Shooting Boards

[Steve Friedman]

I know that end grain shooting boards are used mostly for relatively thin stock, but is there a reason not to use one for thicker stock? Besides being limited by the width of the plane blade, is there a reason not to use a shooting board with thicker (6/4) stock? Is it just too hard to get the plane through the end grain on something that thick?

Thanks in advance,

Steve

[Andrew Swartz]

I haven't used a shooting board on 6/4 or wider stock. I hadn't thought about why until you asked. The first thing that comes to my mind is that long, heavy stock would be difficult to handle in a shooting board. The beauty of a shooting board is that you use one hand to hold the stock and one hand to hold the plane. If you're trying to muscle a 6/4 slab of stock, that one hand might not be enough, and you'll face the challenge of not letting the far end of the stock tip the other out of square. Another important reason is that, at least on my shooting board, 6/4 is probably beyond the capacity of my shooting plane, when you factor in the edge against which the plane rides (3/4" in my case) and the stock (1.5"), you're out of blade. Plus, as you note, it isn't easy to try to take a single consistent end grain shaving off a piece of 6/4 stock. Not impossible, but you're going to need a really sharp blade and a clear conscience.

With thick stock, my typical practice is to knife the end the board, clamp it in a vise, and plane to the knife mark. In most cases I'll just do this with a block plane. But if I need a very clean end, I'll use something bigger, like a low angle jack.

You'll probably get as many different ways of doing this as you get responses. And nothing in my response should suggest that you can't use a shooting board on really thick stock. I just prefer not to. Try out a few different methods and pick the one that works best for you.

[Jim Koepke]

I do it occasionally. Just use a plane with a wide blade or a shooting board with a thin support.

jtk

[Tony Shea]

I've done this as well with soft wood only though. I actually was not that happy with the results and effort involved. I think if you really wanted to shoot such thick stock then somehow you would have to have the blade at an angle to the stock, such as the #51 shooting plane. Hitting such wide stock all at once along the cutting edge makes for very difficult planing.

I agree in that knifing a line and planing to that line is probably the better way to go about this. This is the technique I've resorted back to.

[tico vogt]

Are you planing the end grain of 6/4 stock to clean it up after sawing and polishing it for a final finish? If so, my choice would be to use a low angle jack like a L-N Low Angle Jack to shave to a knife line, providing a backer piece on the far edge to avoid spelching. As Tony mentioned, skew the plane as it travels. If you need to fit the workpiece to a very specific dimension, as in a drawer front, then a shooting board is the appliance of choice. Make sure the fence is high enough to support the work.

You will take no more than a thou shaving with each pass and use an edge honed to 8000 grit or better.

[Russell Sansom]

When I was building Harpsichords and clavichords, I used a Bedrock 608 for shooting end grain on 2"+ hardwoods. The iron on a #8 is 2-5/8" wide, so it doesn't think twice.
I have shooting boards 2, 6, and 10 feet long plus an assortment of miters and odd balls. For me, shooting is the way to get machine-like precision for perfect and repeatable joinery. The shooting boards I use for big-lumber jointing have heavier fences than my everyday shooting boards and the tend to be dismantled and recycled after a project or two.

Try it and see for yourself. Narrow down the mouth a little and put a faint chamfer on the iron. Mine is probably high in the middle by 1/64" across 2-5/8". I've seen opinions on ww forums that a plane iron has to be flat to leave a flat surface, but that hasn't been my experience. The slightest of arcs will define a single entry point for the blade and, I think more importantly, will raise the PSI right at the time and the location of the iron's entry into the wood. It's the flying wedge version of a skewed iron that gradually increases the iron-to-wood contact as the stroke goes forward.

Tune up the plane and take absolutely the finest shaving you can. With any wood-luck you'll get translucent wisps and it'll feel like you're shaving something only a little stiffer than a bar of soap.

It goes without saying that tear out has to be accounted for.

[Andrew Swartz]

I have shooting boards 2, 6, and 10 feet long plus an assortment of miters and odd balls.

Russell -- I'd love to see some of your shooting boards and "odd ball" shooting set ups. I haven't found the need for machine-like precision to that degree, but it would be great to see some of the shooting jigs you use to get that level of precision.

[Steve Friedman]

Thanks for all the replies. To answer some of the questions, I have never used a shooting board, but finally realized why I need one while I was recently trying to plane some end grain that needed to be perfectly flat and square. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would also be really helpful to use something like a shooting board to flatten the bottoms of plain table legs (like square 1-1/2" x 1-1/2"). The problem is the thickness of the stock. That is why I was wondering what the practical limits were on using a shooting board.

