Thread: Do I need a Left Handed Bench?

Sorry, meant to say, anyone got pics of a LH bench?

Hi Trav, I made a L-H roubo style bench with the leg vise on the right and a planing stop also on the right. No tail vise but I do use a Veritas wonder dog for much the same purpose. Anyway, the leg vise is on the right for the reason Horaldic mentioned. I can saw with my left hand and support the offcut with my right. The planing stop is also on the right so I can plane into it without need for clamping. You could also use the dog on a tail vise (if it's installed on right side) as a planing stop, which I think you are talking about. The problem then is the tail vise is on the right and the leg vise must go on the left, which is a more awkward position for the lefty sawing wood. Horaldic's got it, with the tail vise on the left you hold the work piece between the vise and a dog and work towards the centre of the bench.

Good Morning Trav

Cannot give you a specific answer as I am a righty.

But a little story might help... Some years ago I was in the States and stumbled across a chain called LEFTIES that specialised in left-handed products. I was very smart and bought some gifts for my left-handed friends - left-handed scissors, left-handed knives, and so on. As a righty I tried using them with my left hand and they seemed to work well.

But my left-handed friends were unimpressed. They were so used to living in a right-handed world, had developed "strange" methods of using right-handed tools, that they found the lefty stuff to be difficult to use.

How inculcated into a right-handed world are you??

Fair Winds

Graeme

Originally Posted by finchy

When it comes to some tools I'm just unsure what left and right handedness mean - With some it's obvious - I use a hammer, saw and and pliers with my left hand and a screwdriver in either (but that could be because there is better mechanical advantage in screwing in with my right hand). When paring with a chisel I hold the body of the chisel with my right, with my left near the head doing most of the work. Most importantly I use a jack plane with my left hand at the front, right hand at the back - therefore work right to left on a long board (but I don't know if this is right or left handed)

this makes you RIGHT handed

Now the point of all this. I know that traditionally on a "right handed" bench the face vice is at the left and the tail vice at the right, and plenty of comments to do it the other way around for lefties.
What I want to know is
- why this is the case

as a right hander you plane into the vice if it is on the left. This tends to tighten (or not losen) the vice when planing
if the face vice is on the right, a right hander planes away from the vice and potentially "pulls" the work from the vice

- what tools make this an advantage for the right hander and therefore a disadvantage for the left hander

mostly only applies when planing, but it also means that morticing and the like happens at the right hand end of yor bench

Righto (well, actually lefto), I'm convinced. Despite looking all wrong, I will go with the leg vice on the right and the tail vice on the left.

I arrive back in Australia in a few weeks and this is one of my early priorities!

Thanks for the advice.

Trav