Another Shooting Board?

[Jim Koepke]

Candy, aka SWMBO, liked some thin scrap pieces from the shop that had been planed for bookmarks. She showed them to one of our daughters. The daughter showed them to others. Now it seems everyone wants a wooden bookmark.

The first ones were made by clamping one end of the scrap and running a plane over it to get rid of the saw marks. Now it has become a habit to plane one side of the cut offs before ripping a piece in the bandsaw.

Recently an idea popped into my head to make a shooting board to make this quicker and easier.

A piece of alder firewood was planed, cut and a quick layout was drawn.

Part of the plan involves a stopped groove cut with a 1-1/4” blade in a Stanley #45. This starts with a stop cut about a 1/4” behind where the groove will end:

Start with a Stop Cut.jpg

This is set back from the actual end point because there is almost always a little break out. The extra space allows it to be cleaned up with a chisel.

The blade was given a fresh honing. The slitter blade depth stop had to be turned in toward the fixed skate. The auxiliary depth stop was set up on the movable skate. All the depth stops were set buy placing the #45 level on the bench and setting the stops even with the skates.

The planing begins:

Cutting Stopped Slot.jpg

Before making a permanent attachment on this it was given a test run:

Ready to Go.jpg

The vertical piece is the fence and well be the only part held in a vise. This let me know the fence shouldn’t be very tall to keep my hand from banging in to it.

First Run on Ash.jpg

The test run also let me know the work piece can’t be much longer than about 4 or 5 inches or it may buckle and break. This happened to the ash. My second try was on a thin piece cut off of a hunk of apple recently. It came out very nice:

Finished Pieces of Apple & Ash.jpg

It helps to mark the wood before starting to know which end is the start end for the start side. Then just flip it end for end and finish the back side.

A wide gouge with a shallow sweep makes trimming the end easy. A light sanding on the end also helps.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

Neat little project Sir!

[Jim Koepke]

Thanks Fred, It was just a bit of clean up in the shop from another project and all the scrap made me think of testing my theory on this.

It is nice to have a book mark strong enough to be used for opening a book. Plus, some of the scrap isn't good for much other than kindling.

jtk

[Jerome Andrieux]

Nice jig!
In an alternative setting, I have made dozens of bookmarks by flattening thick shavings over my stove pipe. One swipe of the plane, multiple bookmarks!

Beech, pear, walnut, hawthorn work great; oak and chestnut, not so much.
As thick as they can be for a shaving, they are fine enough to be translucent when brought to a light and to sit flat between pages.

[Jim Matthews]

That's clever.

The "pocket" is just a little wider than the blade?

[Jim Koepke]

That's clever.

The "pocket" is just a little wider than the blade?

If by "pocket" you mean where the 'bookmark' rests, it is 1-1/4" wide and the #5 has a 2" blade.

The blade set on a #45 doesn't have a 1" blade. It jumps from 7/8" to 1-1/4".

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

After a little fiddling around with rounding corners and laying out the placement of the two parts the pieces were attached with three screws:

Finished Bookmark Shooting Board.jpg

A #4 was used this time. A #5 has a longer toe and works a bit better for this kind of work.

To make a thinner book mark the blade may have to be advanced between passes.

jtk