Aside from the obvious limitation of the blade depth, I did wonder about how hard it would be to get a plane through the end grain of a piece of 6/4 stock. Using a ramped shooting board would seem to be a solution, but then I lose blade width. I guess the answer may be a shooting board may not be practical solution for stock thicker than 4/4.

Thanks again.

Steve

[Jim Koepke]

I guess the answer may be a shooting board may not be practical solution for stock thicker than 4/4.

I shoot thicker stock all the time. Usually 6/4 fir. With a #6, there is 2-3/8 inches of blade to work with. A #8 has 2-5/8 of blade.

One of the parameters is to not try to take it all off in one swipe. Another is to have a very sharp blade. Waxing the sole and the side is also helpful.

jtk

[Jonas Baker]

I too would love to see pictures of Russels assorted shooting boards. I use a simple a simple shooting board to joint pieces as thick as 8/4, such as when joining two pieces of wood for a guitar body, but this is not shooting endgrain. I see no reason why it wouldn't be possible to shoot thicker pieces of endgrain with a very sharp blade and a low angle plane or even just a normal angle plane that has a very sharp blade with a small mouth and set for very thin shavings. Of course, when jointing anything, a very very sharp blade is always necessary.

[Eric Brown]

While some like waxing the plane to make pushing it easier, I use a wide teflon tape on the shooting board. for the same reason.
Also, using denatured alcohol makes the fibers softer. I use a squirt bottle to apply.

Another very helpful device is a mitre vice. It makes shooting tendons and 45's pretty easy.

Eric

[Jim Neeley]

Teflon tape.. Fabulous idea, Eric! :)

[Russell Sansom]

I wish I had some time to show off the shooting boards, but the house and shop are upside down getting ready for the holiday season.

But here's one from a tambour door project.
This impromptu setup lasted two days. I clamped a stopped platform perpendicular to a 4' shooting board.
The tambours are cut very close to the correct length, then shot to precise length...usually 3 at a time because they act as one-anothers' backers.
This shooting board has a (very gentle ) wedge fence. It is a little narrower near the plane than on the other side of the shooting board.
It projects just as the tambours do, and is shot itself, to the correct length as a backer. When it gets worn, I tap the wedged fence in a hair and reshoot.
It seems to anger people when I talk about precision in wood, but my 100 tambours finished out within better than 1/64" of the same size.

I also shoot the tops and bottoms of table legs ( etc. ) in a similar way.
Harpsichords require as many as 183 "jacks", which are the lolly-pop-stick-shaped mechanisms that pluck the strings. This is another place in my woodworking world where great precision is essential.

Oh, BTW, you can wax the bottom of the plane, but if you wax the face it can cause some imprecision if you're shooting to length.

[Steve Friedman]

I also shoot the tops and bottoms of table legs ( etc. ) in a similar way.


Thanks for the picture. I am curious about how you shoot the tops and bottoms of legs. Do you mean that you do all 4 at the same time or just set up a stop to get a consistent length? Also, what do you do if the legs are thicker then the plane blade?

Steve

[Russell Sansom]

Yes. I make a package of all 4 legs by clamping them together as a unit.
When legs are greater than 2-1/2" I clamp them together as a unit and cut lines on both sides of both ends to create the cutoff line. If that is too unwieldy, I just make a nick with my knife at each end and cut the line in with a knife.
I then saw to the line and trim with a block plane or whatever bench plane that wants the job.

I always package things up this way when it's possible. I do all 4 dovetail tails by clamping the 4 boards together and cutting the tails as one unit. Of course this takes just the right joinery saws...that 4" packet can be a challenge depending on the wood, saw tooth count, and the phase of the moon.

Now I'm curious. How do you get the two sides and then the other two sides of a box the same length? If you shoot them together, as a unit, then there's nothing more to think about. They will be the same length by definition.

I'm starting a new thread with a miter "vise / shooting board" to show what it can do.

[Steve Friedman]

Now I'm curious. How do you get the two sides and then the other two sides of a box the same length? If you shoot them together, as a unit, then there's nothing more to think about. They will be the same length by definition.

I'm starting a new thread with a miter "vise / shooting board" to show what it can do.

That's why I asked. I'm looking forward to reading your thread!