Japanese planing board

I decided to use the other half of the log I split to make a shaving bench into a planing board. It is usable now. I'll need to make a few more stops of different heights, but it's nice for planing on the ground.

Took a while to get it flat with hand tools because of the two big knots in the middle, and if I'm honest with myself it's not flat for the whole length, but if that becomes a problem I'll have another go at it in the future.

Looking at the pictures made me realize I'm going to need to stabilize that check in the end. I'll probably inlay a small butterfly tie. I need to cut out a piece of tear-out around one of the knots and fill it with some inlay too.

Following up.

I inlayed a bowtie to stabilize the big check near the planing stop.

I also realized how easy it is to use this as a shooting board. By putting down a slim board underneath the work piece and sliding the stop over to the left a little bit for clearance, I can very easily shoot my boards to 90 degree angles.

My shooting technique is still sloppy, I get tear-out on the near edges of the boards and I don't have my planes set to perfectly straight so I'm actually a little off perfect 90 degrees, but I got my end grain flat enough to stand upright without falling, so I'd say it's good enough.

Right now I'm using it to upcycle pieces of an old hardwood pantry shelf into an open tool-tote. Using the project as an excuse to try dovetailing for the first time. I also really need an open toolbox to contain and move my tools around more easily when I'm in a project.

I'm really enjoying building all my basic woodworking tools and jigs.

Incredible work. That planing board is amazing, and I can see that I'll need one too as soon as I can get back to woodworking. The bowtie fixes are so in character. I'm looking forward to seeing more.