Make perfect, square boards with the Advanced Shooting Board // Essential Hand Tool Jig

if you're doing any hand sawing in your shop you need a shooting board no matter how steady your hand no matter how expensive your saw your cut won't be perfectly square all the time heck it won't be perfectly square most of the time a shooting board fixes all these problems it's just a flat platform with a track to hold a hand plane and a fence set at 90 degrees the fence holds your work while you move your plane back and forth and slowly feed the wood into the plane with this setup the plane can take fine shavings and slice cleanly through those tough end grain fibers your right angle is built into the jig so you don't need to worry about it and the fence supports the back edge of the wood so you won't blow it out while you're shooting with a well-built shooting board you can get perfect 90 degree ends even if you're still learning to use your tools but here's the problem you build a shooting board so that you can get perfect 90 degree ends on your boards but in order for it to work the board itself has to have a perfect 90 degree angle built in and maybe you're a new hand tool woodworker maybe you're struggling to get precision in your work so how are you supposed to build the damn thing don't worry i've come up with a straightforward design that you can make completely by hand and still get perfect accuracy in the final product this shooting board is flat and square and the fence is adjustable so you can dial in a square cut even if it's not absolutely perfect when you build it when you're done you'll have a reliable shop fixture that's going to be durable and give you years trouble for brexit no man no no no you're doing it all wrong man okay first off you're making a simple shooting board here now that's like one step up from a bench hook but we really want to have a shooting board that can do some fun things like see now this this is a shooting board not only can it do 90 degrees this can also do miters and we can put it to any angle so if we want to do a hexagon a septagon or something with multi-sides or i could even grab this and now we put that in there we can do donkey ears bells and whistles man bells and whistles this is what a shooting board is all about and besides anyone can make a regular shooting board but it takes wooden shoes to make one this cool oh did i mention that this build is a collaboration with james from wood by right i've been looking forward to it [Applause] over the years i've built a bunch of different shooting boards and every design i've used has had some shortcomings some of them don't stay square others aren't sturdy enough and there are others that i like but they're hard to build the problem you have with any shooting board is your fence right here needs to be at a perfect 90 degrees to the track it's got to be perfectly square and it's got to stay perfectly square so a good solution that a lot of people use is they just install this fence permanently this one is glued and screwed in place and it's not going to move no matter what happens problem is it's always getting knocked around by the shooting plane and the fence is made of solid wood so it could move what happens over time is this fence is going to drift out of true and it's not impossible to trim it back straight but it's not easy now another design that a lot of people like is a wedged design so here's another kind of shooting board and here the fence is sitting in a tapered slot in the board this has obvious advantages it's held really tightly and if anything happens to your fence you can just pull it out make a new one and put a new one in there it's a great design the only problem is you still need absolute perfection on this 90 degree slot or it doesn't matter what you do with your fence the board is still going to be inaccurate another popular solution is to use an adjustable fence that's just held down with some sort of threaded hardware this is a great idea because then your fence can be micro adjusted and you can dial in something perfect but while you're using it while you're running that plane back and forth well you might knock that fence just a tiny bit out of alignment and then you might not even notice until you're deep into a project and that can be very inconvenient so here's what we're going to do instead with the design we're using in this video we're going to combine a fixed fence with a movable fence the fixed fence is glued and screwed to the shooting board so it's not going to move no matter what and it doesn't have to be perfectly square because we're also adding an adjustable fence that's held on with hardware and slotted so it can move back and forth and be shot in and trued up over time as it gets chewed up if the original fence isn't 100 perfect well then the movable fence can be shimmed or trimmed or adjusted to make everything perfect and if it ever needs to be replaced you can just replace this one little bit and the rest of the shooting board is still going to work great traditionally shooting boards were made from solid wood but that stuff moves and seasonal movement is going to throw our shooting board out of square for this build we're going to go with engineered materials the base of my board is this piece of melamine it's really flat and stable because it's just particle board with a plastic coating on each face there's no need to pay for it melamine is what most ikea furniture is made out of just wait until someone's throwing away a cheap bookcase and grab the shelves i always keep a couple in the shop you're also going to need a half inch thick piece of some other engineered wood i'm going with birch plywood but you can also use mdf or even more melamine if that's what you've got sitting around i'm sure someone has an opinion on my choice of materials yeah um unfortunately i have to agree with you there plywood really is the way to go working composite materials with hand tools is no problem and cheap tools are actually better for this kind of work my inexpensive hardpoint saw goes right through this melamine without the saw teeth getting ruined and i can plane the edges no problem plywood and particle board are hard on blades so i do most of the work with my cheap scrub plane and then just bring in a nicer plane at the very end plywood is the same way it planes with no trouble the edge i'm working here is the edge my plane will ride against and it needs to be perfectly straight