I am attempting to make a pair of winding sticks. Following ideas I've seen online, they are just beech sticks with a little walnut inset on each side.
I cut a piece of the beech out from each end in the same way as a half-lap joint and set the walnut in.
I finished one stick so far but the precision of the mating wood surfaces does not satisfy me. I did not manage to get them perfectly straight and square.
My question is, what is the right way to do it? I used a shooting board to get the walnut piece nice and square with straight sides, but the half-lap cut into the beech is the trouble.
I have a rabbet plane that I tried using, but the stick is only about 2" wide and I didn't feel like that was enough surface to register the plane against. I also tore out some wood when planing across the grain, after that I tried coming in from the outside edges only but it's hard to get it perfectly flat like that. Is there a tool that I'm missing, or do I just need to get better with a chisel?