In one of my previous videos with the Veritas Box Maker’s Plow Plane, someone asked me if the plane could be used for making stopped grooves. I knew it could, because I’ve done it before with other plow planes, but figured I’d make a video of it just for fun.
Below is the video, followed by a brief written summary that covers the essentials
A stopped groove is mainly two different types, either the groove starts at one edge and stops somewhere before the other edge, or both the starting and stopping ends of the groove are in the middle of the work piece. I cover both in the video.
The 10,000 foot view is basically if you give somewhere for the front of the skate to go (the part ahead of the cutting iron), then you can just plow the single ended stopped groove like normal and stop before you hit the end of the groove. In my example I chop this area out with a chisel.
For cutting stopped grooves where both ends are stopped, I’ve usually done it with the plow plane, and then finish it up with a router plane. I will make a stop area for the front of the skate, and plow the groove from both directions when I can (or just one when I can’t).
If the groove is shorter, like in my example above, then even reversing the plane will leave a hump in the middle of it. Cleaning that up with a router plane is easy and straight forward.
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