Thread: My Xmas Bench

I have not made an all wood version, but I would think the amount of work is about the same. The main work is in the vice body with the dog holes, dovetail caps, etc. And that seems the same no matter the version.

And they ate both equally confusing when you look at them first. It took me also a little to wrap my head around the steel hardware.

One can also just buy a metal vice screw and use that instead of the wooden screw in the wooden version vice.

In any case, I am glad I did it. I love it already on my bench.

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Originally Posted by Cklett

....In any case, I am glad I did it. I love it already on my bench....

No surprise at all, Ck - anyone who has not used a tail vise might be surprised at the benefits they bring!

I don't think it matters a hoot whether you use the metal slides, or a traditional wooden frame with metal or wood screws, a decent tail vise will make a huge difference to the convenience of your bench.

On the first 'serious' bench I built, I fitted a' travelling dog' system, using a screw from Lee Valley intended for making wooden bar clamps. It worked well enough, but I decided to try making the full vise for my next bench. Nowadays you have a choice of travelling dog vises from several makers (generally described as "wagon vises"). These are fine & do the job of holding planks flat on the bench for planing & chiselling etc., but you miss out by not having those open jaws of a 'real' tail vise. Being open & at right angles to the front of the bench offers a huge range of holding possibilities. It's strongly related to the sort of work I do, of course, but I use my tail vise more than 80% of the time I'm at my bench.

I predict you'll come to love your tail vise more & more as the years go by, Ck....

Cheers,

Today I added a planing stop to the end of the bench.

I basically followed a design from Derek Cohen. I can't find the link any more where I saw it, but I had saved this picture



I was planning to integrate something like this all along. I added three holes with 1/2" nuts into the end cap.

This is one of them



And with these already there I made three bolts with handles and prepared a board with elongated holes and rubber cork liner.





The end of the bench is freely accessible in my workshop setup. Therefore, I can also use this as a simple moxxon vice. It is not exactly the same but does work, and who knows when it might come in handy.



I chose to use three bolt holes, each 250 mm apart from each other, so for slimmer boards, the loose jaw does not flex so much. It is only 23mm thick.

The main function will anyway be the planing stop.

Together with the planning stop and the last dog hole in the tail vice, I can now clamp up to 1950 mm long boards. Which I doubt I will ever need for what I am normally doing.

You might have noticed that one of the bolts is sticking out into the tool well. I did not like that and wanted to cover it up.

I also thought it might be handy to have a couple of little insert trays that fit into the tool well to throw small stuff in. I made two of them, where one has a raised bottom. That one fits over the bolt and covers it up.



I will see how practical these trays are. If not, I just take them out and use them for something else.

Tomorrow, I am going to finish all the bench dogs finally.



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Originally Posted by Cklett

...... I will see how practical these trays are. If not, I just take them out and use them for something else......

Well, they're practical in the sense you can just pick them up & tip the sawdust & shavings out.

The bench is looking fabulous, Ck - I am hugely impressed at what you've done to that pile of wood. Last I saw it, it looked like this:
1.jpg 2.jpg

It's undergone a slight transformation....

Tool wells are mixed blessings, one of the common reasons given for not including a tool well is that it accumulates all sorts of garbage as well as the tools it's supposed to keep out of the way. This is absolutely true, but imo, the inconvenience of having to clean the thing out occasionally is far outweighed by its convenience. (I know, I should clean it regularly not occasionally, but the garbage all too often accumulates until some small bit goes missing & I have to search the tool well for it!). I was well aware of the potential for gardage accumulation when I built my bench, but the tool well is an integral part of the design & allows for expansion & contraction of the thick top.

On my small 'auxiliary' bench I wanted to add a twin-screw vise along the back & a tool well was not wholly compatible with that idea; it needed a thick board attached to the bench top to take the threads for the wooden screws for the vise. The end caps overlap this piece, but are not attached to it so that the top can expand & contract without pulling or pushing anything apart:

Bench under.jpg

There is indeed some seasonal movement, and a small gap opens & closes at each end (largelyl obscured by the sacrifical jaw liner), with the annual moisture cycle, but after 8 years, it's all still sound & solid:

Twin-screw vise.jpg

Cheers,

Ian, there was some beautiful timber in your pile, that's for sure.

