Shooting miters

It's always a good day when I get to break out the hand tools. Project X has a lot of miter joints, and as I get into the funky parts (can't wait) there will be some 3-way miters, too.  So, I made some miter shooting boards, and got to work on the miters. (The 3-way miters will require an interesting twist on a shooting board, but one thing at a time.)

One thing I really, really wish I could find was a miter bar that didn't have any slop. The miter sled I've made for the table saw gets the joints to be really, really close, but not quite 45 degrees. The fences are right on the money, but the store-bought miter bar is one of the 'adjustable' variety that are good for a while, but not really reliable in a long-term sort of way. I've seen some with expanding plastic washers (Incra) and some with plastic set screws (Kreg) but what I have in mind is something that I'm probably going to have to fabricate myself. Anyway, for now, I have to adjust the miters the old-fashioned way. Not that it's really a problem.

To save time, I tried making shooting boards with no track, just a mitered piece of MDF, where the plane just rides the outside. I've taken a similar approach when shooting joints on veneer, for a parquet surface, but I hadn't tried it with solid wood. What  I've discovered is that they're just too much work this way. You have to push the plane through the wood, while also holding it tight against the shooting board, in a way you don't have to with veneer. It works, but it's a lot more effort... next go around, I'll use a track that captures the plane.