Kerfs So Thin You Can Wedge Them With Paper?

Non bench related post here, I am puzzled by a recent trend  happening with hand saws, thin saw plates! I personally do not understand it as I tend to cut on the waste side of my layout lines while doing joinery. For my part this is my greatest gripe with Japanese pull saws, I can cut a curved line with one without batting an eye, which is not the desired result. I think. For my money a saw with an 1/8" kerf ?, that sounds better just think of  how little paring would be needed on dovetail floors! Hmmmm., sounds like a job for Mr. Bad Axe Mark Harrell to ...

Read more »

The Joinery Bench: Part V

So now comes the very long post regarding the leg construction on this bench. It is very critical that you get the offset leg angles correct or the stability will be compromised. I encourage you to e-mail me if I do not relay this information in a manor that can be easily digested. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, lets do some math! Let's start with a formula for the leg height. Take the top thickness and add 3 1/2 " for the top braces and the bottom skis. My top is 2 1/2 + 3 1/2 = 6". Now, take the total height you want your bench to be, mine will be 38" for my 5' 10" stature, and subtract the answer from the first math, 38 - 6 =...

Read more »

It's About Time !!!!

After a lengthy and unexpected hiatus due to an unusual influx of projects at my day job, as well as my over the top involvement in South Asheville's Little League program. Posts will now resume on this site. I apologize for the lengthy delay in posting the next Joinery Bench installment, but rest assured you can expect it in the next couple of days. (As soon as I rifle through the sixty or so photos for that post!) Ci...

Read more »

The Joinery Bench Part : IV

So over the weekend I finished dovetailing the apron assembly, put in the dog holes and attached the apron to the top as seen in this photo. This is what your top and apron assembly should look like.I drilled the dog holes in a configuration that best suites my needs, feel free to put them anywhere you like, just be sure not to put one in line of where your vise screws will be installed. You can wait until the vise hardware and chop are installed to drill the holes. I like to start the 3/4" dog holes with a plunge router and finish them with a forstener bit.                                                                         ...

Read more »

The Joinery Bench Part III : Apron Assembly

I could not wait for the votes so I am doing the apron with dovetails. You can use dowels, box joints, or even just simple miters. The objective is to run the front apron across your width ( which should be roughly 36") and return your sides along the depth of the top and beyond to 24".Then directly behind and attatched to the top is the fourth wall of the tool tray, just cut to fit in between the two 24" sides and fasten from the outside with your method of choice. ( Those I will dowel peg in) So here are some pics of some of (one) the dovetailling and where the mid apron for the tool tray intersec...

Read more »

Vote Now! - Dovetails or Pegs

I am going to let you decide how to do the apron assembly on the Joinery Bench, Dovetails or Miller Dowels! I am heading downstairs soon to start so leave your vote in the comment section. But hurry I'm getting an itchy trigger fing...

Read more »

The Joinery Bench Part II : New and Improved Features!

So I now have my White Ash top glued up to a length of approx. 32 3/8". I told everyone to calculate a depth of 15". If this is what you did it should look like mine, minus the two ( yes two!) slots for stuff. Here is a pic of it. The next pic shows how the right hand tool slot is assembled. I used a 3/8" spacer with the end grain up, but it could be side or face grain, the width is 2" also variable. I then added an end cap the same thickness as the top X the depth as wide as it needed to be to make my length 34 1/2'. Which will make the benchtop 36" when the apron is applied. Now, while I was cutting the top to size with my Festool track saw...

Read more »

"The New Phonebooks Are Here , The New Phonebooks Are Here!!!!"

Good news Joinery Bench faithful. My "dealer" read my last post and personally located me a stash of 13" wide 8/4 Ash, Wooo Hooo! So I will be picking that up Friday morning and will be ready for post II with pics on what your top should look like, and how I like to do the saw slot. I will also start the apron assembly with what is sure to cause a fight I'm sure. Peg joinery or dovetails. I prefer to use dowel pegs, more to the point Miller Dowels, which seems like maybe I have taken one too many boards to the head area since I built it to primarily dovetail wi...

Read more »

I'll See Your Roubo and Raise You A Holzapfel

Mr. Schwarz over at the Popular Woodworking magazine is building a Roubo bench ( sliding dovetail legs and all) using only hand tools.It has a 5" thick top in cherry with only one joint in it, and 12 pounds of epoxy. So far it is looking very nice, but I am officially throwing down the gauntlet! I recently have recieved an offer to acquire the appropriate amount of Douglas Fir timbers 4" thick by 9" wide in whatever lengths I need to build, a bench?, yes a bench. Not just any bench, I also have a desire to possess a French woodworking workhorse, but I can't seem to envision giving up my Holzapfel style work holding power. So not only will this bench be Roubo, the opposite side will be Holzapfel! Yes! Twin screw and quick release on one side, as well as a leg and wagon vise with a deadman...

