Shooting board - ramped or no?

[Clifford McGuire]

I've used a basic homemade shooting board for 10 years or so. But for some reason, it didn't make the move from our old house. Probably because it looked like a worn out piece of plywood scrap.

So, it's time to make a new one. I've watched some youtube videos and am intrigued by the ramped version.

It makes for a much more complicated build. Is it worth it?

[Derek Cohen]

Clifford, 5 degree ramped board if you are using a plane with a straight blade, such as a LA Jack. Flat board if you have a skewed blade.

What the ramp does is allow the blade to enter progressively, rather than all at one. This reduces the impact quite significantly.

Some think that there is a slicing cut, or that the wear is spread on the blade. Not so.



The key to this design is the fence. This can slide side-to-side to take up wear, plus there is a little adjustment for squaring up. And it can alter to a mitre cut ..





Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Koepke]

As Derek says, it depends on the plane in use.

With planes like the Veritas or LN Shooting Planes there is no need to make a ramped shooting board.

jtk

[Thomas Crawford]

Now I'm inspired to make a new one out of hardwood. Thanks for posting Derek.

[Clifford McGuire]

Good to know Derek. I currently use a LV LA Jack, but have been thinking about a LV Shooting plane.

[John TenEyck]

IMO 5 degrees offers no real benefit. What little benefit there might be as the blade enters the cut is lost once it's all in the wood. The shear angle is too small to be of any measurable benefit. Shooting plane makers wouldn't set the iron at 20 deg if a lower value worked as well.

John

[Larry Frank]

So....what is the best angle. I am using an LN 4-1/2.

[Derek Cohen]

IMO 5 degrees offers no real benefit. What little benefit there might be as the blade enters the cut is lost once it's all in the wood. The shear angle is too small to be of any measurable benefit. Shooting plane makers wouldn't set the iron at 20 deg if a lower value worked as well.

John

John, my experience says otherwise. I began making ramped shooting boards at least 20 years ago, having earlier been introduced to them by Terry Gordon (HNT Gordon planes), who worked alongside Michael Connor, another Australian toolmaker. Michael was the only person I knew who to make a ramped shooting board. At the time I was using a 60-degree HNT Trying Plane to shoot end grain, and this really showed up the advantage of the ramp.

Michael Connor’s shooting board (left) alongside one of mine, at a woodshow in 2008 …



Early model with HNT Trying plane …



I spent several years tinkering with the design. Sold a few around the world. The design was copied by Tico Vogt when he made his first generation Super Chute.

Today I mainly use a Veritas or LN shooting plane on a Stanley #52 chute board, but do pull out an use the ramped board with a low angle strike block I built ..



It is largely used for shooting long mitres …



Regards from Perth

Derek

[Paul Bent]

I love mine. One needs to consider that on exiting the cut, it remains as gentle as the entry. I keep a spacer block in the hollow and use mine as a bench hook for sawing too. It is easier to drop down the heel of the saw.

[William Fretwell]

Back to basics!

With a 5 degree slope the progressive entering of the blade is trivial. Depending on the thickness of the piece the lateral travel of the blade may be significant. If the wood climbs an inch it means you used an inch more of the blade. Very basic.

Using more blade means the edge stays sharp longer, also sharpening is easier as the wear is spread out over a longer edge.

If the wood is thin compared to the lateral movement you get fresh blade several times over during the cut.

So yes in many cases a ramped shooting board is a plus. If the board and plane blade width are closely matched in width then a ramped board may not work. Using a 5 &1/2 may be a plus for a ramped board.

At least you are not pushing the plane uphill .

[Charles Guest]

The iron in a shooting plane shouldn't need honing during the course of shooting for an entire furniture project, maybe two, regardless of what kind of board you're using. If it does, you aren't getting close enough with the saw. Two or three passes, tops, on any given workpiece. The material removed should be so thin as to practically melt when held in the sweaty palm of your hand. If your sawing is consistently too wide of the line, then shoot it in your vice for a few strokes and then take it to the board. The board is not for removing bulk material. Not even close. You really shouldn't need to shoot square ends but once in a blue moon. Incise a line and split it with your saw. A swipe or two with a bench plane or block plane should be all that's necessary and not even that every time. Very wide carcase pieces are shot square and smooth in your vice. They are too wide for a shooting board.

Unless every carcase you build is dead square, and I mean dead square (and no bumps or humps), a lot of moulding will need its angle slightly adjusted with a bench chisel anyway. Putting a perfect 45* set of mouldings on a slightly out of square carcase will result in a gap somewhere. A lot of times this is screened with a small moulding that's flexible enough to be pinned in tight to cover, but not always. Point is, you may shoot to a perfect 45*, when the 46* you had before you shot it was actually what you needed in the first place. "Easing into the cut" "shearing cut" and all of that is essentially nonsensical since you're not removing enough material in a pass to matter.

A ramped board would have been a 'thing' in a production hand shop, where workers had the specific task of putting out dozens and dozens of feet of moulding a day on a piecework basis. A donkey's ear shoot is built to facilitate shooting wide mouldings, not as a strategy to prolong an edge.

Even on a large case project, with complicated base, waist, and crown, the sole practitioner's shooting plane should have no trouble getting through the entire project with an intact edge - even irons from Stanley, Record, and the like.

Look at a large carcase project, photo is fine, and do the mental arithmetic on how many inches of ends of mouldings you'd have had to shoot to trim out the entire project. It won't be more than three or four feet of ends, and very likely less.

My advice is to metaphorically stick your fingers in your ears when you read any thread and posts on a woodworking forum that prominently features the phrase "edge life." It's usually all downhill from there, will give you an inferiority complex, or make you feel as if you need to spend a lot of money, time, or both on something when you don't really need to at all.

Unless your shop is completely climate controlled, I'd build jigs out of MDF and/or good quality plywood. Cuban mahogany would work too, if you have some of it lying around. ;-)

[James Pallas]

Changes the cutting angle just like skewing the plane on any other surface. Makes some difference.
Jim

[William Fretwell]

Clearly I’ve been making my shooting board work too hard! Must improve my hand sawing!
I have found periodic stropping on leather with green compound does bring back the smoothest of cuts with white oak and the like.

My board is not ramped, it’s built to maximise the available depth.

I wonder why the production shop would use a ramped board for mass production if not to use more of the blade? It is the only reason I can see to justify a ramped board. As a mere amateur I am content with my straight board.

[Jim Koepke]

It has been a while for me since playing with the numbers, my calculation with a 5º ramp over 12" would have a rise of 1.05". With a 4/4 piece of wood it seems ~2" of blade would be engaged in the work.

--My calculations could be wrong. Tangent of 5º=0.0875 the adjacent… OOPS! It just hit me that the 12" might be the hypotenuse, interesting the sine for 5º is 0.0871557, so the answer would be a rise of 1.045". About the same as before.

Probably doesn't make much difference if the ramp or the support board is inclined.

jtk

[Derek Cohen]

William, these two ramped boards belong to a high-end professional furnituremaker/designer. One is a reverse ramped board, which is used for shooting veneer.

Nothing fancy, just MDF.



A shooting board is not intended to do grunt work. It is for tweaking/fine tuning.

To repeat what I wrote earlier: the 5 degree ramp is sufficient to make a difference in practice. This is not theoretical. Secondly, the ramp does not widen the wear on the blade. This is miniscule.

Regards from Perth

Derek