Evenfall Studios ~ Toolmakers

Craftsmanship in a word is just a word. We envision the ensemble of things we understand it to mean when we hear it, or think of it. We know what it is when we see it, on it’s face, we recognize it, but it is more than just a few simple words.

Busting a 2×4 in half with a sledge hammer is not an example of craftsmanship, it is however an example of demolition. The important thing to understand, while many people are capable of performing demolition, far fewer are capable of performing craftsmanship, even though they have the ability to recognize it, or even purchase such things for themselves.

But we all have the capacity to learn and do if we apply ourselves.

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A Shooting Board is commonly known as a fixture that holds a board at a specific angle, such as 45 or 90 degrees, and allows most commonly the end grain to be cut accurately, but this is not the limit of what a shooting board and it’s potential capables are. Let me share with you what our shooting boards do differently, and better!

Pick angles as fine as you’ll want to, and set the fence. Simple and accurate as that.

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When it comes to shooting boards, Traditional designs come with limitations that have to be accepted. The downside to this is that these limitations become part of the mental lexicon that woodworkers carry in their mind when they consider the capabilities of the shooting board. I’d like to take a moment or two and address how our shooting boards help overcome many of these limitations.

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Yep, We’ve got them!

Veritas – Lee Valley released their new Veritas™ Miter Plane earlier this year. Think of it as like the LN-9 Iron Miter, a low angle block plane with a 2 inch wide iron, Veritas styling and improved ergonomics. It is ambidextrous and cuts great from either the left or right hand. It even comes with a great ergonomic handle which improves controllability and helps it feel great to use in the hand. Another big plus is that the blades for this plane are available in both 01- and PM-V11 steels. I prefer either of theses steels to A2 because they sharpen to a sharper level, and PM-V11 has incredible durability and edge retention which is critical for planing end grain. We opt for the PM-V11 when we can.

Photo Courtesy of Lee Valley Tools.

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Once upon a time Shooting Boards in woodworking were made for use at 90 degrees, and others for 45 degrees, and a few could do both. It was hard to keep them accurate and sometimes they took up a lot of space.

Then, Shooting Boards Evolved.

For seven years now, we have been offering our shooting boards to woodworkers worldwide.

We love precision. We care about Craftsmanship. From the work of our hands, we wanted more. From day one we have offered shooting boards made from Baltic Birch, the most stable wood available for woodworking. We still do. We feel they are the most accurate shooting boards available, capable of accuracy of up to 0.001 inch.

Over the years, all our shooting boards as well as the other tools we offer have been purpose made. Thousands of hours making meticulously and purposefully in a one man shop. After processing tons of personally selected Baltic Birch Plywood into thousands of tools and parts, we still offer our original shooting board, the “Deluxe Shooter” made to the same specifications we started out with. It has been joined by many other shooting boards that share it’s basic design, and offer woodworkers all the same accuracy and flexibility possible.

Our Original Shooting Board, the one that launched it all: The Deluxe Shooter.

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We get many questions about shooting boards, there is a lot they can help you do. There are many woodworking parts and operations that benefit from using a shooting board to true our work, and we can apply it in more ways that traditionally imagined. The tool in and of itself is capable of providing machinist level accuracy to woodwork, and better suited to be thought as similar to a series of different saws or bench planes. It isn’t a one size fits all tool, and it depends on your application(s). The shooting board is much more than a one trick pony.

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We’d like to let you know that we have introduced some new shooting board fences into our Accessory line, as upgrades.

These fences are Stylized Fences, and they are in use, the same fences as our Standard and Double High Models, with all the same accuracy you have come to expect from us. The major differences are that they are slightly longer and have an “Ogee” decoration handworked onto the adjustment end of the fence.

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Recently we have received a few e-mails asking if shooting boards are a good tool for makers. Absolutely! Our shooting boards can help you make nearly anything – material appropriate – that you want!

Woodworking is making with wood as the making media or material. Making anything usually means parts are part of any ensemble and parts need to fit together. Fortunately, You don’t have to have a full woodworking shop for making a lot of things. You can tool up just to handle specific tasks.

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While it is true that the traditional shooting board is most often made for shooting 90° and on occasion some are made to shoot 45° as well, we offer shooting boards that not only offer those two angles, but the ability to fixture a fence at up to eight different angles all in one board. But we didn’t stop there.

The reality of woodworking and cabinetry requires special tools for special situations. Not everything we make is perfectly square, nor is it necessarily perfectly angled. Sometimes we have to match angles that are caused by any number of different things. So while the actual angle it is whatever it may be, we may still need to divide that angle by half in order to create the complementary angles for a miter. Often this can lead us to angles that most shooting boards can’t reach.

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There are a lot of different opinions floated out about accuracy and precision in woodworking, and further, about how it applies in handtool woodworking. I’d like to take a few moments and help add some additional perspective from a toolmaker, and from someone who has also had a long career as a journeyman tradesman. This read is a little long, but I feel the perspectives will be helpful to us as we develop our craftsman skills.

I don’t want to overstate what others I’ve read are saying, but cumulatively I read a lot of woodworkers who write say things like: “wood has too much movement for a need to work accurately”. “Measuring is unnecessary, just match things up so that they are good enough”. I could go on, but I am sure we are all aware of what I am referring to.

On it’s face, sometimes these statements may be true, maybe only true for those who state them, but they can be precarious things to say in a context where the reason why is not well prefaced. Let me explain.

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