I’ve had the same shooting board for 12 years. It’s a clone of the Lost Art Press plans (made of 1/2″ baltic birch plywood) and has served me very well. But after a dozen years, it’s pretty chewed up (mostly from being too lazy to flip it over when using it as a bench hook for sawing).

So, over the last week or so, I took the time (and some pine scraps) to make a new one. This is in the Richard Maguire style, with no bed (meaning the plane rides on the benchtop) and assembled with a wedged fence and cleat. I didn’t get any pictures during the making, but it’s all 3/4″ white pine throughout. You should click the link to Richard’s youtube video. He’s a great entertainer in addition to being a great craftsman and instructor.

Each of the cleat (which hooks onto the bench in use) and the fence (which establishes the 90 degree reference for shooting things square) is recessed into the board with dado. The cleat dado is a full 1/4″ deep (for strength), while the fence dado is only 1/8″ (to preserve some additional height for the fence to function as an effective backer board. Recessing the fence and cleat cross grain into the board helps keep it flat over time (better explained in Richard in the linked video).

I have worked on long shooting boards without fences in the past. But they are almost always used for squaring edges to a reference face; not for shooting end grain square. This one is shorter and specifically designed for end grain.

Work has been very busy so it was good just to get a little shop time. Hope you can do the same.

JPG