a long jointer plane would be handy but you can joint stock with a short plane just by checking it with a straight edge and then selectively working on the high spots if you don't have a straight edge that's okay too just use the factory edge of your shelf it should be very straight here's the basic construction the melamine gives a low friction track for the plane and the plywood keeps the plane traveling straight and elevates the work so that it's in contact with the blade now there's always a problem with sawdust getting caught in the corner and pushing your plane away from the track but that's an easy fix i'm just going to plane a narrow chamfer on the edge of my plywood and when i put that chamfer down against the base it forms a dust groove that will keep the plane running true laminating the parts together can take a lot of clamps but an easy work around is to use screws together with glue to make a strong bond without any clamping i'm using my big wooden tri-square to lay out the locations to drill the screws i bore the countersink first which keeps the bit on track and gives me a smooth hole then i can drill through both boards and pre-thread my screws what kind of newfangled witchcraft is going on with that brace come on man we want to do some real boring work no argument from me james you do the most boring work every week wood glue won't stick to low friction melamine so we're going to use epoxy and a bit of blue tape to keep the adhesive off the plane track you'll need to rough up the surface with a bit of sandpaper mix up a generous blob of five-minute epoxy and lay it down evenly with an old credit card since everything is already pre-drilled you can use two screws to align your pieces and there's no messing around while you've got the clock ticking with quick set adhesive an electric drill driver does make this work fast but you can do it the old-fashioned way and it won't take much longer of course once my two pieces were together i took a look and realized they were quite twisted so before the glue had a chance to set up i pulled out all the fasteners yanked the two boards apart and then redid it i clamped the whole thing flat to my workbench and ran the screws in again now this might not happen to you but it is something to look out for during the build once it's assembled there's no need to wait for the glue to dry the fasteners will keep everything together and i can add a cleat to the underside where it will register against the edge of my bench and resist the pushing force of the plane people often get confused about how a shooting board can work they think well you've got a plane and it's riding back and forth on this track with the blade sticking out so of course the plane blade must always be chewing away at this plywood and eventually ruin the shooting board well it doesn't actually work like that if you look at any of your bench plans carefully you'll see that the blade extends most of the way across the sole but there's a little lip over here where the blade doesn't cover this part right here can't cut into your jig so the plane will cut but only for the first few strokes then the sole comes into contact with the wood and it stops cutting here i'm deliberately making these first cuts this is called running in and it's essential for accuracy in the next step now to place my fence i don't want to reference off the edge of the plywood instead i'm going to use the sole of the plane since that's the thing that really needs to be perpendicular to the fence i'm using a metal combination square here but you can use a homemade wooden square if you just retract your plane blade and keep it out of the way my fence is just any square hunk of hardwood and you can see me applying the glue very thinly when i place my fence against my square i have a second to make adjustments but that thin layer of glue tacks up very fast if i added a clamp or fasteners now the fence would move so i just walk away and let it dry overnight the next day i add long screws for a solid hold and then i use my plane to trim off the little bit of the fence i left overhanging the track at this point i could stop and have a totally functional shooting board but that fixed fence would give us trouble eventually if we look at my old shooting board we can see that it's still square but the fence has gotten really chewed up over the years it's not supporting the edge of the wood anymore and i can tilt my plane without even noticing which is very bad for accuracy so my new board will have a second fence that's both adjustable and replaceable my new shooting board is great for cross cutting and i've actually stopped using a bench hook for sawing it's much better just to have one appliance that lets you saw the piece and then immediately true it up with the plane i want an accurate fit between my two fences you can see here that i've got a bit of a gap but it's easy to plane my second fence a little bit and get rid of that wobble when the front of my fence isn't exactly square i can adjust that too it's worth taking a little extra time to get things really perfect to hold my adjustable fence i'm using this cheap furniture hardware you can pick this up at the big box store and i will link to it down in the description but you could also just use a couple of machine screws or nuts and bolts anything threaded will get the job done i drill my fence place my screws and then give them a tap to mark my drilling location on the board then i drill all the way through my base which lets me flip the board over and countersink for my hardware a dab of super glue is enough to hold things in place these nuts won't be under much pressure my movable fence needs slots instead of holes so that it can travel from side to side so i add two more holes and use my diy turning saw to slice out the waste in between those holes this tool makes it easy and you can build your own for a few dollars i'll link to the video and the plans down in the description whatever hardware you use you might find it's too long luckily trimming screws to length is easier than you think you just cut off the unneeded section with a hacksaw and then dress the end with a file to get rid of any burrs and restore the slight taper that helps the screw start in the nut you can really tell by eye when you've got good threads that will start cleanly screw your fence down so that it overhangs just a bit and then shoot it even with the fixed fence now you can test your shooting