My Bedrock 606 and Shooting Board
#11
This is a follow up to my earlier post about using my "new" Bedrock 606 with a shooting board. Here is a photo of a shooting board I built this afternoon, loosely modeled after the one I saw at Lee Nielson.



It's about 23 x 14" overall. What I liked about that design was the "shelf" for the side of the plane to ride on, rather than the plane riding on the workbench. I don't know, it just seemed like a better idea to me, so that's how I built it. The 45° piece flips left or right and is held with a couple of Kreg screws. I took pains to try to get the 45° angle dialed in as close as possible, but recognize that a paper shim or two allows the final angle to be tweaked when needed.

With the 45° piece removed you can shoot 90° angles, which I found the hardest to do as one might expect. With the plane blade super sharp it's still hard to take real shavings. It's more like dusty wisps and to shave off more than a few thousandths is a true exercise in patience and perseverance. But what I really wanted the shooting board for was trimming angled parts and I'm very happy with how the plane and shooting board work for this operation.

Here's a photo trimming a 45° in a piece of cherry about 4" wide. You can see the blade is taking off what looks more like a shaving than dust. It's actually quite a satisfying feel when it's cutting right. And with the work clamped in place, I was able to use both hands on the plane in pretty much the normal manner; not awkward at all.





On the left is the piece after I trimmed it on the shooting board. On the right is a piece I took no care cutting on my miter saw.



After I trimmed the right piece on the shooting board the two pieces looked like this.



And fit together pretty darned well.



More to learn, for sure, but I'm sure this is going to make precise fitting of mitered joints a lot easier in the future. Any comments, etc. most welcome.

John
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#12
Well done! What did you wind up using as honing angles?

Now you get to experiment with ramps and donkey's ears.
Thanks,  Curt
-----------------
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
      -- Soren Kierkegaard
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#13
I'm still using the standard 25° angle that I first sharpened it at. When that dulls I'll try 30°.

My sharpening process is waterstones. 800, 1200, and then 4000 grit. The edge shines like a mirror after the 4000 grit. How much benefit is there going to 6 or 8000 grit? Would I see a tangible improvement in the ease of cutting?

Tell me about donkey's ears. What are they and what are they used for?

John
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#14
cputnam said:


Well done! What did you wind up using as honing angles?

Now you get to experiment with ramps and donkey's ears.




Quit twisting his tail!! Or, you can go get me a board stretcher.

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#15
OK, a little Googling and I found some informative articles about donkey's ear shooting boards. Didn't know they were called that, but that's definitely on my list to build when the need arises.

John
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#16
jteneyck said:


SNIP

Tell me about donkey's ears. What are they and what are they used for?

John




It's what the shop sounds like when you get the sharpening, shooting fixture, and board wrong.....

Try a Google.
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#17
JMO, but there is a lot of benefit to going to the higher grits. I use Stu's magic 1000, 6000, 13000 set. After 4000, at the very least, I would use a strop with green crayon. Get a piece of MDF, scribble some crayon on it and start dragging the blade backwards across it. LV's crayon (honing compound) is about 0.5 microns mean particle size.

Take a pass or two on the board with a fresh 4000 and then take that same blade and run about 40 passes across the strop. A Honing guide helps. Then take another couple passes across the board. You will have empirically determined whether or not the effort is worth it.
Thanks,  Curt
-----------------
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
      -- Soren Kierkegaard
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#18
Hi John

You've done a good job with the shooting board. However there are improvements to be had quite simply.

The first is, as Curt noted, use green compound to increase the smoothness/sharpness of your edge. You should notice a significant improvement.

The second is to add a side fence to capture the plane. This will hold the plane against the workpiece and, thereby, produce more accurate cutting ...



This is what it looks like with a Donkeys Ear ...



More details:

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeToo...Board.html

Regards from Perth

Derek
Articles on furniture building, shop made tools and tool reviews at www.inthewoodshop.com
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#19
When using the donkey ears is it hard to keep the stock from moving? Are those white specs some type of abrasive to help keep the stock in place?
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#20
Great job john. Shooting board is on my shop project list as well.
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