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 »