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111K views 202 replies 60 participants last post by  MikeLingenfelter 
#1 ·
Finding the lumber

Well I started the first step in building the Holtzapffel workbench. I went out last weekend and picked up some Douglas Fir for the bench and started to mill it up. I choose Douglas Fir for a couple reasons. First it was pretty cheap, I only spent about $150 on the lumber. Secondly, its a stable and stiff wood, which is good for a bench. It is also pretty hard for a "softwood". I also used Douglas Fir on the small bench I built as a sharpening station. I like how it turned out. I think have some strategies for dealing with the tear-out I had on that project.

The big benefit of Douglas Fir was the price, but it is also one of it's flaws. I did some digging through the lumber pile, but I still have to deal with some knots. I'm hoping I can bury most of them inside the top and legs. I may have to deal some knots on the top (hopefully small ones), but we will have to wait and see. I might also pick up a couple more boards, if I have some big knots to deal with. If they become a problem, I don't have too much invested in the top.

One of the other benefits I listed, was that it is a stable wood. I think that showed itself when I was ripping the boards down. The top is going to be about 6 feet long. I was expecting to deal with the board pinching during the ripping cut. To my surprise the cut stayed straight and true. I have never seen that when ripping a board that long before. The kerf always seems to close up on me.

I didn't take pictures of all of the lumber. Below is a sampling of some of the lumber for the stretchers. The smaller pieces were easy to find knot free sections.

This weekend I plan to laminated up the legs and stretchers and start on the base. I've rough cut the the pieces for the top, and I'm going to let them dry a little longer in my shop.

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#6 ·
Call me a rebel, I'm still going with the wagon vise. If it doesn't work out, I think I can patch the top easily and add a quick-release vise without any problems.

I was planning to go to a hand-cut dovetail class this weekend, but it was cancelled yesterday because only only 1.5 people signed up. I know I was the 1, because I prepaid. I'm very said, but now I can work on the bench which makes me feel a little better.

I ended up getting the Douglas Fir at Dunn Lumber over in Lynnwood. The other place I found near my house was too expensive and didn't have much of a selection.
 
#11 ·
If you end up with knots on the face and you want to hide them you might think of using "dutchman" patches or take it a step further and check out the latest issue of Pop Wood magazine for an article titled Perfect Patching.

You picked a great design to follow too. If I weren't already hip deep in my own design I probably would have opted for the Holtzapffel. I look forward to checking in on your progress.

always,
J.C.
 
#12 ·
J.C. - I'm not concern about seeing the knots, but planing through them when I have to flatten the top. Your idea of a dutchman might a solution, if I have a large knot. I might just go a little deeper than a normal patch. That way I will have room to flatten the top several times.

Thanks everyone, you have come through with some good ideas.
 
#13 ·
Sorry about the class - too bad he couldn't have given you a one to one class… (or would that be one to one and a half?)

That would've been great. I'm glad you have your hands full this weekend with the bench though!

We'll be looking out for the next post in the series…
 
#15 ·
Starting the base

This weekend I have a little time to work in the shop. I have plans for the next couple of weekends, so it might be a little while before I can work on the bench again.

Today, I cut all of the legs and stretchers to size and cut the tenons on the legs and stretchers.

The Legs

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The stretchers

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I also had time to start to hog out the mortises. The first step was to mark out the mortises. I just used a combination square and the stretchers themselves to layout the mortises. The stretchers need to be flush with the outside of each leg. This is one of the features of the bench. The legs and stretchers can be used as clamping surfaces.

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I also took a close look at each of the legs, and found the faces I wanted to see. There are some small knots on the legs, so I faced them to the inside or back.

Next I used a router and a ¾" spiral cut bit, to hog out the mortise.

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This is one big bit! It cuts really nice, but you do need to take a few passes to get to its full depth. The bit isn't long enough to go to the full depth of the mortise. I plan to use my drill press and a forstner bit to take it to full depth. The router gives me very straight walls on the mortises. I thought my chisel would fallow these walls much better than if I had just used the drill press alone.

