Shooting Board (Case Miters)

While creating a recent Tea Cabinet project with long case miters, I realized my current shooting board design with Case Miter attachment was insufficient for longer case miters. Drawer compartments and boxes with long case miters was new territory for me with the need to accurately shoot square miters. Also, dialing in the miters so the (4) boards comprising a drawer case is critical in the fit and resulting strength of the case or box.

So created this ramped shooting board design with a preset angle of 45d. The flat surface of the shooting board provides an excellent reference surface for longer and wider case pieces. The long fence also adds to the precision as a long bearing surface for the case components. Instead of feeding in a case component at a 45d angle as in my earlier shooting board design with 45d attachment, this design has the case piece flat and instead angles the hand plane at 45d.The challenge was to create a perfect 45d angle on the ramp, ultimately performed on a jointer set at 45d set using a layout square.

The newer shooting board locks into my workbench surfaces using a bench dog. I use this locking system on several bench accessories I designed including my most recent bench hooks. Eliminates the need to keep the accessory or shooting board from pivoting or shifting while hand planing. The fence is also designed to pivot about 3/6 inches to fine tune its angle in case it deviates from 90d. The fence assembly can also be replaced if necessary. This is performed through and elongated slot and hex head bolt in threaded inserts. I suspect I won't need to adjust this setting though as it is tightly locked in. The front face (cherry) of the fence also adjusts slightly from side to side and is replaceable if and when it wears. If I could only have one shooting board, this design can be changed to substitute the fence assembly with a square end and make the 45d ramped track removable. It will then be configured as a conventional shooting board for 90d shooting.

Also, in the past year I progressed from conventional hand planes as shooting board planes to a Veritas Iron Miter plane. This plane was the next step up as a dedicated shooting board plane with large 90d wings and a low angle. It is essentially a very large block plane with mass. It also came with a horn since it was essentially designed as a shooting board plane. I also tested No. 4 and No. 4.5 smoothers in the newer 45d ramped version and they work well with little effort to trim long, case miters on different species of hardwood.

On the original shooting board, I moved on to a dedicated Veritas shooting board plane set in a track and I found this to work best to shoot miters, both at 90d and 45d. The track locks the shooting plane in and removes the variable of having to keep the plane against the raised part of the shooting board where the component rests. So I never really used the Iron Miter plane much again until this new ramped 45d shooting board design came along. The Iron Miter Plane is ideal for this newer, ramped shooting board and resides there all the time now! Dimensions between the shooting boards are similar and customized to my workbench surfaces and an average length and width of case pieces I need to miter.

New 45d ramped shooting board:  17 in. L X 14.5 in. W x 2 in. H

Video describing features and demonstration of the shooting boards:  https://youtu.be/rfVLzJcAAaQ