Face-Planing Stop

I saw in Jim Tolpin's new book, The New Traditional Woodworker, p. 26, a picture of a face-planing stop I liked.  It featured a thin board about 4-5 inches wide and perhaps 1/4 inch thick with a hook attached to one end.  The hook he showed was held in a vise.  So I decided to make one.

I used a scrap piece of thin walnut I had laying around and screwed a piece of poplar to one end.  I made it long enough to reach two bench dogs for stability.  I can hang it over the end of the bench and hold it in place with a couple of bench dogs, as shown here, a bench hook, or hold it in a vise.  In any case, it offers good stability as a face- planing stop.  The thin profile lets me plane thin pieces.  Since it can be positioned anywhere on my bench (that is, if I ever cleaned it off!), it will accommodate boards of any length,

This only took a few minutes to build and already I have used it a number of times.  If you use hand planes, and I hope you do, this is a simple appliance that will pay dividends.

Norm