How to work with stock thinner than 1/4"?

[Blacky's Boy]

[font="Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]I'm working on a small box and wanted to use a piece of resawn lumber to make a book matched panel for the lid. However, the stock needs to be under 1/4" thick. [/font]

I'm having a hard time holding it on the work bench. Specifically when I need to work across the grain to get it down to the proper thickness.

I imagine that I could geta piece of plywood and drive some brass flat head screws into the top and use them as planing stops. But other than that, I'm sort of stumped.

what's a good strategy for working with thin stock? I need to be able to hold it so I can traverse the grain with a jack plane so I can get it down in thickness pasts the marks left by resawing.

[Joe Bailey]

I have used double-sided tape

I also have 1/4" tall bench dogs, glued up from (blade-friendly) nylon

[Blacky's Boy]

I have used double-sided tape

I also have 1/4" tall bench dogs, glued up from (blade-friendly) nylon

That's an interesting thought. If I hadn't found that thin stock jig I built, I'd probably try this. I already have some osage orange dowels I turned for bench dogs. I could use them to make something like that

[Timberwolf]

That's an interesting thought. If I hadn't found that thin stock jig I built, I'd probably try this. I already have some osage orange dowels I turned for bench dogs. I could use them to make something like that

.................
A small spot or two of hot melt glue may also work.

[MarkSingleton]

How about this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7loBms2z1g

[Blacky's Boy]

How about this:


  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7loBms2z1g

Smart!!

[Hank Knight]

Use a planing board. It's nothing more than a board a littler larger than your workpiece (you can use plywood) with two small flat head nails driven into it (I use carpet tacks). The nails should be driven deep enough that the heads are below the finished thickness of your workpiece so you won't accidently plane into them and ruin the edge of your plane iron. The nail heads catch the edge of the workpiece and act as a planing stop. I sharpen the edges of the tack heads with a small file so they will cut into the end of the workpiece for a more secure hold. Some old timers just drove nails into their bench tops, but that didn't appeal to me, so I use a board.

[Blacky's Boy]

Oh boy, I feel stupid as hell!


I'm using Google to search for tips on working with thin stock using handplanes and I came across this article from FWW. It shows this nifty jig you can make that helps you work on thin stock. The thing is, I recognize it as one I built already. It was hanging on my wall in an out of the way place. So after dinner, I went out into the shop, got it down of the wall and proceeded to get those two pieces planned to the thickness I wanted in about 20 minutes.

Geez,... getting old sucks

[bandit571]

Take a section from an old saw...attach it to a dog...tap the part into the teeth, and plane away...

[MKepke]

You could use the CNC workholding trick of a layer of masking tape on the bench top, a layer of masking tape on the stock and some superglue between the two layers.

-Mark