We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations.
Tool: Veritas Shooting Board
Manufacturer: Lee Valley
Price: $109 for the fence, $199 for the complete board
Shooting boards are typically purposefully primitive – a fence set upon a board to hold your workpiece while planning the perpendicular face. A well equipped bench will have several variations nearby depending on the work that is being done (the vast majority of my work is accomplished with a single 90° board). However, there are plenty of times when I have wanted a few more boards, but haven’t taken the time to set them up. This is where the Veritas Shooting Board shines.
For $199, you are purchasing time and accuracy for your bench work. In typical Lee Valley fashion, the product is thoughtfully engineered, but don’t skip the 4 page owners manual, you’ll find critical information for setting up the board. The fence swings on top of a plate that anchors the whole mechanism to the board. You’ll find 8 stops for the most common fixed angles. Once you swing in to one of the detents you must pay attention to where the indicator lies. There are seven marks that allow you to fine tune the angle by a 1/4°, the center mark representing dead-on.
The sacrificial fence is held in place by a couple of thumbscrews that allow you to slide it quickly while adjusting the angle of the board.
Perhaps my only trouble was with the shooting track. There is plenty of opportunity for shavings to interrupt the ride of the shooting plane within the track. Frequent clearing gave me the best performance.
The unit can be purchased prebuilt as a right or left hand shooting board. Or you can purchase just the adjustable fence that you can mount in a right or left hand configuration.
—David Lyell
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
