Thanks Mike, I had just bought something similar to this for another project, now it will get used at least twice.
Yep, the torque will get you if you are not careful. Long time ago in another life, I was an electrician and we used Milwaukee right angle drills and a 1" bit to drill wiring holes for new construction. After hitting a hidden nail or 6 you learned what torque was all about. :-) that thing would flip you across the room if you weren't braced for it.
BRuce
Mike > what do you mean by "maintaining vertical"? If you mean drilling the holes
Good suggestion and I'll consider it, but since I laminated MDF and then contact cemented masonite onto the edges, I probably will have to live with the sharp corners, at least on the bench top. I am thinking about chamfering the outside corners of the Veritas vise jaws, though.
This might be more doable. I'm already planning a storage cabinet, with 3 or 4 drawers on one side and a cabinet with shelves on the other. I also have a nice 30" wide piece of wall convenient to the workbench where I'm going to build a nice handtool cabinet. I've looked yours over and it is a great example and something to emulate. Whenever I get around to building my cabinet, I'll definately have some questions for you. One I can think of right now is how do you secure the large bench planes in a vertical position? I've seen this in a lot of cabinets, but never any really detailed descriptions of how it is done. Did you consult any books in designing your cabinet?
These bench dogs have a wire spring on the side that keeps them snug in the hole. I haven't noticed any deforming of the dog holes yet, but I haven't really used it much yet. Hopefully that won't happen too badly. The hold down I have (the Veritas version) seems to ride pretty easily in the dog holes. The dowel portion has some ridges on it, that apparently act to hold it in place as the horizontal force resulting from tightening the clamping screw is generated. It works quite well, and definately doesn't require the blunt force those tap-in-place hold downs require.
This point is well taken. I'm still playing with the layout of the bench a bit - basically moving it an inch or two and then working around it awhile to see how I like it. I don't have a whole lot of options, so it won't take me long to decide where it will be "permanently". My garage floor is so out of level it's sad, so it really will depend greatly on the specific location on how I will have to shim/level it. But, you're right and I'm not going to waste too much time for fear of getting any twist in the benchtop.
I looked through the Allen book again this morning and realized I'd misrepresented it previously (not sure if it was in this thread or one on the spalted board). In the book's illustrations it does show the dog hole in the side of the twin-screw vise front jaw, and also in one of the photographs of a completed bench. It's just that in the text there is no mention of this dog hole, so I neglected to credit this book as the source for this. In the Veritas instructions, IIRC, there are also instructions for this. As you might have noticed in the pictures I took of the bench using this dog hole to hold a board for jointing, it will be extremely handy in a lot of clamping situations. I'm still going to make some board jacks to use with the front vise, however, for instances where I'd rather not apply clamping force to the ends of boards.
Sure, that's no problem. It was pretty straightforward, and I followed the warning in the instructions not to deviate from the path. But, ask me anything you want and I'll try to help as best I can.
Well, I did sweep the floor (just around the bench) prior to picture taking, so don't be fooled too much. And I have a trash can separator (that works quite well, by the way), so hopefully the majority of curlies will find their home there. Now that I have the bench all my other shop rearrangement plans are in dire need of progressing. I have to clean out about 150 bf of ash, find a temporary place to store about 50 cans of finishes and related supplies, move some ladders to a new home, build 6 feet of floor and wall cabinets, etc. etc. I think the next year or so is going to find me living in a bit of squalor in the shop, because SWMBO doesn't sympathize too much with "shop projects". She just this morning gently "prodded" me about getting to the 12 feet of built in bookcases she wants me to build for our finished attic. And the 3-month old's dresser....the high chair....picture frames....
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