How would you plane an angle into a board face? (for a vise face)

[Vince Lok]

Hi guys. About 3 years ago, while I was up in Canada visiting my family, my brother in law took me to a Lee Valley store and I picked up a nice large vise (which I took home in my luggage - before the days of excessive baggage fees!)

Anyway, I never installed it on my workbench (mostly because the workbench doesn't have an appropriate overhang), but I'm thinking of building a new bench (following Tom Caspars torsion box design).

The instructions on the vise say that it's best to use a piece of hardwood that has a 2 degree (I think it was 2, maybe it was 6?) angle in it so that the top of the face contacts the workpiece first. (You all know this already). I know one solution is to simply to shim the vise so that the entire vise is at an angle relative to the bench front, but if I want to actually get an angle into the face of a board, how do you do that?

What I wast thinking of doing was using my jointer and setting it's fence to the right angle and planing the EDGE of the board then somehow making a jig or something ... I dunno, how should I do this? (Or should I even bother? I mean .. 2 degrees?)

Thanks guys!

Vince

[Tom Veatch]

Don't know the width of your stock, but a 2° taper is about 0.20 inches over a 6" width. My first thought would be to attach a shim/spacer the proper thickness to one side of the bottom of the work - hot glue, double stick tape, etc. - and run it through a planer enough passes to get a cut the full width of the work.

Might could do it on a jointer, but you'd be cutting away the spacer with each pass, and for some reason I'd be a little hesitant to try it on a jointer.

And, of course, there's always the hand plane option.

[Doug Shepard]

Don't know the width of your stock, but a 2° taper is about 0.20 inches over a 6" width. My first thought would be to attach a shim/spacer the proper thickness to one side of the bottom of the work - hot glue, double stick tape, etc. - and run it through a planer enough passes to get a cut the full width of the work.
...

That's how i did it.

[Frank Drew]

I agree with Tom and Doug that running your board through the planer slightly shimmed up would be the quickest method; depending on the size of your vise, and how well your planer handles short stock, you might want to start with a longer piece than you actually need.

[I'm not familiar with this vise, but I'm not convinced that this minute amount of taper will actually help things, but what do I know? Lining the jaw faces with leather would certainly be a useful modification, though.]

[Chris Friesen]

The instructions for the twin-screw vise talk about this tapered face on the moving jaw. Initially I built it to the instructions (using a shim under one side and running it through the planer) but it was way too much taper--it ended up only gripping right at the top edge.

I reduced the taper significantly using hand planes. Now it's still tapered, but just enough that under pressure it grips across the whole face of the vise.

[Doug Shepard]

...
I'm not familiar with this vise, but I'm not convinced that this minute amount of taper will actually help things, but what do I know? Lining the jaw faces with leather would certainly be a useful modification, though.

I think the whole intent of the taper is to offset the typical amount of sag on the outer jaw. The taper results in a jaw face that's more straight vertical once the sag is factored in. I'd still add the leather too though.

[Vince Lok]

Thanks! The vise I have is one of these http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=54873&cat=1,41659,41661&ap=1

The instructions never mentioned the technique you used, but it makes complete sense... I don't know why I didn't even think of that, it seems so obvious now. Maybe I was too hung up on using the jointer instead of the planer! It's always good to get another persons perspective on things!

Thanks!

Vince

[glenn bradley]

I did as Tom suggests more or less. I used my planer sled and adjusted the cleats for the angle I wanted.

[Zach England]

Or you could slice a piece off with your TS at the blade's highest setting then then run the resulting flat surface over the jointer a few times.

I recently did the same thing with a veritas vise and did it with hand planes.

[Chris Padilla]

"Accidentally" mess up or mess with the coplanarity of your planer and run your board through and then get mad about why it isn't flat...then quickly recall that you actually wanted the taper in the face of the board.

You see, if we want dead parallel faces, we can't get 'em...if we want tapers, we can get those either. Ya gotta NOT want it and it'll happen! LOL....

[Ed Sallee]

You could build an auxiliary planer bed and shim to get the desired angle.
Plans from WOOD Magazine here (http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodworking-plans/jointing-and-planing/auxiliary-planer-bed/).
I built one and have used it for this - works just fine.
It also works to plane thinner than capacity stock.

[Vince Lok]

Ah, that is a cool idea, the auxiliarty planer bed! Looks nice and simple too! Thanks!

Vince