Here's the first cut from the router. It will take a couple of passes to hog out the entire mortise.

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I also plan to use this router bit to cut my bench dog holes. I saw a nice demonstration over at www.popularwoodworking.com, on cutting bench dog holes with your router. Look in the Gallery for the video.

I had to call it a day. I will try and finish of the mortises tomorrow.
 
#16 ·
So far so good Mike. I like this detailed approach to the construction process. Thanks for taking your time for the pictures and the narrative. If you are anything like me once you get on a roll it is an aggravation to have to deal with interruptions.

I am looking forward to seeing some more posts.

Thanks for sharing.
 
#27 ·
Update on the base

I had a few hours to work in the shop before the Super Bowl started. I was able to hog out all of the mortises. The router and drill press combination worked out really nice.

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I had time to clean out the mortises in two of legs and fit one of the small stretches into the mortises.

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So far the fit is working out pretty well. I still have a little more tweaking to do on some of the shoulders, but over all not too bad.
 
#39 ·
Update on the bench

There's nothing like a pile of shavings on your shop floor.

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I've been busy these last several weekends and haven't had much time to work on the bench. This last weekend Dorje came by to help out. My plan was to start the glue-up of the top. After milling up the lumber and trying to cut around the knots, I wasn't happy with how many knots were still showing through the top. I should have spent more time picking through the lumber the first time, lesson learned. At least the lumber is pretty cheap. It can be hard to find relatively clear lumber, when you are picking through 16' boards, and trying to use construction grade lumber. It might have been easier if the lumber hard 8' boards, but I guess there isn't much call for 2×12x8's. I just had them cut them to a manageable size. So Dorje and I went back and spent a little more time picking through the lumber and I think we found some good boards. I'm starting the milling process today. I'll know how well we did by the end of the day.

We also spent time, last weekend, making the dowels for the mortise and tenons in the base. I didn't take any pictures of this process, but if you look at my blog on the sharpening bench you will see how that was done. We made the dowels out of oak, which I had read was a wood use for draw boring. It has a straight grain, and can flex as it goes through the offset holes I used. We only had time to put one of the end assemblies together, before we were done for the day. So far it's coming together pretty good.

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We chamfered the edges to soften them and to keep them from splintering. We did this on the router table with a chamfer bit. I don't have any dust collection set up for the router yet, but Dorje functioned as my dust collection buy holding the shopvac hose, and collected the dust. It was so effective, I really need to get that hooked up soon.

Here are some close-ups of the mortise and tenons with the dowels installed. I used draw bores on these joints to pull them together and to strengthen them. This is the second time I've used this technique and I just love it. I offset the holes on the tenons 3/32" towards the shoulder. I think I could have gone a full 1/8", with the size of the mortise and tenons and the dowel, but 3/32" worked great. The dowels are 3/8" in diameter and about 2 ¾" long.

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You can see how tight the pins pulled the joint together.

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These joints are rock solid and are never going to move or come apart.
 
#54 ·
Gluing up the top

This last weekend I was able to get all of the lumber milled up and I started to glue-up the top. Dorje and I did a pretty good job picking out the lumber. There were very few knots I had to deal with. The small ones you might see in the photo are very close to the surface. It's likely they will be milled out when I flatten the top.

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Here is the first glue-up. It's the front of the bench with the dog holes. I also got 2 other sections glued up.

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You might be asking what that whole is at the top. That's where I will be putting the Wagon for the Wagon Vise. I'll be gluing the top in sections. This will allow me to get good clamping pressure on the laminated sections. I'm keeping the first glue-up under 6", so that I can run it over my jointer to flatten the glue-up. I'll then glue-up 2 sections which will be under 12". This will allow me to run it through my planer, one last time.

I won't have a lot of time over the next couple of weekends to work on the bench, but I hope I can at least get the last couple of sections glued up. After that, I should be heading down the home stretch.
 
#65 ·
Update on large wooden screws

Many of you have asked me where I was getting my large wooden screws, for the large face vise on my bench. Well a new source has just come up. Over at Christopher Schwarz's blog, he just posted a new source for the wooden screws. Joe, the new guy making the screws, is having a sale on the wooden screws. They are $99/each through the end of March. This is a great deal if you are in the market for these large wooden screws.

I'm still waiting on the ones I've ordered and will post pictures when they show up.
 
#69 ·
Final Top Glue Up

Well I found the time to do the final glue up of the top today. Man the top it getting heavy and difficult to manage on my own. I was just able to send the last couple of sections through the planer, on my own. For those of you doing a large glue up like this, you might want to get a second set of hands when you get to this stage.

Here are the last couple of sections that will go through the planer. There are two large sections and 1 last board I needed to add to make it a full 24" wide.

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I've never sent something this wide through my planer before. I found out you need to take an even lighter pass for something this wide. Nothing bad happened but the planer did bog down a little, on my first pass.

Here's the top sitting in the clamps. I'll leave it there overnight.

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I think I could have used a couple more clamps, for this glue up. With something this wide, I think you need the clamps a little closer together. I think I was able to pull things together, so I think it will be ok.

I think I'm really in the homestretch now. Tomorrow I think I will square up the ends and maybe get the base put together. If I don't get the top attach this weekend, it will get attached next weekend.
 
#84 ·
Top and Base Come Together

I wasn't expecting to have another update this weekend, but I made some good progress today.
I started the day by squaring up the ends of the top. I used a straight edge and my circular saw to do this.

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My circular saw couldn't cut all the way through with one pass. I had to flip the top over and do a second cut. I've always had problems getting the two cuts to line up perfectly, but this time I got it dead on. I must be getting better at this.

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I didn't have my base fully assemble yet, because I was trying to keep small and storable until the top was done. With draw bores, it was a quick process to add the large stretches to complete the base. The other nice thing about draw bores, you don't have to wait for any glue to dry. Once the dowel pins are in, it's ready to go.
I flipped the base up onto the top and marked the locations of the mortises. No Picture of that.
Once I had the mortises laid out I set up my router with a ¾" spiral cut bit and a fence.

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You will see I used a couple clamps as stops, for the router. It took multiple passes to get to full depth, but it went pretty fast.

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I then reset the fence and made a second pass to complete the mortise.

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Then it was pretty quick work to finish the mortise with a chisel.

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After finishing all the mortises it was time to test fit base. I thought I would have a push and pound the base around to get it to fit in all 4 of the mortise, but the base slipped right in. No tweaking needed!

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I will use dowels and draw bores to attach the base and top. I would have finished that step today but I didn't have the dowels ready. Next weekend I hope to have the time to attach the top and base. I think I should also have time to install the wagon vise and make the parts I'll need for the face vise.
I'm so looking forward to having the bench done, so that I can start some of the other projects that have been waiting for the bench to be finished.
 
#95 ·
Wagons Ho!

This weekend I had time to work on the Wagon Vise. Overall it came out really nice. I also attached the top to the base, so it's all one piece now.

I'm using a standard veneer press screw for the Wagon Vise, nothing special and it's cheap. The first step was to bore a hole for the thread bracket, that the screw runs through. I have to tell you boring through end-grain is a bit of a pain. I should have bored the hole using my drill press, before I glued the piece in place. Next time I'll know better. I ended up using a cordless drill and a 1.25" Forstner bit. It took a little time but I finally made it through, with no real tear-out.

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Next I had to deal with screwing into end-grain. Generally screws don't hold very well in end-grain and I wasn't planning to put an end-cap on the bench. Dorje gave me a good suggestion. Drill a hole through the top and insert a dowel. The threads of the screws will bight into the long-grain of the dowel better than the end-grain of the wood.

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I gave it a shot and it worked pretty well. Although it felt like the screws would eventually pull out, even with the dowels. If it wasn't for the pressure the vise was going to put on the screws, I think this technique would have worked really well. I ended up putting a long bolt through the end and attaching a nut. This worked really well. Then I had another idea. I could have flipped the bracket around and put it on the inside of the wagon opening. That way when I put pressure on the vise it would push the bracket into the wood. Oh well, I can do that if this set up ever gives me any problems.

Next I installed the wagon and flipped the top over. The wagon was little thicker than the top, so I had to mark what needed to be removed.

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I took an old plane blade and laid it flat on the bench and scribed around the wagon. I then used a scrub plane to remove the bulk of the wood and finished up with my #5.5. It only took a few minutes to this with hand planes.

The next step was cut a ¾" x ¾" rabbet on the underside of the wagon opening.

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I used my router and fence to do this. Sorry for the blurry picture. I only took one picture and it turned out blurry. You might notice a little wave in the rabbet on the right side. I didn't have the fence tight against the edge and it pulled away, before I realized. Good thing it is on the underside of the bench, where no one will see it. These rabbets will hold a couple of pieces of aluminum track that will hold the wagon and keep it from sagging.

Here are the aluminum pieces. They are 1.25" x 1/8" and about 10.5" long.

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I drilled a few holes and counter sunk them, so the heads of the screws will be flush.

I then marked where the aluminum tracks will intersect the wagon. I then ripped a couple of groves with my table saw. The width of my saw blade was just the right size. It gave just enough room for the aluminum tracks, so that it wouldn't too snug.

Here's how the tracks fit into the wagon.

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By using the rabbets and the aluminum tracks, I can remove the wagon and replace it if it ever gets damaged.

Here's the wagon vise installed. It moves really smoothly, I couldn't be happier with how it came out. The aluminum tracks give the wagon a lot support. I thought I was going to have to use wax or something to get it to move smoothly, but it's fine as it.

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I clamped up a board to see how it was going to work.

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With very little clamping pressure, the board is held snugly in place. I'm using 2 Veritas Bench Dogs in my bench. I think I'm going to like these bench dogs.

I'm really happy with how the Wagon Vise turned out. I think I made the right choice. It might a couple move weeks before I have a chance to do more work on the bench. I think in one more weekend I could have it finished. I need to install the large face vise and flatten the top, then put a finish on it. Ok, maybe two weekend ☺.
 
#96 ·
Mike,

Great post. I have been following this all along and you are nearly finished with the bench. It is looking fantastic.

But now you are telling me I am going to have to wait two more weeks for more!!!! I don't know if I can wait that long. :)

Thanks for the post.
 
#100 ·
Scott, sorry you have to wait, my wife and I have some vacation plans and other obligations over the next couple of weekends. I'm so close I want to get it done too!

Dorje, your suggestion worked really well. I plan to use it again when I have another end grain situation.

Thos., sadly there will be no grand kids in our future, but I'm sure it will go to some deserving woodworker at some date.
 
#107 ·
Flattening The Top

This weekend I only had a few hours I could spend in the shop. My next task was to work on the top and get it flat. I had a few areas that were misaligned slightly during the glue up, so I spent a few minutes working on those areas, to bring everything to the same level.

Next I wanted to see if there was any wind in the top. To check this I used some winding sticks. The winding sticks I have are for much smaller scale projects, so I had to come up with something else. I had seen Christopher Schwarz use some aluminum brackets on one of his DVDs. I pick up a couple straight pieces at Lowe's and gave it a try. They worked pretty well. I put some blue painters tape one of them, to have some contrast. Here are a couple of pictures where I'm trying to show the wind in the top.

This first picture is looking over the front winding stick to see the back winding stick.

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This next picture is moving my line of sight lower until the back winding stick starts to get blocked by the front one.

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You can see there is a slight wind in the top. The left rear side is a little higher than the right side. I will take this into account when I'm flattening the top. I did this procedure a couple of times at different points on the top. In my case it was pretty flat, except for the far end of the bench. I'm not sure I can explain in words how to deal with wind. Both Rob Cosman and Christopher Schwarz show strategies for dealing with wind in their DVDs. I'll see if I can find out which DVDs this was on and post that later.

I then drew pencil lines all over the top to give me a reference as I was flattening. I made a few passes with my #7 at a diagonal across the top. You can see where the high and low spots are, from where the pencil lines have been removed.

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It took quite a few passes to get top close to flat. You will see paraffin wax next to my plane. Paraffin is your friend when you have this much planing to do. It really does help.

After I got it to where I thought I was getting close to flat, I wanted to see if I still had wind or had induced more wind into the stop. I got the winding sticks out and checked it again.

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I was pretty close, the left side needed just a little more work.

The initial flattening made quite a pile of shavings ☺. I was sweating pretty good by the time I was done.

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Planing across the grain leaves a pretty rough surface, so when I was happy with the flatness, I was ready to plane with the grain. Before starting I gave the plane iron a fresh sharpening. I then drew pencil lines on the top again.

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You can't see the lines very well, but they are there. I then planed with the grain and overlapped my passes. It top 4 or 5 passes to clean everything up.

Here is an example of a full-width full-length shaving I was getting on the last couple of passes.

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It was pretty cool to see those shavings come out of the plane! I still had some minor tearout after I was done. I don't have a Smoothing plane yet, so I just hit it with some 220 sandpaper. Overall it came out really nice.

I then moved the bench back into place. I'm working in a garage, so my floor is sloped. I had to find a way to shim the bench and still keep it stable. I choose to use large cedar shakes as my shims.

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There is about a ¾" difference over the length of the bench.

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Once I got the bench level with the shims. I marked them and pulled them out one leg at a time. I applied a small amount of glue on the shims to try to keep them in place. Not so much glue that I can't knock them off if I ever need to.

I only have a few things left to do, before it's finished. Next I think I will add a full-width planing stop on the left end of the bench. I need to attach the twin-screw face vise. I should have my large wooden screws this next week. Then the finial task is to apply a finish. Next weekend will be another short weekend in the shop so I will probably work on the planing stop.
 
#119 ·
Planing Stop

This weekend I worked on a couple small projects, the first was a planing stop across the end of my bench. The planing stop is a piece ½" Oak with 2 threaded star knobs.

I had these 2 threaded star knobs leftover from another project and they looked like they would work well.

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I gave some thought to where I wanted the knobs to be positioned. To give me a little more support while planing, I positioned the right knob (near the front of the bench) so that I would plane up against it. For me that was about 6" in from the front of the bench. I also took into account the radius of the knob. I put them about 1/8" below the surface of the bench. For now that will work, but I didn't take into account that I will have to flatten the top a few times over it's life. I think I may have to move knobs down at some point.

I used some threaded inserts in the end of the bench for the knobs.

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I then sized the board I was going to as the stop and laid out the slots the threaded knobs would travel in.

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I used the drill press to rough out the slots and cleaned them up with a chisel and file. You can just see the holdfasts I used while chiseling out the waste in the slots. I have to say they worked great. I purchase them from Tools For Woodworking/Gramercy. The pair of them were only $30. After I have had a chance to work with them a little more, I'll post a review. First impressions they are well worth the little amount of money they cost.

After cleaning up the slots it was just a matter of attaching the stop.

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The stop can be move anywhere from flush to about 1" above the bench top. Here are a couple pictures of some thin and think stock up against the stop.

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I have planed up against the stop and it's pretty solid. It was very easy to add this planing stop to the bench and it should be a very useful feature.

This next weekend I should have a whole weekend to spend in the shop. I have the tracking number for the large wooden screws and they should be delivered tomorrow ☺. So this coming weekend will be spent adding the large face vise, and if there is time put a finish on the bench.
 
#129 ·
Big screws, no wait HUGE screws.

Well the day finally came and large wooden screws I ordered came in yesterday ☺. I wasn't quite prepared for how big these guys were going to be. Tim Allen would be grunting his approval, if he had seen these big guys. The pictures really don't do them justice.

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The over length is about 25". The threaded area is 2.25" in diameter. The head or cap is 3.25" in diameter and there are about 3 threads per inch. The head of the screw is made from Ash and the rest of the pieces are Maple.

The handles feel and looked really nice. They are bout 14" long and about 1" in diameter.

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I gave the nuts a spin on the screws and they spun freely with enough play to account for any wood movement. I put both nuts on one of the screws and screwed them together. They tightened up really snug to each other and they weren't going anywhere.

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The nuts are about 8" x 4" x 2".

Finally the screws came with a couple garters that are used to "attach" the screws to the face/chop.

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Mike Siemsen over at Green Lake Clock Company was a pleasure to do business with. It did take a while to get the screws but these aren't your standard items you can buy off the shelf. Mike stayed in constant contact with me during this process. Mike told me he made up some extra sets while he made mine, so the wait shouldn't be as long if you plan to buy a set these screws. You can find Mike's contact information over at greenlakeclock.com.

If everything goes well, look for a post early next week on the installation of the face vise.
 
#130 ·
Mike,

I have been considering a similar bench design and was wondering from whom you were ordering. Thanks for the the info it will really save me some time when I start on my bench.
 
#139 ·
Mockup of the Face Vise

Here is a quick update on attaching the face vise. This last weekend I worked on a mockup of the face vise. I thought it best to practice on some cheap lumber instead of the nicer wood I'm planning to use. I didn't take any pictures of the mockup process, but I will do some detailed pictures when I do the final assembly.

I picked up a standard 2×10 "construction" grade stud at my local Lowe's and started to lay things out. It was good I decided to mock this up, because there were a few things I needed to change. First, you can't it in the picture but where I placed the holes for the screws, in the chop, are too close to the bottom. When I put the garters on, the garters were right on the bottom edge. I'd like to see a little relief on the bottom, maybe about a ¼".

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Here is a close-up the garter installed around the screw.

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The next change will be how I attach what I'm calling the washers. These are the blocks that are attached to bench and the nuts are attached to the back of them.

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When Christopher Schwarz attached his blocks to his bench he used through bolts, through the top of his bench. I thought I would try lag bolts up through bottom. I thought I could hide the bolts and not see them from the top. I made sure the lag bolts didn't go all the way to surface. I wanted to leave some room for future surfacing. I think I went in over a 1.5", but that wasn't far enough. After attaching the vise, I played around with it. You can apply so much pressure with these screws, with very little effort, you can pull those nuts right off of the bench! So, I think I'm going to change to bolts, and also dowel the "washers" into the side of the leg to give it even more support.

If you saw Christopher Schwarz design, you might have noticed that he didn't extend his washers/nuts all of the way to the leg. I thought it might be a good idea to do this. It should give more support to piece that is clamped into the vise. It also allows me to dowel them into the leg, for even more support.

Because the mockup took most of the weekend, I didn't get very far on the final install. I was able to get the chop glued up and the washers milled up. I had some Oak leftover from another project, so I used that for the chop. I had some Maple leftover that I used for the washers. The next couple of weekends will be busy with family stuff and my own birthday ☺. So, it might be a few weeks before you see the final installation.
 
#140 ·
Mike,
I have been waiting for this stage for a while to see how you handled it. I will be curious once you put the vise to work how the independent double screws work out. I am concerned about attaching the garters to the chop as you might break them out if you get racking between the screws. I guess it would depend on whether you ever clamp abnormally shaped pieces. Joe at bigwoodscrew.com talks about this problem with this setup.
 
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