Sandpaper and Plane Blades?

[Tom Blank]

The Neander Vortex is pulling me in. Made myself a shooting board, planing board, and a bench hook. The shooting board has an add-on miter fence and a bird house/donkey ear. All were plagiarized and adapted from various sources. Some of those sources added sandpaper to various faces to help secure the stock being worked.

After testing scrap stock and having it slip, I added PSA sandpaper on the two miter attachments, but stopped it just shy of the end of the fences since I thought the sandpaper would not be friendly to my plane blade. In doing that, I compromised the zero clearance support between the fence and the stock and now see some tear out on the back edge of the stock.

The question. Was I overly concerned about damaging the plane blade and should I have brought the sandpaper to the edge of the fence. Is there a better solution?

I'm in the midst of building jewelry/treasure boxes for two granddaughters. The shooting board and planing board are working well. I still have a way to go learning to dimension and true stock, but I have, for the first time, box fronts and backs and ends that match in length and mitered ends that are in fact 45*. Plus I listened to a jazz station over the sound of planing.

Will work on pictures to prove the jigs and boxes really happened.

Tom

[Jim Koepke]

There may be a few different solutions for your situation.

Have you tried chamfering the back edge before shooting the end grain? Even with a backer all the way up to the point of the plane blade can still have a little breakout at the end of the cut.

It might also to put the sand paper on the base instead of the fence. This would move the gripping power while leaving the back side fully supported.

Sometimes with small pieces a second piece can help to hold the piece being worked on. Similar to using a push stick on a saw, only this is a push handle for a shooting board.

Clamps can help, but it is a hassle if you have to make more than a few passes.

Good luck and let us know how it works for you.

jtk

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

unless I expect really nasty spelching, I generally just shoot my ends and then make a few passes on the edge with my jointer plane to remove the spelch.

[Jim Matthews]

There are alternatives, such as high-friction tape.

I doubt your sandpaper will last more than two passes, if the blade engages.
If it does, it won't creep out into the blade path again.

I believe our own Derek Cohen has shown sandpaper applied in just this manner.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=32184

[Chris Fournier]

I use sandpaper attached to my shooting board fence, I have it just short of the shooting edge by about 0.10". I don't have a problem with spelching as long as my blade is properly sharpened. I only use the sandpaper on my mitre inserts as I don't find that I need it for 90 degree work.

[Derek Cohen]

In addition to sandpaper, you can create a nonslip surface by spraying/painting varnish or, better still, epoxy onto the surface and then lightly sprinkling castor sugar (very fine sugar used in icing cakes) or fine salt over the top. This is how I used to make nonslip decks on windsurfers. I prefer this over sandpaper as it sits lower and does not lift. Control the sprinkle with a sieve.

As I mentioned in another thread, a backup board on a shooting board is good, but not essential. A tight fit does not last anyway. Become used to chamfering the rear end of the board, either with the plane or a chisel. This will prevent any spelching as long as you only plane to that depth.

Regards from Perth (currently Sarasota)

Derek

[Tom Blank]

Thanks Gentlemen for the cotinuing education. Think I'll move the sandpaper to the base and start using a chamfer on the back edge.