Thread: Poor man's workbench dogs

Hello,

I have never had so called classic workbench with tail vises/end vises and all. I have dreamed about it but now when I would have money to buy or make it, I have no space for it.

I do woodworking in a storage room. There is only 5m² for my woodworking stuff, the rest of the 11 m² space is reserved to store our things, bikes and such.

Although I had a real workbench there, I think it really would not provide me any more freedom. My bench has to be more versatile. I must be able to sink my router, circular saw, sander and dust grid, each of those in the same hole, one at the time. For the benchtop, sometimes I need cavities, sometimes it has to be flat. I work with our bicycles and garden engines there. I have numerous cutting boards made of different materials, wooden for chiselling, stone and glass for truing and sharpening, metals for soldering and hot work. Plastics for gluing and damping thwacking. Rubbers and foams for working with delicate stuff.

I have there no space for vise handles, I would hurt myself there with those. That's why I had to develop something simple to hold my workpiece. I do not know, there may be more simple ways for this, but not that many I'd believe.

In the first pic there is the stopper. It is a piece of plywood held with two Bessey clamps.

In the second pic there is tail piece and tightening wedge. Tailpiece is attached with a single screw having smooth section near the head. It is tightened, but the piece of plywood rotates.

You put the stopper for the workpiece so that there leaves space for the tightening wedge. You tap it in lightly, and that's it. Compression friction keeps it there, and if set that way (wedge in from your side), you can work the workpiece from any direction from your side of the piece. Only more permanent what you need to make is a smallish hole in the tabletop.

kippis,

sumu