any tips to verifying squareness of a shooting board?

[Steven Lee, NC]

Are there any tricks to verifying how square they are? I haven't bought an expensive triangle or square yet. Looking for something like the 4/5 cut method I used to square my tablesaw sled.


thanks

[Rob Fisher]

Drafting triangle. Cheap and accurate.

[Chris Vandiver]

Probably a good idea to own an accurate square or two.

[Jim Neeley]

One tip I've found handy when attaching the fence to the shooting board is to glue it in place first and then follow up with screws. That way it won't slide during the drill/screw process. But then, mine is disposable, with an MDF base and a strip of hard maple for the fence.

I used a square, with the thick piece against the plane and the metal against the fence. That kept any glue squeeze-out away from the square. You could do the same thing with a drafting triangle and a spacer block.

Jim

[Jim Koepke]

The easiest way to check it is with a try square.

Adjustments all depend on how it was built. One of mine is held together with screws. A few taps with a mallet brings it into square if anything changes with humidity.

jtk

[Steven Lee, NC]

ok thanks. Waiting for the woodcraft weekend sale to get a triangle/square

[Prashun Patel]

If you know your tablesaw and sled to be square, then cut a rectangular piece on it and use that to check your shooting board.

Alternatively, you can shoot the edges on two straight boards, then butt the shot ends against your tablesaw fence. Then clamp the pieces together, move the fence and check the jointed edges with a straight edge. Flip one of the pieces so that any skew will run the other direction, and repeat the procedure. If it's shooting square, the straight edge should be flush in both ops.

[Terry Beadle]

Just a comment. Your shooting board doesn't have to be perfectly square. Get it as near to square as you can but then use paper shims ( like postit notes ) between the fence or the base as needed to modify the work piece position. Then check the work piece with a try square. You should be able to get the work piece dead square in both directions fairly easily using this technique as detailed in David Charlesworth's Shooting Board video.

He also uses a pencil to scribe the work piece edge so it's quite clear when the cut is full.

Enjoy the process !

[David Weaver]

I would do what Prashun says. Getting a no-light perfect shooting board is not easy to do, but it's also likely that it's not necessary.

Checking two pieces that you've verified are jointed dead straight on the edge by placing them against something flat or on something flat will help you without relying on a machinist square.

I keep a box full of shims, just various junk that's different thicknesses (fake credit cards from advertisements, pieces of different weight sandpaper, all the way down to receipt paper). It allows me to make a chute board in about 10 minutes, and use it just as fast as one that would be as dead on as a machined casting. the shims also allow you to match other things when you're shooting a frame or something and you need to tweak.

[David Weaver]

Ooops..I just noticed terry already mentioned shims.

[Jim Koepke]

Get it as near to square as you can but then use paper shims ( like postit notes ) between the fence or the base as needed to modify the work piece position.
...
He also uses a pencil to scribe the work piece edge so it's quite clear when the cut is full.

I tend to use the shavings that are all over the place.

I sometimes scribe all around a piece with a knife if it is being trimmed to size/fit. Most of the time the shaving and sound tell the full edge is being shot.

jtk

[Steven Lee, NC]

nice, I'll use the tablesaw fence trick to test it and then shim .

[Zach Dillinger]

The best way, in my opinion, to use a shooting board is to shoot to a knife line. If you do that, your squareness of your fence is largely irrelevant and the use of shims is unnecessary.

[Russell Sansom]

I'm with Zach. In my opinion, various boards can square up differently on a shooting board, depending on the plane and the board's dimensions. A little pressure here and there and it's easy to shoot perfectly to the cut line. My old-fashioned miter-vise-shooting fixture always wants some shimming...usually a couple sheets of typing paper.

[Steven Lee, NC]

got a chance to watch rob cosmans dovetail 2.0 last night and he showed how he makes his shooting boards. I guess I was thinking it was much more complicated than it is.