Shooting large panels?

[Michael Sobik]

Anyone made a shooting board that will handle larger panels, maybe 20"+ inches wide?

If not, is there a trick to squaring up large panels that I'm missing?

[Wilbur Pan]

Have you considered clamping it to a workbench or something so that the board stands on edge and using a plane to square up the edge up that way?

[Michael Sobik]

I thought about it, but my plane wielding skills aren't that strong. I also need to square the cross grain cuts with the rip cuts. So freehanding it isn't going to help a whole bunch there.

[Eric Hartunian]

If they are glued panels, one option is to shoot the boards before you glue them together. This way, you are dealing with narrower pieces. However, you have to be very careful gluing them, as the slightest shift will give you a less than perfect edge.
Shooting boards are pretty easy to make. You could just make a large shooting board that fits on your bench.

[David Keller NC]

Well, there's a couple of reasonably easy ways to do this. Assuming your bench is at least 24" wide, and is flat, you can clamp down a board that has a freshly jointed (and straight) edge to the bench, screw a stop to one end of it, place your workpiece onto this straightedge, and use you shooting plane against it. Same principle as the shooting board, it's just that you're using your bench as the plane's running surface.

Another way is to use a panel gauge (if you don't have one of those and you want to do neander work, you're going to need one) and scribe a line close to your sawn line on the end grain, and plane to that line. That will get your opposite end grain edges parallel, and you can then use a square to mark one edge-grain edge, plane that square (to both end grain edges), followed by the panel gauge again to square the other edge-grain edge.

[Jim Koepke]

Harry Strasil posted a picture or two of long shooting set ups he made for joining long boards.

I went through five pages of his old posts to find it with no luck. That is about all I have time to search now.

jim

[Jim Nardi]

If you score a line with a square and sharp knife you can plane to that line.

[James White]

This may be the thread Jim was referring to.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=92355&highlight=shooting+board

[David Gendron]

Like Jim Nardi said, scribing a line and planing yo it work realy good. As for end grain, moisten the grain( I use alcohol!) clamp a sacrificing piece at the far end to prevent blow out and every thing will be find!!
David

[Jim Koepke]

This may be the thread Jim was referring to.

That is the same long shooting board. My memory may be off, but I think Junior did a post on how it was built.

jim

[Michael Sobik]

Thanks for the tips guys. I ended up putting together a larger shooting board last night, only without a ramp. Like a big bench hook I guess. It's spans my 24" bench, has a nice wide fence, and works pretty well. One problem I'm having though, is if the cut has a shallow hump in the middle. My plane seems to ride up the hill instead of cutting it off. I've dampened the end grain with alcohol and sharpened the iron, but I'm still having trouble. Any other tips?

Thanks for the tip on the panel gauge, David. I've never even heard of the that tool before. I'll have to try and make one up.

[David Keller NC]

Michael - If your plane's considerably shorter than the length of the part you're trying to shoot, then it's likely you'll just plane the end smooth and not get it straight. In theory, your plane should just ride the bottom guide and just plane the high spots, but in order to do this, you have to advance the board that you're planing into the cutting path by only a couple of thousandths of an inch at a time. That's pretty hard to do with a big panel.

So - a couple of solutions come to mind. You could get out your jointer and use that as your shoot-board plane. The sole's length will definitely reduce the tendency to just plane the end smooth without straightening it. Another possibility is to advance the board into the plane with light taps of a mallet, which gives you a lot more control than advancing it with a push of the hand.

By the way - you don't specify, but when you say that you made a shooting board "without the ramp" do you mean that the running surface for the plane is not tilted, or that you've omitted the running surface of the plane entirely and just use the bench?

Regarding the panel gauge, you can most certainly make one, particularly if you're into making tools, but you can also buy one. Lie-Nielsen came out with one based on the cutting gauge that Steve Latta designed, and it isn't too terribly expensive. Stanley made a lot of these gauges out of rosewood as well, and they show up regularly on the antiques market. Generally speaking, they sell for about $80 if they have the brass "keeper" under the sliding head that bears against the long rod. This part often gets lost, though, and I'd suggest avoiding an incomplete one unless you want to make a replacement keeper. The reason is that the gauge head bore was designed to have this piece in there, and without it the head's quite sloppy and it's hard to get it to stay in one place.

[Derek Cohen]

You need to look at Michael Connor's long shooting boards ..

http://www.hntgordon.com.au/uselongshootingboard1.jpg

The above is taken from Terry Gordon's demo ..

http://www.hntgordon.com.au/jointinglongboards.htm

Michael is at http://www.michealconnorwoodwork.com.au/workbenchesaccessories.htm

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Michael Sobik]

By the way - you don't specify, but when you say that you made a shooting board "without the ramp" do you mean that the running surface for the plane is not tilted, or that you've omitted the running surface of the plane entirely and just use the bench?

I'm using the bench for the running surface of the plane. The plane is the LV low angle jack, which is fairly long. However, you're correct in that I'm having trouble finding that sweet spot positioning the panel. Either I'm not cutting, or trying to hog off a big cutting. I'll try the hammer tapping and see how that works out.

Thanks, Derek!

[David Keller NC]

Michael - Dumb question, but worth asking in order not to omit something - I assume your shooting board does have a fixed board under your workpiece for the plane's sole to ride against? Seems obvious, but I did have someone ask a question at a recent WW show that I was demonstrating at the didn't have one of these under the workpiece - they just had a straight fence on top of their workpiece. The problem was that their plane was wide enough so that shavings were taken across the whole width of this fence, so there was no "running board" for the plane to ride against without cutting.

[Michael Sobik]

Yes, the board has a board for the plane to ride against. It's basically a large bench hook with an adjustable fence.

I actually did think about just clamping a fence down on top of the panel, but then I thought about it for a minute :)

[David Keller NC]

"I actually did think about just clamping a fence down on top of the panel, but then I thought about it for a minute :)"

This does actually work, btw - as long as your plane's sole is shorter than the fence on the top. I've seen this work at a friend's shop, and I'll have to hand it to him that the "on top" fence was a lot handier to move around than a huge shooting board. The only real drawback that I saw is that it required that he gauge a line that he wanted to work to and set the fence to this line - it was too inconvenient to release the holdfasts, advance the board a smidgeon, and whack down the holdfasts again.

[Robert Rozaieski]

In order to plane a convex edge straight, you must first make it concave. If you try to plane the entire length of a convex edge, even with a jointer, the plane will just follow the contour of the edge. If the middle is high, just plane the middle until the plane stops cutting. Then plane a wider section of the middle until the plane again stops cutting. Then wider, etc. When your edge is concave, than plane full length strokes until your plane takes a single full length shaving. As soon as the jointer plane takes a full length shaving, stop, your edge is straight. FWIW, you can use this method with or without the shooting board and it will make your end plenty straight enough. The shooting board will help with square but certainly isn't necessary to obtain square.

[Michael Sobik]

Thanks for the tip, Bob. I'm still getting myself sorted out with hand tools, and I was actually going to post a question about just what you discussed. I found I had this same problem jointing edges for panel glue ups as well as shooting the end grain of panels.

[Michael Sobik]

Thanks for all the help guys. I escaped to the shop at lunch and was able to square up and perfectly size my panels for this chest I'm working on. Working the panels close to straight and square freehand was key, along with advancing the panels with little taps of the hammer on the shooting board. I was trying to hog off way to much material with the shooting board before. Get it close, then just trim the slightest amount off on the shooting board. Thanks again guys!