Today, I finished the bench dogs.




Some of them you can see have slightly different lengths than others. And that is due to their specific location.

Dogs 1 and 2 are right where the face vice sits.

For #1, I was lucky that the vice base has a hole just where the dog sits and bog enough to get through with a finger and push the dog up. While all dogs stick out a little underneath the bench, #1 can not and, therefore, is a little shorter.

For #2, I had to be a bit more inventive. Here, I drilled a 6.5mm hole through the base of the vice and stuck a 6mm bolt through. Now I can push the dog up via that bolt. The bolt just clears the vicenrods and quick release mechanism.



Again, #2 had to be adjusted in length to accommodate the bolt head inside the dog hole.

And then #9 sits partially above the leg. In order to enable pushing this one up, I simply made a little notch in the leg frame.



When I laid out the dig holes, I knew some would end up in unfortunate locations. I was sure I would find a way around it, and I did [emoji6]

Now I am done for now and will turn my attention to building stuff on the bench and not for the bench [emoji3]

Just a final quick question. Do you guys apply and finish to the bench dogs? I left mine raw for now. I assume they anyway are some sort of consumable, and I am afraid they might become too.slippery and then don't grab well enough.

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Looking great CK .
I have never finished my dogs with anything. I wouldn't coat them with anything thick though if I did finish them with anything. Probably just a wash down with an oil and turps mix 20 / 80 and a cut back with worn 400 paper while wet then dry off with a rag would be nice. That'll leave them smooth and dull with a nice look and feel.

Right from the start, I oiled & waxed my dogs, out of fear a drop of glue might find its way into one without my noticing (until I tried to move it!). It has only happened once, but thankfully, it only required a gentle tap to unstick it. Of course that means I don't have much side friction to hold them in position, which prompted my search for ways to make them stay put, ultimately solved very satisfactorily by ball catches, as discussed above.

Any oil or wax that gets on the working faces is soon worn off, but in any case, it doesn't seem to affect their holding under pressure. If you slope the dogs slightly the pinching effect when they come under pressure is enhanced a bit and they jam nicely in position in the bench top as well. All my dogs have numerous little kinks along the back edge from being pinched against the edges of the dog holes but still work fine. Tage Frid's recommendation was 88* of slope, which I think was just a number for those who demand precision; the point is it takes only a very little amount of slope to work well & counter any tendency for the dogs to pop out under pressure. If you put too much slope on them, you won't be able to use the tail vise the opposite way (for pulling things apart) so readily. That's something most of us don't do often, but it has come in handy on several occasions & it's something restorers need to do regularly.

Dogs are indeed 'consumables' to me and I expected to replace wooden ones fairly regularly, but I'm still using most of the originals I made for my bench 40 years ago. Wear per se is not the issue, most of the dogs I made originally will still be usable long after I'm not, but some have had accidents, like being hit with router bits or having chunks sawn out of them. (I've been annoyed with my clumsiness, but very thankful I went with wooden dogs & not metal!). So far, I have never yet broken any (& I occasionally put them under a lot of duress). Even when made from 'inferior' wood the shafts (around 25 x 28mm) can take more force than I'm able to apply. I once made some 3/4" round dogs from pine for my front vice (illustrated here), and applied as much pressure as I could to see how much they'd take before fracturing. I couldn't break a single one.

So I'm far less fussy about choosing wood for dogs now, especially those cobbled up for 'special' applications (got a drawer full of 'em, very few of which has been used more than once or twice). For 'regular' dogs I do prefer woods like river oak, not too hard and tough as nails, but practically any hardwood will do the job...

Cheers,

I will give them a quick oil tonight and wax tomorrow.

The timber was coming from that board where you had a corner cut out (see pic from your pile some posts above). I think it might be spotted gum.

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Wonderful bench Cklett! In looks and execution - I got sweaty just thinking about working on spotted/blue gum with hand tools. Any guesses as to how much the whole bench weighs?

Originally Posted by Alkahestic

Wonderful bench Cklett! In looks and execution - I got sweaty just thinking about working on spotted/blue gum with hand tools. Any guesses as to how much the whole bench weighs?

It is not as heavy as I thought. I do not know exactly, but my estimate is around 180kg.

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