# Couple of Shooting Boards



## OPJ (6 Aug 2008)

While everyone else appears to be in the 'Shooting Board Spirit' I thought I'd share a couple of my own, completed very recently. :wink: 

First up is my standard 90º shooting board. I made it from two layers of 6mm MDF with a central core of 12mm and also decided to lip the 'shooting edge' in ash for greater resistance. I would like to have covered the runway in a thin plastic laminate but the stuff I have is about 1.5mm thick and, with that, the iron on my Stanley no. 4 1/2 would begin cutting above the top surface.

I picked up a very good tip from someone on these forums - I think it might have been Rob? - to use roundhead screws when securing the stop/fence as countersunks can shift things as the head bites down. I also elongated the outermost hole to allow for minor adjustments. Maybe I'll glue it on, one day, when I'm feeling very confident...  

I have since replaced the fence with one that's much taller - I made this board with a 19mm thick stop and then realised I'll be wanting to plane some 22mm thick stuff fairly shortly!  :roll:  







Next up is my board for shooting 'long' mitres. Identical setup with the fences as in the one above except, obviously, these are set at 45º. :wink: It's 600mm long but I do think I could perhaps have made it a little longer still. If I have to work with anything wider than 3" say, I think I may struggle to keep it still. But, it works well enough for now.  






I also have a Donkey's Ear Shooting Board somewhere but I may try and reverse it so that the timber slopes _down_ towards the plane.

Now, all I need is a lovely low angle jack plane!! :wink:


----------



## Steve Maskery (7 Aug 2008)

HI Olly

It looks like you have exactly the same problem that I have - the bench is right up to the wall. This makes shooting with a long plane tricky, doesn't it?

I have a couple of SBs on my tuit list too. My current ones have upper guides as well as the lower one, but I'm not sure that I shal bother with that again, except on the bevel one, of course.

Anyway, my pointit that next time I'm going to mount the cleat on the underside at 30 degrees or so, so that when it is in the vice the SB is skewed on the bench. This will give me more shooting room in front of me, as well as helping long lengths to clear my SCMS, which is immediately to the left of mt bench.

Cheers
Steve


----------



## OPJ (7 Aug 2008)

Hi Steve,

It's not so much of a problem with my 90º but I'm only able to work from one end with the mitre jig. I think it might be better for me to take the back stop off and fit something underneath the left-hand edge that'll allow me to secure the jig in the vice.

I like the idea of off-setting the jig by 30º or so - wish I'd thought of that! :roll: :wink: 

...If sliding compound mitre saws cut as accurately as some manufacturers would have you believe then we probably wouldn't be discussing this right now....  :shock:


----------