Read more »

The Joinery Bench: Part I - Tiny Wood?

OK. So this was to be the first entry on building the" Joinery Bench"," was" being the operative word, but found my recent trip to the local wood monger to be disappointing and frustrating.White Ash is my first wood of choice for this bench due to it's mass and strength, which is paramount for this project because of the small size. Tape measure in hand I fumbled through a honking stack of 8/4 Ash, all of which clocked in at less than 5" wide. What the? 8/4 lumber is 80% of the materials needed, and you only need 48/bf of it, but it needs to finish out at 6" milled or the legs are too small and the yield for the top requires more wood, and at less than 5" I would have had to buy 70/bf of it. Ash is pretty cheap, but spending $80 more and not even getting appropriate sized lumber to make the...

Read more »

Tool Review: Grammercy Tools Holdfasts

This is the first tool review of many I hope, all centered around accessories and workbench related products. I will give you my honest opinion abut the quality and usefulness of anything I review here. I am not paid to do so, nor do I get free stuff from manufacturers. That being said what better necessity to review than a holdfast. Not just any holdfast, The Grammercy Tools holdfast. All I can really say is "BUY IT". Buy one , or two, or ten. Best thing ever for a workbench hands down. Every cast iron one I ever had exploded in a matter of days. The Grammercy holdfast is a single piece of bent rolled spring steel, flattened to form the pad...

Read more »

Readers Benches!

My hopes for this blog is to be the place for all things workbench related. I feel that everyone should share their enthusiasm and be able to showcase their hard work. So starting immediately anyone who wants to send me photos, a summary about thier bench, and a brief bio about themselves, I would love to post it here. Workbenches are the most important tool in our arsenals. It's where every step of whatever project we are working on occurs. It's time to bring them to center stage, so de-clutter your bench, re-flatten your top, and pretty em up and send them to me @ subfuel1@gmail....

Read more »

Slop Rocks!

Forums on the web are filled with people with good questions and phenomenal answers, and no where on the Internet is that more true than the Wood Net forum. Today, Cliff at the forum, who has put me to task on my dual screw leg vise ( thankfully!) addressed an issue that I thought that most people would not consider when constructing an all wooden vise, single or twin.Slop! When I say that I am talking about achieving the desired amount of " racking " or as he called "pivot" in the vise's chop. An all too desirable function for clamping tapered material, or in a leg vise situation, to minimize the amount of lower screw adjustment.Easy answer! Drill the holes in the vise chop at least 1/2" bigger than the vise screw. You might think that is large but think about it, that is only 1/4 " per side....

Read more »

Leg Vise: Remastered?

Well, over the last couple of days I was finally able to get downstairs and tackle the Roubo Dual Screw Leg Vise. After scoring some nice Purpleheart leg material from my boys at Asheville Hardware and two days of procrastination (or maybe fear of failure), I glued up my leg blank, flattened, tapered and drilled the screw holes. I will tell you that tapping the legs themselves might not be the best way to do it as my holes were not quite parallel to each other causing me to make adjustment in the holes in the vise leg blank. The issue that had me boggled was how to adjust the bottom screw guide. to be honest I was going to just use a really...

Read more »

A Roubo Experiment in Terror !

I am taking a couple of days off from "Joinery Bench" related propaganda (which I love!!!) to address something that has cost me a lot of sleep lately. My partially naked bench! My main workhorse is Holzapfel in nature with a ridiculously massive twin screw vice, as well as a quick release vise on one end. (click photo) Most people would be ecstatic with this work holding monster, so forgive me for what I am about to drag you all through, apparently years of lacquer asphyxiation has brought me to this. " THERE ARE TWO SIDES ON MY BENCH DOING NOTHING! Nada-zero-nil-zilch-bupkus, continually mocking me to the point of putting my very manhood in...

Read more »

Welcome!!!

No!, I meant "vice" as spelled. As I have decided to start a new blog as a departure from my Wood Therapy blog. This one is more for selfish purposes as i hope to use these posts as a sounding board for those who are as obsessed with workbenches as I have become, hence the "vice " in the title.I recently sent Chris Schwarz at Woodworking Magazine some photos of a prototype bench I had built that was small in size and tall in height that I had called a micro-bench thinking he might get a chuckle out of, except he failed to see the humor in it, in fact he was quite excited about the idea.He proceeded to give me a short history lesson on smaller...

Read more »