My shooting sux!
Let me be honest and start with that.
I made a shooting board a few years ago, and either my sharpening wasn't up to snuff (no, please no more sharpening threads yet) or I didn't have the correct geometry, or something. I used bevel down, bevel up, 25 deg, micro bevel - no matter what, it just wasn't happening.
In fact I'm now building a pair of cabinets, and the design plan was to band the tops including 45 deg mitres, but alas, I ended up saying "furgedabouid" until I could make a better plan.
Yesterday I birthdayed myself a R-H shooting plane during the "seconds" sale, and now I'm going to build not only a shooting board to house the plane, but also a few attachments.
Since the plane is wider than my current board allows anyway, building a new shooting board is needed.
Question 1: Because I was unhappy with the planes I was using staying on track, I had already bought but not installed a 16" shooting board track. My old board is 24" in length. Since I have very little extra space for jigs and stuff, should my shooting board be made for a 24" track - opinions, please.
Question 2: I'm as lazy as the next person. A ramped shooting board uses more of the blade per cut, which to me translates to less time sharpening. I've seen the ramped shooting boards on YouTube, and in fact on Derek's site. Since really, I only want to make one, if possible, is it more worth my while to make the ramped board, as my all-around-er?
Yes, I do plan to have a design which will let me shoot 45 deg. mitres.
Thanks for the input, folks.