saw horses and shooting boards...

[John A. Callaway]

so, while building that Krenov cabinet ( over in the projects forum ) and flipping through his books, I decided that a pair of those saw horses would be useful for me given my dining room work shop situation ... and, it would be a good first time mortise and tenon project .... boy do I need mortise chisels... and some more practice. :cool: I built one today, and I will get the other one next time I am home. They are done in hard maple , with walnut wedges. I started them after I made a new shooting board for the LN . ( the last one, it turns out wasn't square to the fence :( ), and one for the new block plane . I also made some planing stops / bench hooks , in addition to a small hook to size for my bench hook I use for cross cutting.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN2992.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN2994.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN2989.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN2987.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN2986.jpg

continued....

[John A. Callaway]

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN2999.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN3002.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN3004.jpg

[Jim Koepke]

Those look more like furniture than saw horses.

On my shooting boards I tend to make the fence a touch adjustable to allow for wood movement.

jtk

[John A. Callaway]

Well..... the last one I made had some adjustability to it....and I could not ever get it to square up completely. I noticed it as I shot the two long grain sides of a small board. I had a weird trapezoid shape when I finished .... so I made these .... clamped the down the plane and the fence then glued it all up. A quick test proved them both to be square.

As far as the sawhorses go..... the pics hide the flaws. The notched legs were cut out with the dado stack and the through mortises leave a lot to be desired..... they are tools .... but I appreciate the compliment.

[Russell Sansom]

I like a considerable "run off" in my shooting boards. That is, some runway past the stop. When I shoot, it's a high inertia affair, so I like a little more length that you show here, both fore and aft.
Like Jim, my fences come out when necessary. A little wedge shape works. Drive the wedge all the way home and trim / shoot the end when installed in the board. As it wears, gets frazzled, etc., I just take a swipe or two down the wedge. When I put the fence back on it will once again protrude past the shooting edge, so trim / shoot, etc. Works pretty well. If the groove isn't 5/16 or more deep it's hard to keep the fence seated.

[Jim Paulson]

John,

Nice work on the saw horses and the shooting boards. The beauty of woodworking is that there is more than one way to do just about anything. I've made three shooting boards so far after I saw Mike Dunbar's article in Popular Woodworking, and all of them feature fixed fences. The way I see it you can always make them adjustable later or add shims to correct them to the correct angle. I've had to do that with other jigs I've made over the years.

Take care,
Jim

[john brenton]

How do you like that Hoffman and Hammer bench? I saw them at Highland and they seemed really solid and sweet. Worth the price?

[Randy Briggs]

How do you like that Hoffman and Hammer bench? I saw them at Highland and they seemed really solid and sweet. Worth the price?

Used one at Roy's school -very nice. He's got 12 of them. Almost made me want a tool tray.

[John A. Callaway]

love the bench. It is the small one... could use a bit more weight when I push the number 8 on it.... but the tool cabinet helps alot... the tool tray.... I am indifferent about it... it just holds planes now, nothing else.... so It is easy to clean out with the shop vac... which I do after every session....

as for the boards.... they take twenty minutes to build and about 5 bucks worth of wood.... so if it runs out of square I will just make another one and toss the old one... and after using the first one, I didnt really see the need to make it any longer... but we will see.... plus, you gotta keep in mind my bench is just over twenty inches across ... I think about 22 or 23 inches wide... the plane is just over 15 inches long.... and I dont want to push it into the wall and make a plane shaped hole in it.....

And john.... we really ought to meet up at some point... you are welcome to come test drive the bench anytime....

[Russell Sansom]

I clamp my shooting boards between dogs and shoot east-west. I can't quite picture the action if I have to lean/reach forward at the end of the stroke. When you turn your plane over to shoot in the other direction because of grain, does that mean you pull instead of pushing? How do you shoot a long board?

[John A. Callaway]

well.... I haven't encountered shooting a long board yet.... So I don't know how I will do it yet. I have yet to build anything long.... there is always vertical edge jointing....

And for the other side and opposite grain... wouldnt you just flip the piece end for end and the rotate it 180 to use the other side ? I am not following you here.... I built them to use both sides so I wouldnt wear down one side of the blade between sharpenings... this way I can use both sides of the blade...

[Pam Niedermayer]

well.... I haven't encountered shooting a long board yet.... So I don't know how I will do it yet. I have yet to build anything long....

A sticking board is the tool for this. I made a very long one by using the back of my bench and 4X4 mounted slightly below the top to create a ledge. Works great. An example can be seen here (http://dans-woodshop.blogspot.com/2008/07/sticking-board.html).

Pam

[John A. Callaway]

I remember reading about those now. Thanks for the link.

[Russell Sansom]

John,
I apologize for the way I begged the question with the long board response. I didn't mean any disrespect...I'll blame it on late night posting.
Vertical edge jointing (freehand) is great for bring a board down to size, but it can't compete with a shooting board for straight and square. I have tried the method where you clamp the two boards to be edge-jointed together both good faces out or both good faces in and plane them as a unit...then the angles will complement, but I always found it tough control straightness.
About flipping the board...I guess it's something I hadn't considered. If I'm edge jointing, then I joint one board face up and one face down so the angles complement. Otherwise I tend to want to leave the board where it is until I'm finished with it. It's just a flick of the wrist to turn the plane over end for end and pull if the grain changes direction in the middle of a face.

[John A. Callaway]

no disrespect assumed Russell... that is what the forum is for... to share ideas and to learn a little something from your peers. I always appreciate any feed back I get from every thread I post.... criticism and instruction are how you get better at doing what we do.

[Jim Paulson]

Thanks Pam,

That was a great illustration you offered. My largest shooting board is 4 feet long, and the sticking board would really make sense for working on long molding.
Jim

[John A. Callaway]

have the day off from playing with the trains. So I knocked out a small project for a co-worker and built the other horse.


the new one is on the left, what an improvement over the first mortise....although the little flush cutting saw from LV didnt exactly cut flush...
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN3007.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN3010.jpg

the little MDF console on top is for a boat's center console. My buddy is going to fiberglass it in, and mount a few radios in the face of it.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN3013.jpg

today, we have the house opened up and are enjoying the natural light and great weather. Hope you guys up north are enjoying the snow ... :D:D:D The bench sure does look inviting in this light.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j87/trainman0978/DSCN3015.jpg

[Jim Paulson]

John,
Your work area does look pretty neat, clean and yes invites one to work. One can see the improvement on the horses. Being a perfectionist it is nice for me to remind myself every now and then, heh those are saw horses and they are meant to be used. A flush cut that isn't so flush really is unimportant. I say that and you watch me fuss when I eventually build a saw bench used by Chris Schwarz

Yours look great and yet they are not massive like the ones I once made out of 4x4s and 2x4s. My more recent ones were the lighter stacking kind that Roy Underhill featured on his website awhile back.

Best regards,
Jim

[John A. Callaway]

that was sort of Krenov's argument with these ...they look rather weak and flimsy... yet I can set my 190 pounds on one of them and it doesnt even bow ... and they sort of nest together to take up little space.... the nice thing is, if you want shorter ones you just make them shorter. Mine are right at waist height.... ( didnt measure, marked ) but I would guess close to 33-34 inches high... and each one only weighs a few pounds....

I am going to pick up a big supply of mahogany next week... and plan to stack it all on these ...( blanket chest/hope chest for my best friend's soon to be born daughter ) so look for a pick of a true strength test....