SHOOTING BOARDS

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#donkey ear & miter shooting board

David Charlesworth DVD Precision Shooting Simplified
Veritas Left Hand Shooting Plane    
Veritas Shooting Board Fence
Veritas Shooting Board Tracks
Lie-Nielsen shooting board design
Construction of a Shooting Board
Fine Woodworking
John TenEyck on sawmillcreek
Miter Jacks aka Miter shoots

links:
video referencing Robert Wearing book page 78 to make shooting board     long donkey's ear

another variation from FWW 261 p28

article from Popular woodworking (local .pdf)

Christopher Schwarz post (local .pdf) on how he uses his a little differently when squaring up an end
won't necessarily work with my veritas shooting boards because plane is captive
Schwarz uses the term track, but in actually he means the reference cutting edge location (his plane is not captured)

• to reduce boards in length he does same as Charlesworth - keep moving out until get full length shaving
  • "Charlesworth takes a pass with the plane, then pushes the work up against the sole of the tool and makes another pass. He repeats this until he makes a full-width cut and is at his destination length"
• when correcting the angle on the end of a board first Schwarz figures out which corner is high just by putting it on fence and looking at track
  • "Now relieve the corner of the work that will go against the fence. Cut a tiny bevel with a chisel to reduce blow-out on the end. If I am working to a knife line I’ll chisel the corner to that line."
  • I take the plane off the track and position the board so the low corner is flush to the track and the high corner stick[s] out over the track.
  • Then I push the work against the fence (push hard!) and then place the plane in the track and begin planing.
    • Focus on pushing the plane down and forward. Use just enough force against your workpiece to keep the tool in the cut.
    • If you push too much to the side you'll push the work out of position instead of cutting it.
    • When the plane stops cutting, the edge is square. Check your work to confirm.
      
      

Vogt Shooting Board   and details     thread discussing merits of several different designs

Paul Sellers youtube video on creating a hand cut shooting board using wedges for the fences

PWW 2006-12 pdfp49 p 66 Paul Sellers detailed article on shooting boards     extended online version  (local .pdf) [extended file is ShootingBoard2.pdf]

Popular Woodworking article on shooting boards December 2009 pdfp47

Popular Woodworking article on miter shooting boards August 2003 pdfp20

cool micro-adjust design from Shopnotes 134 pdf18 (my pdf has errors on some pages, see .jpgs as well)

similar design as above but easier to build Shopnotes 65 pdp12
on p17 it highly recommends wetting the end grain to make it easier to slice

Donkey Ear & Miter Shooting Boards

good video on building one using only hand tools from Irish John McGrath "Donkey Ear Mitre Shooting Board..."
his miter shooting board video using power tools
his original shooting board at start with add on donkey ear attachment at 3:35 in this video

Rob Cosman's "Vertical Miter Shooting Board Build"  mdf & baltic birch
make chamfer on back end to avoid blowout
shooting board playlist
in particular the std shooting board video with tape to make slight bow in base is interesting

Bob Rozaieski Miter Shooting Board - Donkey's Ear Shooting Board in one video
Donkey's Ear is the simple one clamped in bench vise that allows outside corners (in particular for small workpieces and mouldings)

Stumpy Nubs on a regular shooting board

another from "Adventures in T-Shirts Woodwork" on mitered shooting board with using only hand tools includes rails made of popsicle sticks

