBay pretty cheap). Because of the low bed angle, you need a fairly long iron. If you used one of the Hock irons intended for wood planes, the iron would not stick up enough to be able to tap on it easily.

The body is birch with lignum vitae bottom and sides. Since I carve, I put some crosshatching where you'd grip it. I don't know the weight.

I thought about putting a removable hot dog or knob on the plane to make it easier to push when using it for shooting but never did.

That's about all I can think of to tell you.

Mike

Nice plane. I like the lignum vitae sole. I've made a couple of of laminated planes with Hock irones and used Jatoba for the sole. It's very hard and polishes smooth with use.

Bryce

[Mike Henderson]

David, what the h52ll is a donkeys ear design. and do you have a picture of one.......Im good with pictures
A donkey's ear is an attachment to a shooting board which is used to shoot miters, such as the miters on the end of boards making up a box. See the pix.

On mine, it is attached with a bolt and a screw handle, as shown in the picture.

I suppose it's possible to build a shooting board with the donkey's ear permanently attached, but all the ones I've seen were attachments.

Originally, they were hung off the side of the bench (and the planing was done from the top), which is why they're called donkey ears.

Mike

[David Christopher]

thanks Mike, thats exactly what Im looking to make...again thanks for the pics and infomation

[Mike Henderson]

As long as I'm posting pictures, I'll post some of my grossly over-engineered shooting board. This was made from scrap in the shop so it looks fairly rough - but it works well.

I wanted a shooting board that I could use right and left handed, and which I could use for shooting miters, both picture frame miters and box miters.

Here's the shooting board in the right hand configuration.
124669

The fence is wedged in. The reason for doing that is that the fence often gets cut back too far and then you get tearout. With a permanently attached fence there's no way to fix that. With the wedge, you just take a swipe with your plane on the angle side and the wedge will go in further.
124670

At the bottom of the wedge, I've cut a relief to make sure that I don't get a part of the wedge sticking out where the blade doesn't cut.
124671

Here it is in left hand configuration.
124672

The next item is how to make the stops work for left and right hand use. I made the stops "drop down", and used magnets to hold them up when not in use. To reverse the shooting board, you fold one in and drop the other.
124673

[Mike Henderson]

And finally, a picture of the picture frame miter jig. A picture of the donkey's ear was shown earlier.
124675

I don't use the left hand orientation very much but sometimes you have a piece of wood with a irregular edge (and you don't want to or can't turn the wood over) and have to use it left handed.

Mike

[David Christopher]

thanks Mike, these photos and description have help tremendously..if you dont mind I will copy some of your ideas

[David Keller NC]

David - Here is an alternative design. It's made of 3/4" birch ply, 8/4 maple, and a purple heart running board (to minimize wear). I typically hold the workpiece to the fence with my left hand as I shoot the miter, but one could easily add a destayco clamp to the fence to provide hands-free holding.

[David Christopher]

David - Here is an alternative design. It's made of 3/4" birch ply, 8/4 maple, and a purple heart running board (to minimize wear). I typically hold the workpiece to the fence with my left hand as I shoot the miter, but one could easily add a destayco clamp to the fence to provide hands-free holding.
Thank David, that one looks interesting too..all the pictures really help...never seen one in person