Thread: Planing How to secure wood

picking up on your bench being inexpensive

If you are edge planing you should be planing into your vice -- so if you are right handed the vice should be at teh left hand end of the bench

if you are face planing, nail a battern thinner than the board you are planing to the bench as a stop. Better to add a bit of character to the bench than to struggle with inadequate work holding.

lastly, if the bench moves (racks) when planing, most benches can be stiffened by gluing and screwing a rectangular piece of ply to adjacent legs

I'd have said pretty much what t'other Ian says, with a couple of other pointers:

As Ian says, use the vises for edge planing, & for longer boards it's usually better to hold one end in the vise, & support the other end some way. Billets of wood, stools, & other objects lurking about the shed are useful for this, but the best solution, if you do a lot of edge-jointing, is some sort of sliding attachment, which you can move back & forth to accommodate various lengths of board. Drill a series of holes in it to receive a dowel which will support the plank you are working on at the right height.

Planing the 'face' of a board is best done on a (flat!) bench top, & when you are new to planing, it's good to have the work sit very still. Simple 'stops' are fine for older hands, but you may find your workpiece wants to skid over the stop, particularly if it is a bit curvy to start with, or thin, & requiring a very thin stop. There are a couple of ways to better restrain recalcitrant bits of wood. The simplest is to use one of those metal stops that you let into the bench top. These have the advantage of being cheap, adjustable for height, and having a sharpish end that bites into the end of the plank you are planing. They are also made of aluminium alloy, so if your nice sharp plane blade meets it inadvertently, no serious damage ensues.

The best solution for holding a plank still while you plane the wide sides is some sort of 'travelling dog' system, either by means of one of the so-called 'wagon vise' mechanisms that are currently enjoying popularity, or a more 'traditional' tail vise. These are niceties that you will want to incorporate in your new bench that you will son begin to lust after, if you persist with this woodworking nonsense!

Cheers, & welcome to the world of us crazy darksiders...

A method I was watching on Youtube just recently was if you were face planing, routing, sanding, etc, to use a stop secured to the bench and double sided tape to hold the job from skidding around. I frowned when they mentioned it but they then went ahead with the tape and it worked really well...

Originally Posted by ian

picking up on your bench being inexpensive
if you are face planing, nail a battern thinner than the board you are planing to the bench as a stop. Better to add a bit of character to the bench than to struggle with inadequate work holding.

If you can't keep it still tack a piece at the other end as well.

Following on from what IanW says about a row of Dog Holes, if you want to go a little more formal, and spend a modest amount of money you can invest in a Terry Gordon Tail Vise for $160, but you also need to get a least one extra 1/4" Dog (it comes with one). I also purchased a pair of alum 1/2" and 3/4" high Dogs, and use them all the time (more than the 1/4").

I find it is also a very good system for sanding timber with a ROS (it needs occasional re-tightening during sanding because of the vibrations, but no big deal), and also for holding the job for some marking out tasks.

Simple to retro fit, and works well in thinner benches (I had to pack out the bottom of mine by about 8mm to get the correct thickness).

HTH
FF

There's a clever trick with a narrow batten with a v cut into one end which this guy demonstrates, amongst other techniques: The Holdfast and the Batten – VIDEO | The English Woodworker

Nifty alright, Richard. I've not seen the notched board trick before, but have certainly filed the principle for future use.

He seemed a bit dismissive of tail vises, though he was talking about travelling dog systems or 'wagon vises', not a 'full' tail vise. And I can't see they are a lot of fuss to fit; the type made with retrofitting in mind, like the HNT aren't a huge challenge, as FF says. I really can't accept that pushing up a dog is any more "faffing around" than shifting a holdfast & banging it down (after searching all over for your handy notched board), then you need something to bang the holdfast down with, so one more tool clutters your bench top......

I guess this reinforces the point that there are many ways to skin the cat, but there will be cold days in Hades before I give up my old-style tail vise. The dog system is only one of its virtues, having those extra jaws at right angles to the bench front is equally as useful for me.

Cheers