I’ve been looking at various designs for shooting boards that incorporate aluminum rails or a strip of HDPE to reduce friction.
I’m wondering if anyone has ever used 3/4 HDPE to make all the components of a shooting board. It’s absolutely flat, never warps and very low friction. I’ve used it for other projects, but this is just an idea I’m contemplating.
Thanks,
Mike
Replies
I never thought about it. Mine is all wood, and it works just fine. I've never had a desire for anything fancier.
Never thought to try it, but I'd love to see it if you build it. Does the material wear at all? I've used UHMW a fw times, is it similar?
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I've never worked with UHMW plastic, so not well versed in the differences. HDPE is easy to cut and machine and is very durable in marine applications, but I'm not sure how it would hold up to concentrated friction like running a shooting plane repeatedly over the same track.
The LV track is the easy solution, but I'm not sure I want to run a nice shooting plane against metal, even with anti-friction tape applied. Doesn't seem like a very nice way to treat tools.
Maybe make a simple 90° track and test it before you commit.
I wouldn't want slippery plastic for where the wood sits, or the fence. You want those grippier.
I was also considering that as a potential pitfall to the idea. I guess Lee Valley wouldn't recommend their aluminum track to be used with their $350 plane if it was going to damage it.
Now, just to get their shooting plane back in stock. It seems to be on an infinite rolling backorder with the date getting kicked out multiple times.
I used UHMW on a previous board. HDPE is only truly flat if milled that way; just as extrusions are sorta straight, plastics are sorta flat. If your material has been milled, rock on.
IT seems to me that making a whole shooting board out of HDPE will be an expensive proposition that won't really gain you much. I made my shooting board from wood, the old fashioned way. My plane track is a shallow cavity that guides my dedicated shooting plane on three sides. I placed strips of UHMWPE tape on the bottom of the track and it's as slick as snot on a doorknob. I could line the sides too but wouldn't gain anything. The good news is that every component on the board is re-manufacturable and renewable using basic tools and materials.
Slick as snot on a door knob? That’s quite an expression. Do you have first hand knowledge of how slick that would be? And is it wet or dry snot? Brings to mind Monty Python and the hoy grail, the whole laden or unladen swallow :-)
Yup. It's an oldie from my youth. For the record, wet snot. Vaseline or KY works equally as well. It's a great gag. Never not funny. Kind of juvenile, but hey, I'm old and need a good chuckle occasionally.
It's now become a wee divil in my wetware, that. I keep thinking up similar and much less acceptable similes! Many are driven by the possible outcomes of encountering the slippery item with various body parts, not just one's mits. Aieee and Uuuugh!
Is there, somewhere, an index of all possible slippery substances? All .... without any omissions due to the compiler's inhibitions.
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Shooting boards - stable and straight-grained wood patched with Very Slippery tapes, all accurately made but with the ability to make slight adjustments ..... these are inexpensive and highly effective, as well as being easily refurbished.
One suspect that if plastic shooting boards were practical and more effective than the traditional items, some high end vendor of WW stuff would be flogging them for hundreds of dollars or even a couple of thousand.
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I bought a pre-manufactured shelf, 8" by 24" (iirc) from HD to make a shooting board base a few years ago, it's coated with a white plastic, very slick but no idea if it's HDPE; it will wear much better than any kind of wood.
It is still sitting in the corner. I do most of my crosscuts on the tablesaw, which don't require shooting; and still cut 45º picture frames on my Nobex manual saw, which also doesn't require shooting.
Mebbe someday...
My concern would be how you fasten different pieces of HDPE to each other. I don't know that screws will stand up to stress over time. Plastic creeps, i.e., stress makes it move. Moving a plane through even thin wood requires some force, and over time, I would worry about the screws loosening and ultimately pulling apart. So I would think about using HDPE just for gliding surfaces. You can screw it into wood, because that's not going to be stressed in that direction, and join the wood pieces in all the usual ways. Maybe someone else has experience with trying to use HDPE as a structural piece.
My shooting board has a strip of UHMW fastened down by countersunk screws .I run a dedicated miter plane (Marcou) on it. Works just fine.