Having used my planing stop for a while several issues have come to light. None of them are fatal and some can be easily solved.
First and easiest to fix, the spikes weren’t sharp enough to stop the wood pulling out, especially softwood. I have filed them to be longer and pointier. Time will tell whether they need to be case hardened to keep them sharp, but they work much better at the moment.
More seriously, having a protrusion on the left hand side of the bench gets in the way of using the vice. It means you have to saw 3 inches farther out which is a problem for thin workpieces. You could put the planing stop on the opposite corner of the bench to the vice, so you go around to the other side to use it.
The other problem is that the space beneath the spikes gets full of shavings so you can’t lower them. This must happen with the traditional style of stop as well. I probably just need to sweep up more often.
Otherwise, I think it works quite well. It’s certainally better than trying to do everything in the vice.
Comments