Shooting Boards Do I really Need Them?

[Prashun Patel]

A shooting board acts like a paring chisel: If you saw perfectly you don’t need to use it.

Where it shines for me is matching parts. I still end up with some openings and parts and faces that are out of square. The shooting board allows me to tweak mating faces just shy or proud of 90.

It is also less stress for me often to cut close and shoot to perfection. I do this with smaller parts that are easy to handle this way. For longer, larger, heavier, the inconvenience of this approach makes accurate sawing more critical for me.

[J. Greg Jones]

Made a chuting board a few years ago, as everyone said "You HAVE to have and use one" sort of thing.....have actually used it...twice? Too much time to set the blasted thing up, as I wind up having to clear away a space on the bench, first. Yet, even while doing a test cut on the latest Mitre box I just cleaned up...
Attachment 409726
Just a test on the 45 degree setting...
Attachment 409727
On a piece of treated spindle stock...after I had tried out the 90 degree setting....saw will need a swipe with the candle....makes the saw slide a bit better..

I use my shooting boards primarily for squaring stock at 90 degrees, but even if we are discussing miters only your pictures don’t demonstrate how accurately your saw cuts. That cut pictured could be 45*, or 46*, or 43*, who knows? Same for the corner braces... If you want to brag on the accuracy of a mitre saw, you’ll need to make your cuts on four equal length pieces and show us how well the entire frame fits together.

[steven c newman]

Ok...( or you can just stop in sometime, and try it yourself...)
slotted.jpg
Base for a Computer desk project...
IMG_7289 (640x480).jpg
Desk itself sat on a frame that went onto the base...tenon fits into a groove..
chiseled.jpg
That a chisel had to make..
dry fit.jpg
Dry fit.
4 corners.jpg
The four corner blocks I used above for the computer desk build...
IMG_7267 (640x480).jpg
Close enough. These are what I use to assemble a table with, they get screwed and glued into the corners, to square the aprons and legs. later, a slot is drilled, to allow a screw through, to attach a top to the table. Have also used these sort of blocks to attach a top to a chest of drawers.....and ...YES these are 45 degree cuts.
Porch Project, angle set,19 degrees.JPG
Sooo, how would you adjust a chuting board to for a 19 degree cut?
Porch Project, Ballisters started.JPG
Lots of them, too...haven't got all day, either.

[Jim Koepke]

[edited]
Sooo, how would you adjust a chuting board to for a 19 degree cut?

Same way as doing it for a 3º cut:

Big Tweezy Shooting.jpg

Here it is done with the grain.

Or any other angle:

Vertical Face Wedge.jpg

A different aproach:

Horizontal Wedge.jpg

These two were done across the grain.

For a different effect:

Pyramid with Sharp Blade.jpg

Now if that needed to be done to a top of a 4X4 fence post maybe a miter saw would be my choice.

My recollection is after looking at this image the work was touched up. Things look different blown up on a computer screen.

jtk

[lowell holmes]

Showoff!

[J. Greg Jones]

Sooo, how would you adjust a chuting board to for a 19 degree cut?
Porch Project, Ballisters started.JPG
Lots of them, too...haven't got all day, either.

Well, if I was doing a home improvement project I would cut them with my mitre saw the same way you did. If I was doing a fine woodworking project that needed precision 19* mitres, years ago I would shoot them similar to what Jim shared. Today it would be even easier-all I need to do is set the fence on my Lee Valley shooting board to 19*.

[steven c newman]

hmmm...
front corner.jpg
Rachel's Standing Desk in Cherry and Curly maple...or..
IMG_7445 (588x640).jpg
GranDaughter's Writing desk, in Ash...
IMG_7446 (483x640).jpg
No shooting board was used....none needed.

[Brian Holcombe]

Everyone to their own method. I use a shooting board every time a drawer front, back are sides are sized and fitted. Similarly, in situations where pieces need to be planed with precision, it is handy - not essential .. nothing is - to use a shooting board. I do not own a chop saw, and likely never will, and even a crosscut table on a slider will not achieve the precision that a shooting board can.
Regards from Perth

Derek

I'm making crosscuts on the Ulmia tablesaw and the Omga chopsaw that I verify for squareness with a precision (hand scraped) angle block and surface plate. They're perfect and repeatable. Especially so in the size range of most drawers.

I'm not a shooting board fan in recent years, I'd much rather plane end grain in a vise.

[Derek Cohen]

I'd much rather plane end grain in a vise.

Brian, you have different requirements to 90% here. You have deadlines to meet, and have increasingly been turning to machines to aid you here. Your Ulmia is stunning - mouthwatering - and the Omga is beyond the dreams of most. I had not even heard of one until your restoration.

For myself, it depends on the thickness of the board, for example, I would rather shoot an edge that is 1/4" thick. I rarely shoot anything over 1/2", with the exception of drawer fronts. Carcase sides are typically 19 - 22mm and are planed in a vise. I could get pretty damn close with my K3 slider, but old habits die hard, and I finish/fine tune with hand tools.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks, appreciate the compliment.

I teach people how to woodwork with hand tools and have moved away from using shooting boards wherever feasible, they're often a spot for chip outs, so when I can mark in from the edges and transfer marks to meet lengths I'd rather do that than to shoot and compare.

It is certainly useful for drawer making, that is one of the last places I'd still keep using it for students as well.

I'm happier planing in toward center on anything either big or wide.

[Warren Mickley]

A shooting board acts like a paring chisel: If you saw perfectly you don’t need to use it.

Where it shines for me is matching parts. I still end up with some openings and parts and faces that are out of square. The shooting board allows me to tweak mating faces just shy or proud of 90.

It is also less stress for me often to cut close and shoot to perfection. I do this with smaller parts that are easy to handle this way. For longer, larger, heavier, the inconvenience of this approach makes accurate sawing more critical for me.

We are using the plane in a fundamentally different way. We are not just running the plane over a "perfectly" sawn surface. We are using the plane so as to true up the surface by judiciously planing the high spots only. For end grain we usually knife the board all the way around and then plane to the line. We are planing to true the edge and planing to length simultaneously. We use the same approach for planing edges: we identify the high spots and plane only those spots to true the surface.

[David Ryle]

Cutting mitres for an old home, windows, doors etc; for me that's where it really shows its utility. Just my two cents.