The Woodshop Shed

shooting board plane

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


This wooden plane addresses the discomfort and wobble of a Stanley #5 used as a shooting board plane. Its mechanism is a Veritas 2 1/4 A2 blade and Norris adjuster. The plane is 12 inches long and roughly 2 1/2 inches square. As it is intended to be used right side down. I put the greatest effort into the right side being flat, smooth, and squares to the bottom. I added 1 1/4 pounds of weight to provide momentum into a cross-grain cut. Assembly followed the Lee Valley kit instructions with a couple of modifications that I will mention.Shavings in the above image result from planing with the grain. A cross-grain cut produces dust. The first use demonstrated the need for an improved shooting board. The long edge, 90 degrees to the stop, is extended beyond the stop. This helps to keep the plane from tilting away from the cut. Additionally, the lip on the board creates a track. With this, effort goes into moving the plane forward and not into holding against the work piece.The wedge pin below is a center drilled dowel with a 1/4 inch brass pin. The flat on the dowel provides greater surface area against the wedge, and it can be replaced if needed. The brass pin is just short of going through the right side, but there is a small hole that allows the pin to be driven out. The brass pin at the bottom of the adjusted grove protrudes into the oblong slot in the blade. It will catch the blade and stop it from dropping out of the plane's bottom. The knob is salvaged from an old Stanley is screwed into a threaded insert.This end view shows three plugs. Along with three in the front, there are 1 1/4 pounds of #8 birdshot inside the plane. The resulting weight is the same as a #5.In several test runs, the plane worked perfectly. I don't find anything to improve upon. It also works well as a standard plane and will take a measured 0.001-inch shaving in clear pine. In the future, I will build these for my grandsons, but have a few years before they will have a need. Great satisfaction resulted from the design and execution of this project.

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