board with any random plank of wood as long as it has one straight edge to sit against the fence i got lucky and my shooting board produces a perfect 90 degree angle already but if yours is a little bit off it's no problem this is why the second fence is adjustable you can loosen your screws and shim the adjustable fence with a bit of paper or a plane shaving to get that perfect 90 degree angle as your fence inevitably gets chewed up from shooting you can just slide it out over the track and shoot it square again and if your fence ever needs to be replaced you can make a new one without making any changes to the rest of the board for instance i forgot to chamfer the bottom edge of my fence and you need a place for dust to go just like we did with the edge of the plywood adding that detail is easy and i don't have to change anything else now as it is our shooting board is already great for short pieces of wood like this they balance on the board no problem and all i have to do is push them forward while i'm shooting the problem comes when i start to use longer pieces of wood like this one the board isn't wide enough to support the whole piece of stock and while i'm holding it i've got to be pushing it against the fence and pushing down on it pretty hard while i try to concentrate on shooting getting a good edge and the board is always trying to flop down onto the bench and mess up my accuracy now a lot of people make a much wider shooting board to fix this problem but i'm working on a small bench here and i don't really have the real estate luckily there's an easy solution that doesn't take up much space i've got a long scrap of hardwood that's just a little taller than my shooting board i trace the height with a pencil and plane it down then i can add a cleat so it catches the edge of my bench and because we need one slick feature i'll drill the side of the fence and epoxy ins little neodymium magnets those magnets will hold screws pressing those screw tips to the side of the shooting board gives me the location to drill and install more magnets and because we want the finished board to be easy to grab i'm going to drill a nice big hole in this lower corner and cut a smooth radius with my turning saw the final board is a bit more high-tech looking than i'd planned but all the features make it easier to use and more durable take a day to make this thing you'll have it for years so i just cut this board and i want to shoot the end my shooting board is conveniently stored right under my bench and it sets up in seconds the board i'm shooting is especially long so i set up the support block and now my stock is held flat and steady and i can get on with trimming it i've been using a support block with my old shooting board for over a year and i find the space in between makes a great place to set a couple of edge tools it's like having a little tool well and you can lay boards right across without bothering your tools of course some clever person is going to tell me that the magnets i've installed are going to stick to my tools but it's not a problem you can get really close to those magnets before they actually grab anything so the world is filled with complicated shooting board designs and honestly i kind of like them i sort of like gizmos but when i'm actually making furniture i shoot a hundred plain old 90 degree angles for every single miter that i shoot and i never shoot anything besides a 90 and a 45 so i keep a dedicated miter shooting board just hanging on the wall i don't use it very often so it doesn't get messed up and pretty much never needs to be replaced but in the interest of fairness let's hear what james has to say you know to be completely honest 99.9 of all the work i've ever done on shooting board works phenomenally with just a standard shooting board so what rex is doing is the best way to get started and get you into a shooting board but if you're one of those people who you just want to have a little bit more this is really kind of set up for that with this slope on here i can then do box miters where i can pop this off because it just has simple pins in there with this jig on here i can loosen this up with one hand and now i can set it to any angle i want very specific accurate angles on there and i can do picture frame miters as well as any other shape if i want to do pentagon miters it's really quick and easy set up on there lock it down and you're shooting so if you want to see something with a few more bells and whistles um there you go now if i'm being totally honest i actually really like james's board he has packed a ton of features into that thing it's extremely useful it's really thoughtful it is complex but he's still doing the same thing i am looking out for the hand tool woodworker in the small shop trying to make things accessible because let's be honest any idiot can make a good shooting board with a table saw i mean seriously how do you think i built this one now i always have plans available and this time is no different they are long detailed and very affordable and james and i are doing a special deal if you buy my plans at the regular price we're going gonna throw in james's plans for free and if you buy james's plans from him you get my plans for free you can buy them from either one of us it doesn't make any difference while you're watching this video you might have been interested in my diy turning saw and my miter shooting board you can get both of these tools along with four other jigs and tools for your hand tool shop in my journeyman's plan bundle it's got six plans in it at a really low price you can check out the link to all the different plans and bundles that i have down in the description or you can go to rexkrueger.com store and let me be honest here i give james a really hard time on camera but the reality is i like him a lot james was the first other creator to treat me like a colleague and to help me promote my channel when i was just getting started i probably wouldn't be where i am without him and huge thanks for the fun rex this has been a blast we got to do more like this so anytime you want back at you buddy and james and i both know that we wouldn't be here at all without our patrons our channel members and our viewers thanks so much for watching

Channel: Rex Krueger

Views: 68,923

Rating: 4.9602385 out of 5

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Id: JbpwDufvzSo

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 04 2020