David Charlesworth DVD Precision Shooting Simplified

• ~15:00 cambered blades and shooting boards
• 17:10 for a dedicated shooting plane don't camber the blade; the only reason to camber the blade is so it can be used in both shooting and non-shooting applications (thus if it was a plane of any design that was only being used for shooting then leave the blade straight)
• 19:50 shimming the workpiece with shims rather than getting exactly 90 degree angle between fence and
• 22:00 make adjustements prior to nearing final dimension
• 22:20 planing end grain >3/4" thick is too difficult to continue shooting plane through the work; use traditional techniques to plane it
• 25:25 no reason not to shoot long grain too
• 26:30 miter fence for horizontal plane as would be used for a picture frame; use a pentagon rather than triangle so corners don't spring out of position
• 29:30 mark entire surface with pencil to tell when you have a clean surface (across entire face)
• 33:40 check miter accuracy by fitting pieces ("offer the pieces up", "offer the two pieces together"), squeezing them tight, and checking interior with a square's exterior
• 34:30 bird house fixture
• 34:50 when shooting moulding, make a negative profile of the back to rest against the fence to avoid spelching
• 35:00 box linings 1/8" or less with miter planed on end, traditionally loose maybe use drop of glue in center
• 35:20 birdhouse fixture design and use
• 41:25 shooting freehand to make panel face stack 2 boards to face
• 43:35 clean shavings with entire width, then stopped cuts with fine cut (perhaps 0.015") using blade with straight edge
• 45:50 2 voices in original dvd
• 46:05 wide short piece he uses to check lateral adjustment (and camber if it was a cambered blade)
• 47:35 now hollowed, take a full length shaving (may take 2 passes) to get a straight to 0.001 hollow that disappears when edges are joined
• 49:00 shooting veneer 50:50 overhang 2 pieces of veneer between 2 boards by 1/8"; 51:55 use same technique as shown previously for making a panel
  bottom board is not a fence
• 50:10 with more brittle exotic woods, cutting with a knife chips the edge
• 54:44 sighting down sole to see lateral adjustment and depth of cut - hold front knob in left hand with sole away from you looking down into a white paper
• 55:15 you know when you are done when if there are 2 full length shavings (one for each piece of veneer)
• he puts work in this orientation
• 54:30 apply light pressure with front had into work, very little with back hand
• 57:55 leaves the edge "substantially straight"; check with ruler on top of board same thickness as bottom board supporting workpiece
• 1:01:10 bloopers that make him seem not nearly stiff collared as he is during most of the video

.pdf drawings from dvd (local .pdf)

Veritas Left Hand Shooting Plane

shooting planes compared

     
Lee Valley page         care and use local .pdf
review on sawmillcreek

Veritas Shooting Board Fence

Lee Valley page     care and use local .pdf

fine woodworking review (local .pdf)
lumberjocks review

lumberjocks review and tweaks including acetone to remove paint from scale

Veritas Shooting Board Tracks

Lee Valley page     care and use local .pdf

Lie-Nielsen shooting board design

Derek from Perths The #51 Shooting Plane: Lie-Nielsen and Stanley | UKworkshop.co.uk

local. pdf   

Construction of a Shooting Board

pretty long video on making a ramped shooting board

Veritas Shooting Board Track youtube
"variable fence" angle head youtube
track and fence design

Matt Estelea youtube video on constructiong one that slopes down from far edge to the fence;
seems to me like a lot of effort with only benefit being less frequent sharpening

David Barron youtube video on Veritas shooting boards he made
he made his longer with cleat that runs parallel to front edge of bench
dust groove by chamfering bottom of top piece
grip he likes:

his other shooting board is from Making Woodwork Aids & Devices by Robert Wearing p.78

This guy uses all non-motorized hand tools shooting board by Wood By Writght

another design by Rex Krueger has bogo plans with the Wood By Wright plans above

Fine Woodworking

FWW 0267 p.48 "A shooting board that handles five jobs"     video

video (used free times per month) & local .pdf see screen captures at
C:\RB\misc\rbwebsite\woodworking\planes\shooting_boards\fine woodworking
images are too big to put here and unlikely to used anyways

gluing makes it so it can't be made square again

need to fit and flush the stop (by shooting it's end graing while in correct placement) every time

for this miter stop, key is to put a little water on it before clamping so it doesn't slide

shooting board for cased miters from FWW 261 p28

John TenEyck on sawmillcreek

thread I first saw about his Universal shooting board which really does seem to have it all    has links to a page with more info, a second and another when it wasn't as developed

Miter Jacks and Miter Shoots

American Woodworker (I think) article on miter jacks   p1 jpg    p2 .jpg   p3 .jpg

super detailed series of posts from Benchcrafted on making one

[Fine Woodworking 0190 pdfp 82] calls it a a miter shoot
 

last updated:    Fri 2025-05-23 11:49 AM