Shooting boards and senior moments

[Paul Chapman]

I've just made myself another shooting board. Previously, I've always screwed on the planing stop but having seen how Rob (Woodbloke) makes his with a wedge, I thought his method had some advantages.

Here's the finished shooting board

[/url][/img]

The board is made from MDF, with the baseboard lipped in softwood and the wedge made from a piece of scrap mahogany-type wood. The wedge has a slope of about 5 degrees, which seems to be a good slope to ensure it won't come out accidentally but can be easily removed with a sharp tap from a mallet.

You may also notice a piece of MDF behind the wedge. I routed a slot in the MDF exactly at 90 degrees to the edge then placed the wedge against the straight edge and used that to guide my router in order to get the other side of the slot at the correct angle. That's where the senior moment occurred :roll: The slot, of course, ended up wider than the wedge by the width of the cutter. I should have moved the straight edge down by the width of the cutter. Rather than cut another wedge, I glued in a piece of MDF, banging in the wedge, waxed to ensure it didn't get glued in, to hold it all firm.

[/url][/img]

Having finished the board and tried it out, my senior moment seems to have been a good thing, because the additional piece of MDF provides a very good and firm support for the wedge, which can take quite a bashing from planing end grain.

The advantage of using a wedge rather than a screwed on stop is that if the end gets at all damaged, it can be knocked out, a shaving or two taken from the sloping side, and replaced.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

Paul - that looks good....got any half-decent planes to use with it :lol: - Rob

 

[Waka]

Paul

Very very posh.

 

[newt]

Nice one Paul very smart job.

 

[George_N]

I've recently made a shooting board and I screwed the fence in place because I felt it gave me more chance to get it square, which is the whole point of a shooting board. I think I'd worry that the MDF would deform as the wedge was knocked in and out. Let us know how it works in practice, it's an interesting idea.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi George,

I'll certainly let you know how it works out. Fitting the planing stop as a wedge is not a new idea - Ernest Joyce shows the method in his book, although he used solid wood (don't suppose MDF was around in his day). I used to be a bit concerned that MDF might be a little soft for some jobs but I've been surprised over the years at how tough it can be. If you look at that first picture you can see the dog holes in my bench. That top is made from MDF and has had several years of hard use but the dog holes haven't deformed at all. I think that provided the wedge is a tight and exact fit in the slot, it shouldn't deform, but time will tell

With regard to squareness, provided the straight edge used to guide the router when cutting the slot is dead square, the slot will be square, as will be the wedge.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[engineer one]

nice one paul, that's not a senior moment, that's a new design standard :lol: :twisted:

actually that extra lump of mdf should ensure that the wedge stays stable,
and also allows you another slightly soft surface at the end of the plane stroke, so you won't damage the blade (well that's my excuse for your design asset :roll: )

paul :wink: