Wolfpack Woodworks

It has to be said that even though almost a year has passed I haven’t been able to use the bench nearly as much as I had hoped.

But having said that I have been able to use it enough to start forming some opinions of it.

The bench looks like this:

The bench top is made from MDF. The entire story is covered in previous posts.

Part of that process was to answer some questions I had about benches. The questions were:

• Would a more classically proportioned bench work for me?
• What advantages does a leg vise have over a classic face vise?
• Is a face vise mounted in the tail-vise position all it’s cracked up to be?
• Are flush legs really all that great?
• Is a crotchet going to work for me?
• How does a twin screw vise work for me?

So what have I managed to learn so far?

Well, a classically proportioned bench is working very well for me. The bench is 96″x24″x34″. Being able to reach the back of the bench is a huge plus. The length is a plus too as it allows room to work on some larger pieces and still find room on the bench for a bench hook or shooting board.

I can also see how a very long bench would work even better. I can’t help but think of the Dominy Bench or a classic Roubo which are also very long benches.

Is there a downside to this size of bench? Yes, there is. Glue ups become a real pain on a relatively narrow surface. Given the time I spend working with hand tools and the time I spend on glue-ups this is a fair compromise, but I do now need to do something about an assembly table. But I would not out of choice do back to a wider bench.

The leg vise has actually been a very pleasant surprise.

The clamping power is enormous and because of the parallel guide the vise can effectively clamp pieces that a more conventional fact vice would simply choke on. It clamps long pieces vertically with ease. The down side to the leg vise is the need to keep adjusting the parallel guide.

There are several other ways to manage the function of a parallel guide ranging from a block of wood on piece of string that can be swung into position to a scissors arrangement that requires no adjustment. See this post on Christopher Schwarz’ woodworking blog.  I am giving the scissors much more thought.

The big winner with the leg vise is that I can remove it from the bench completely in a flash, and do this to edge plane a panel:

Both Scott Landis and Christopher Schwarz talk about doing this on a Roubo bench. But I have to say it was another moment of revelation when I did it for the first time. I do have a bench jack, you can see it in the far left of this image, but this is just so much simpler and far more secure.

It was also the first time I had actually used the crotchet in anger. Prior to that moment I had looked at it as some odd appendage on my bench with as much relevance as my appendix and likely to suffer the same fate. As in get itself removed and consigned to the burn pile.

It showed it’s work that day and got itself saved. And this also showed the real use of flush mounted legs. It really does seem that we are having to re-learn many of the hard one lessons of long ago.

But what about the tail vise:

I almost never use it and I don’t think I would miss it. About the only thing it gets used for is when I use a spoke shave:

I don’t honestly think I would miss it at all if I took it off.

The only thing I have not really tried is the twin screw vise. I do have some thougts on this, but I’ll save that for another post.

[Editor's Note - This was originally posted on a different host in August 2007]

Vise with Vices?

At the end of the last post I had built and fitted the new bench top. I had mixed feelings about using a face vise in the tail vise position and was waiting to build and fit the leg vise.

So I set about taking a chuck of hard maple and making a leg vise. The piece of 8/4 maple was around 5″ wide and 36″ long. 5″ is a bit narrow to make a decent vise of so I half-lapped a piece of 4/4 maple onto the top to make a wider face with this result.

What I won’t show is how ugly the half-lap actually is. I decided to cut it entirely by hand. Bad move. Hard maple doesn’t work so easily with hand tools. It took a long time and was a little ugly by the time I was done. Note to self – use a dado stack on the table saw next time and then tidy up with hand tools. To be fair though if I ever did a large half lap like this again with hand tools I would approach the problem differently. The hole for the vise screw was also drilled. 

At this point I had to deal with the leg of the bench. The legs were never designed for a large hole of a vise screw to go through them. Neither were they designed to be slotted for the parallel guide that goes at the base of the leg vice.

To solve that problem I made a false leg with the hole for the screw and the slot for the parallel guide in it. This was carefully made 4 square with hand tools. I then glued this to the leg, which wasn’t ever made 4 square in the first  place.

Having learned my lesson from the half lap incident I chucked up a 3/4″ straight cutter in the router table and cut the mortise in the base of the leg for the spacer on the router table. The end was squared off with a 3/4″ chisel. 

The parallel guide was ripped from some 3/4 maple and jointed on the tail vise. This tail vise is growing on me, although I could have done this with the leg vise, had it been fitted.

It was face planed to a nice, tight fit. This is one of those little moments where planning stops and bench dogs come into play.

I’m beginning to really like this arrangement!

The initial fit of the parallel guide.

The setup for drilling the holes for the parallel guide. Note the Veritas surface clamps holding the piece down for drilling. About this time I decided it was about time to get a drill press

I then drilled the leg vise for a couple of dowels to hold the parallel guide into the leg vise. This way I could easily replace the guide if I needed to. The dowels were just driven in without glue. The fit of the parts is good enough that this gives a very solid joint.

And then I took a piece of 1/4″ hardwood dowel and shaved it down a little with an old Stanley spoke shave. This would form the moveable cross pin for the parallel guide.

This actually turned into another one of those Ah-Ha moments. The piece is angled out towards the front of the bench. This could not be done with the wagon vice I used to have nor could it be done with the leg vise. Angled in this manner it felt very natural working the piece. Score one plus point for the face vice as a tail vice! A more traditional tail vice could also be used in this manner as well. This just goes to show that surprises lie in wait with any design.

So on to the moment of truth. The leg is screwed in and some leather glued to the face for additional holding power. Fit the pin and clamp a small off cut of pine and turn the handle. This is where I had another surprise. The clamping power of this thing is phenomenal. Compared to a face vise this clamps with much less effort.

Releasing a part and re-positioning is fast and easy. The fact the screw is 9″ below the top of the vise means wide (or long pieces vertically) can be easily clamped.

I was pretty skeptical about the leg vise before I started this. Right now I believe this has great potential and that it can work very well. The question now is will it work well with my style of woodworking. Time will tell.

One aspect that has captured me already is that it can be removed completely in the time it takes to undo the screw completely leaving a very clear bench. Although the leg vise is quite narrow and probably won’t need to be removed much a twin screw face vise would be another matter. I think that any face of leg vise I use in the future will also be completely removable.  This takes expensive items like the Veritas twin screw vise out of the running.

The final addition to the bench for the moment will be the crochet at the end, and some holes in the legs for the holdfasts so I can run a batten between the legs to support long boards for jointing.

[Editor's Note - This was originally posted on a different host in August 2007]

The Saga Continues…

In part one I talked about what was wrong with my current bench, and the confusing array of options for benches that has been paralyzing my efforts at building a replacement that works well for my hybrid style of work.

A confluence of personal revelations and magazine articles by Chris Schwarz, editor of Woodworking magazine, get me the insight I needed to find what would work for me in a bench.

The old bench top was 32″ x 72″ x 1 1/2. I already felt it was too short, but I was less bothered by the width. The height was 34″ which seems about right for me at 6′3″ tall. With this in mind I drew up a list of questions:

• Would a more classically proportioned bench work for me?
• What advantages does a leg vise have over a classic face vise?
• Is a face vise mounted in the tail-vise position all it’s cracked up to be?
• Are flush legs really all that great?
• Is a crotchet going to work for me?
• How does a twin screw vise work for me?

Quite a list of questions I would like to answer. Chris Schwarz has built something like 10 benches over the years to come up with his answers. I’m going to try to answer mine over about 12 months.

So what do I need to answer these questions?

Wanting to experiment means that it is highly likely the bench top and legs are going to cut into, drilled out, hacked at and generally slashed up as changes are made. So clearly I’m not going to want to invest in a fine bench just yet. Low cost and low investment in time is therefore a key issue at this point.

Since the top of the old bench is lag bolted to the base I have decided to reuse the base. For the top I will be using MDF. It is a dark material and dark is not ideal for a bench top. It is a horrible to work material due to dust but it comes very flat and it is dense. And it is relatively cheap. So I won’t feel bad about it when I retire the bench.

The new bench top would be of classic proportions – 24″ x 96″ x 4″. This would answer the first question. I’ll add a leg vise to answer the second question. I will move the face vise to the tail vise position to answer the third question. The new bench top will be flush mounted with the front legs to answer the fourth question and a crotchet will be added to answer the fifth question.

As to twin screw vises, I’m going to have to think about how to do that on the cheap later. I have a Beall threading tool so I can make 1″ screws. That should work for light duty. But I have time to think about that.

Fast forward a few days. Action has begun.

So a pile of MDF followed me home from the lumberyard along with some 8/4 hard maple off cuts from the shorts bin. One offcut is destined for a leg vise, he other will form the new chops for the vise, with probably enough left over for a crochet.

By the time I’m adding the fourth sheet the base is sturdy enough that I forgo the screws. The previous laminations have developed a slight cup. The remaining sheets have also developed a slight cup. I add the remaining laminations so that the cups tend to cancel out.

The result is very flat and very heavy.

The pictures get a little thin on the ground here. I keep forgetting to stop and take them. I put the slab on my sturdy little helpers and mount the vise.

My Sturdy Helper

I add cleats to position the slab using the upper stretchers of the base as a reference and use gravity to hold everything together. I also lop 2 inches off the bottom of the legs. After drilling dog holes and adding the chops to the tail vise I get this:

OK, it’s a beast. The top is sealed with a turpentine, beeswax and boiled linseed oil concoction that smells a little evil when drying.

My first impressions are this thing is huge. 96″ is a big bench. And at 24″ it seems easier to get at both sides of the work easily. I can reach over the bench and clamp the far side of the work without having to go round the back. It is also very flat – this is good. I put a couple of dogs in as a planing stop and attack a board with a jack plane.

Wow! The mass of the bench and its flatness is giving me a huge amount of feedback I wasn’t getting before. I can really feel the cut instead of just seeing shavings. This is good. And when I hit a knot the bench doesn’t try to jump. This is great! Instead it wracks the base. This isn’t so good. Still, this is a vast improvement and I did expect some racking since this is very much a compromise arrangement as I am reusing the old base.

