Planing Stop (and Doe’s Foot)

Make your own planing stop. This took about 30 minutes to make and install ...

It looks like an ordinary dog hole. 1" wide in O1 steel. Filed 8 ppi. Sharp like a saw.

The brass screws have been replaced by stainless steel M6 bolts into threaded inserts ...

This is the spring-loaded bench dog. It will remain at any height it is set. Note that all my bench dogs are exactly the same, and this one can be used in place of any other ...

How the stop looks to the wood

Used with a Doe's Foot (the subject of a number of posts by Chris Schwarz and Richard Maguire – just Google them for more details). This is simply a wooden board with a 90 degree angle section cut out ...

Once clamped to the bench top with a hold down, the board is held rigidly. Quite impossible to push across the bench.

.. or tail vise ...

The extra grip over a bench dog is amazing! It grips so well that it is just as stable off centre ...

The combination of the metal stop and Doe's Foot in stabilising a board is just so profound (!) that it is my first choice now when planing diagonally across a board (such as when using a jack plane to take off highs). Obviously, do not use this metal stop if you feel you may hit it with a plane.

The teeth are small and sharp enough not to do any damage to the end grain of boards being planed. I would not use it with planed edge grain. It would damage that.

Luckily, I made all my dogs the exact same size and interchangeable. This will enable me to use the metal dog anywhere along the side of the bench.

Part of this thread was intended to emphasise just how amazing the Doe's Foot is as an end vise substitute - for those of you without an end vise.

Regards from Perth

Derek

February 2018