Hi folks, I have a quick question about Shooting board design.
In general you have a base board that the plane rides on, a top board which acts like a fence for the plane and on which you place your stock, a 90° fence and a cleat. my question is about the top board.
the sole of my Low angle jack plane has 1/4" sides before you reach the cutting edge. To me this makes sense that the top board should be a hair above 1/4" thick - any less and the blade will begin above the workpiece you are trying to shoot, and any more and you are lessening the potential cut width.
The thing is, in all the plans I've seen online, they call for the top board to be around 1/2" thick (LN, LV).
I was wondering if there was a reason for that, something I wasn't getting
Thanks,
Assaf