a lot of folks don't have any idea what a shooting board is and even many who do are totally unaware of exactly how valuable one of these can be even in a workshop full of power tools by the end of this video I'm willing to bet that you're going to be digging through your scrap and ready to make your own shooting board because you're about to see some clever ways that one of these can really up your woodworking game even if you don't typically use hand tools a shooting board is a jig that works in conjunction with a hand plane to dress and square up the edges and ends of work pieces to fine-tune a miter or other angled cut and to micro adjust the length or the width of a project part with a level of precision that just can't be matched with power tools now if you're looking at this hand plane and you're thinking I don't like hand planes so this one isn't for me I urge you to just stick with me for a few more minutes because this isn't like anything you've ever done with a hand plane what I'm going to show you is so easy that you're going to be digging out your old plane just to give this a try now let's start with making precise cross cuts I tried to keep my table saw well tuned but as I make a cross cut even the smallest shift of the board on the miter fence or a little bit of deflection away from the blade can produce an end that is slightly out of square now maybe that is good enough for some projects but for your best work with your most expensive materials these errors can add up through the course of a project so good enough isn't always good enough especially because it is so simple to take that work piece you just cut at the table saw over to your shooting board and clean it up with a few quick passes across the end grain then saw marks chip out the tiniest inconsistencies all disappear and you have a board that is perfectly Square both on its face and on its end and it'll have a finished surface that doesn't even need sanding of course whether you're using a table saw or a shooting board it's impossible to get a square end if the reference Edge isn't straight along its length a shooting board can take care of that as well in this case I'm not so worried about the end being Square yet in fact if the board is narrow it would be impossible to reference off the shooting board's fence my only concern is straightening that edge and that means keeping it against the sole of my plane so as I apply pressure along the opposite Edge I follow the plane down the length of the board with my hand this is really I think the easiest way to Edge joint a small or even medium-sized work piece even for just glue UPS because I'm not only making it straight but the shooting board jig itself ensures that that edge is going to be made perfectly Square to the face of the board and I'm not going to have ripples or tool marks that I'd get from a power Joiner and I can work with smaller stock that I can safely do with the power jointer now that that reference Edge is straight I can place it against the fence on the shooting board and then it'll be nice and secure as I Square the end just as I showed you before sometimes though you may not want the end to be perfectly square one of the greatest advantages of a shooting board is the ability to precisely fit projects to the spaces they have to go in and sometimes that means tweaking your angles a little bit a good way to do this is to slip a feeler gauge between the board and the fence to use as the tiniest of shims this throws the cutting angle off just a little bit and the end will come out slightly out of square I like to start with just a small adjustment and then add shims to work my way up to a perfect fit as you make adjustments to the end of a work piece the board will obviously get shorter so there is a process to use the shooting board to fit Parts effectively typically if I'm working on something that has to be really precise and I know I'm going to use a shooting board to get that Precision I'll cut my work piece a little longer than it needs to be at the table saw then I'm going to use the shooting board to fine tune its size and shape for example if I need this project part to be 13 inches long I'm going to cut it at the table saw to about 13 and a quarter or so then I'll take the shooting board and I'll square up one end next I'll measure 13 inches from that clean end and Mark it with a fine pencil or better yet a knife I may even skip the measuring and if possible I'll hold my project part right up to the assembly and then I'll mark it in place so I get it precise as it's going to fit in the project now I could try to cut right to that line with the table saw but as I've already demonstrated the shooting board will give me a cleaner more precise cut and it's going to better allow me to gradually sneak up on that line as I custom fit the part into its spot in the project so I'll just trim close to my line with the saw that leaves a tiny bit to remove at the shooting board then I'll take a couple passes with the plane and then check my fit if the part's still too long or too tight I complain more away since the plane can remove the tiniest amount while keeping that edge square and free of tool marks it becomes a lot easier to sneak up on that perfect fit than it is with any other power tool now let me show you another little trick that may make you want to use your marking knife more as your plane gets closer to a knife scribed line the surface fibers on the waist side of that line start to chip away that leaves a fine gap between the line and the sole of the plane it's easy to see as that Gap gets narrower with each pass until it disappears at that point you stop planing and you'll find yourself with a perfectly trimmed board one of the problems that comes with cutting end grain whether it be at a table saw or with a plane is the chance of chipping out that corner where the cutter exits the wood here's a clever technique to avoid that I'll flip my board so the finished Edge that was against the fence is now my Leading Edge then I'll slightly angle the board away from the fence and take a few cuts on just the corner this creates a small chamfer and as I flip that edge back to the fence you can see there's a little Gap where that chamfered corner touches the sole of the plane if I stop planing the end grain just as that Gap disappears I'll eliminate the risk of chip out and get a crisp Corner every time that same chamfer idea also can be used to check that your plane iron is parallel to the sole of your plane something that's important if your shooting boards to work correctly after taking a few passes on the corners before I look at the end grain if the transition between the angles is straight across the end the blade is properly adjusted if it's not straight make use of the plane's lateral adjustment lever beneath the iron until it is now let's talk about the plane itself for a minute the side of the plane that lays on the s