Now to try a holdfast.

A few whacks with a mallet and it’s bouncing up and down. It is a loosefast instead. This is something I hadn’t expected but it is understandable given that MDF has no elastic give to grab the holdfast unlike a real wood bench.

In a subsequent test with 4″ of wood the holdfast worked fine so I’m pretty sure it’s the material, not the holdfast. I want an excuse to get the Veritas Surface Clamps and the holdfasts tend to get used most on my sturdy helper anyway.

Now on to the tail vise.

Despite the alarmingly tall looks of the chops it actually racks very little top to bottom. The leather makes a huge difference in the holding power of the vise. Side to side racking is dealt with using this handy shop made tool. 

The dog hole works fine. Right now I’m not totally sold on this arrangement over the wagon vise I used to have. Lacking a leg vise right now it does get used a lot, but I think this will change once I get the leg vise on.

Overall I’m happy with the result so far. It is vastly better than what I was using with $60 in it so far. The only really annoying thing is I keep kicking the lower front stretcher. I half expected this to happen anyway and it’s another of those compromise things.

In the next installment I will add the leg vise and the crochet and bore more holes In the legs for supporting long boards.

[Editor's Note - This was originally published on a different host in August 2007]

The Saga Begins.

I’m still using the bench I made shortly after I moved into the current house. It’s made from 2×4 and 2×6 lumber with 2 layers of plywood for a top. I retrofitted a wagon vice to it some time ago when I fell off the slope and rolled downhill to Neanderthal status.

It has served pretty well, but the top is not flat. It never was flat in fact.

The orginal bench

This is how it all started. This is an older photo that omits the large collection of hand tools that now live under the bench.

Panel clamped in the face vice

This seemed like a good idea at the time, but the bench racks back to front too easily. This would also split the laminations with a laminated top.

Wagon vice

The retrofitted wagon vice. This was an afterthought and it has really grown on me.

And thus started my quest for the perfect bench.

A great many words have been written about benches. Scott Landis has a wonderful book about benches called “The Workbench Book”.

Before I read that book I had the idea that the classic workbench is what is called a Scandinavian style workbench. All hardwood and lovely with intricate vises and something you could eat your dinner off. Then I read “The Workbench Book”. And I saw a mix of modern and old style benches. Thinking about the perfect bench again I thought I needed 2 perfect benches. One bench to be used for

hand tools and one bench to be used for power tools. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but it seemed that the requirements of each bench were different because of the differences in the tools.

So my pair of perfect benches became a Frank Klaus or possibly shaker style bench and a modern bench with a Lee Valley twin screw tail vise and a regular face vise for holding panels under assault from my screaming routers.

But something still didn’t sit right in my mind. I didn’t really understand just why I was thinking that way. As an engineer I hate the feeling that something will or won’t work without a real reason why. The question nagged at me for months and months with the result I was reluctant to commit to anything.

Of course all this time I’m growing ridged eyebrows and a protruding jaw line and my speech became more grunt like and guttural as I become more and more Neanderthal. And I also discovered the Gramercy Tools Holdfasts which introduced a whole new slew of ways to fix work pieces to the bench which raised yet more questions.

Then I realized that every picture of a bench is use with power tools had access all around, and all the hand tool benches in traditional settings were up against the wall. This was a major revelation to me. And it makes absolute sense as to why.

Traditional benches are used to work solid wood planks from right to left. You never go round the back of the bench. But with power tools, say routing a dado in sheet goods for a carcass you do tend to go all round the bench. It was exactly how I was working with hand tools and power tools.

The difference between the benches I had perceived as fundamental came down more to use. Do you work all around the bench or do you work with bench up against a wall?

The question of holding work was still in my mind. I thought about it more and realized I tend to use clamps to hold jigs and the work piece when using power tools and I used dogs and a wagon vise with hand tools.

So I came back to one perfect bench. The Frank Klaus bench idea now went the way of the dodo in my mind. Too fussy and I had gone off the idea of a tool tray after one mammoth session with a hand plane left me up to my knees in shavings. I joined the collection of people who think tool trays are nothing more than debris catchers. Maybe the Shakers were on to something with those nice, neat & tidy benches of theirs?

I again became very attracted to 2 styles of bench I had seen in “The Workbench Book.” The Dominy Bench and the Roubo Bench. The Shaker style benches were out because I needed clearance between the top and the cabinets for the holdfasts to work. Again I wasn’t sure why I liked these benches.

Then Chris Schwarz of Popular Woodworking published his 10 rules for workbenches. This led me to Woodworking Magazine and his blog.

After reading his blog and all the back issues of Woodworking Magazine I had my answers. The workbench really is nothing more than a clamping surface. I understood why I had been attracted to the Roubo and the Dominy with their massive tops and flush legs.

But would the attraction actually work in practice. I don’t know. The Roubo and the Dominy (and recently the Holtzapffel) benches are all broadly the same. The differences are in crotchets for hand plane work, leg vises and twin screw face vises and tail vises.

Time to experiment.

To be continued…..