Shooting boards and wind
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Tagged: shooting, shooting boards, Wind
- This topic has 13 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 9 months ago by ehisey.
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21 September 2016 at 8:17 pm #140562
Hi All,
A couple of things I would like an answer to if possible:
1 Shooting boards – How can you shoot square ends to boards when the liklihood of the side of your plane being exactly 90 degrees to the sole? I have 5 planes and not one of them fulfils the necessary criteria. It seems that in order to obtain the required angle shims would need to be used and a plane dedicated to the task of shooting boards. Is this correct or am I missing something?
I did meet Ray Iles at a show and he used to dress planes so that the side and sole were at 90 degrees, but unfortunately he no longer provides this service as the return on the time needed to get this exactly right wasn’t high enough.
2 When I see people removing wind from boards they only ever seem to use their winding sticks at either end of a board – now if you’re mad enough to want to hand plane a 12ft board surely checking for wind would occur in several places along the length of the board
or – again – am I missing something?Thanks
Dean
21 September 2016 at 9:40 pm #140563I’m no expert and do assume that I may be talking a load of rubbish:
With regard to your planes not being 90′ could you adjust the lateral lever and make your blade skewed in relation to the sole to make it 90′ to the shooting board?
I supposed on a very long board there no reason you couldn’t use 3 or 4 winding sticks to get an overall view of multiple twists that may exist.
I’ve only done small boards by hand and do check myself with a long ruler along its length and along the diagonals, I’m sure with experience you will become able to do this by eye, but I’m far from that. Would a long spirit level help you at all.
Regards
DavidGood points. I was a bit perplexed on my shooting board (more on how exactly to position my plane) and found that none of them had a perfect right angle from sole to side. Yes, I lapped my soles perfectly flat but I’m not sure what else to do to make them perfect and just use my combo square on the board I have worked through the shooting board for more confidence. For my work, that seems to suffice but it would nice to know I’m planing end-grain perfectly square without having to think about it or triple-check…
I use my winding sticks at the ends first and then will check along increments along the length of the board. And of course the plane and consistency of the shaving across the length of the board will also give me valuable information about the flatness of the length of the board.
You could buy or make a wood plane. They are very cheap and easy to make square. They do take a little practice and time to set up, but I found that they are easier to use on the shooting board than my metal planes.
About wind. It is a good idea to check some point along the. But usually wind is worst at the end. A quick test is to put the board on a flat surface and simply see if it wobbles.
22 September 2016 at 11:22 am #140587A shooting board is a valuable asset to any shop. You can not only square an end but with a couple of homemade attachments, you can create a perfect 45% mitre.
As you are surmising, to do this it is essential to have a plane where the side is 90 deg to the bottom.
You can make this happen with patients and elbow grease using an extremely flat surface and abrasive paper.
I use a piece of float glass that is approx: 30″ X 6″ X 1/2″. (this is something you can buy from a local glass shop. 3/8″ will work is you place it on a piece of 3/4″ MDF for some additional support.) I will then attach a piece of sandpaper. Since I want a continuous surface, I will use a belt from a 6″ belt sander. I cut one of the loops so I can lay it flat using spray adhesive.
Then go to work. Depending on how much “adjustment” I need to make, start at 80 grit and go up to 220.
You need to vacuum off the paper and check your progress regularly.
22 September 2016 at 10:08 pm #140772Thanks to all who replied to my queryies. I think Rud’s idea is probably the quickest and easiest solution. It wouldn’t take too much effort to plane the side (or sole) to obtain the correct angle.
Thanks
Dean
22 September 2016 at 10:21 pm #140774Paul always says that it doesn’t need to be at 90 deg and you use the lateral adjuster to get the end square and I also believe this to be true. I use several planes on my board and one of those is a LN 62 which is perfectly square but if the iron isn’t square to the sole then the cut won’t be either. A little practice and adjustment with a scrap piece get me square for the job ahead.
Craig
Another option is to take a few shavings and then place them under the work. If you place them near the chute, you will increase the cutting angle. If you put them on the outboard side of the board, you will decrease the cutting angle. This is a quick and easy way to make adjustments. You can do the same thing on the fence to adjust the other angle, too.
For wind- I think checking the ends gives you most of what is needed because the plane flattens (straightens) the board end to end. You get wind when those flat end-to-end runs on one edge of the board are not aligned with those on the other edge. It’s not a guarantee, but once you get wind out as seen on the ends, if you are planing flat, you should be really close everywhere. Another reason for checking the ends is that the ends are usually where joinery happens and everything in between probably doesn’t matter as long as it looks good. That might suggest double checking wind at critical places in the middle where there is other joinery if you want to be super careful.
23 September 2016 at 1:09 am #140787Like others have said, use the lateral adjustment lever to skew the blade. Another trick that I use on my shooting board is to put painter’s tape on the side of the chute that is “low” to help get the plane closer to 90*. If you know your plane is out of 90* in one direction or the other, you can adjust the chute with a strip or two of tape. I have two strips overlayed and that raises the plane enough on one end a few mill to get it close, then I adjust the blade from there. You can get fancy with it and use super low friction tape, but the tape wears out quick.
For winding sticks, you can move the sticks wherever you need to check the wind along the board. So many times the wind will be really bad at the ends, but closer to the middle on long boards the wind will negligible, maybe none at all. You can also check the middle against the ends to see if one end is worse than the other.
23 September 2016 at 4:51 am #140792I think Paul used a shaving to shim the picture frame project to slightly adjust the angle his plane was shooting that particular piece in order for the corners to line up. I’ve done this too after seeing him do it and it seemed to work nicely. Good luck.
Kevin
In my short practice I found it quite accurate to
1. First of all I make the board out of wind at the ends planing and checking with the winding sticks periodically. When there is no twist I draw some pencil lines at the ends which tell me not to touch these with the plane any more.
2. Then I plane the rims along the length till the edges are straight from end to end, and also mark them.
3. Now the final stage has left which is to plane inside the marks.
There are of course some nuances and strategies and these will certainly come with practice.Regarding wind…
It seems to me that from an “engineering” perspective, it usually doesn’t matter if there is wind down the length of the board…
The reason for removing wind is so that the final project isn’t twisted. But this is only relevant where there is going to be joinery, and this is almost always only at the ends.
Therefore wind in the mid section doesn’t matter… usually! If you are going to have a join somewhere along the length it will matter, at that point.
Also, if it’s really bad it might harm the appearance of the piece. (On the other hand it might make it more “interesting”)
One last thing is that if the wind is really bad it might affect the absolute length of that component, which might be important is you are using it a a datum for another component…
But most of the time, it doesn’t matter.
I’m open to correction on my thoughts here!
Regards,
Matt
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