Any woodworkers?

Same. I made a moxon vice for dovetails.


Wood screw kit from https://redrosereproductions.com

 

The mass definitely helps. My final bench top thickness came in about 5 1/4". Its 8.5' long, and 3ft wide. Its solid as a rock.

 

Wow! That’s a serious top! You could flatten that thing twice a year for the next 100 years and it would still be solid.

 

Yeah, im pretty sure i could park a couple tacomas on it without any bending/sagging. Here are a couple shots during construction. The center has since been filled in, as it just ended up always getting filled with shavings/sawdust, and other junk.

 

Nice work. Those benchtop glue-ups certainly used up pretty much every clamp I had too.

 

I kind of had an idea of what I wanted, and winged it. I've made quite a few modifications to since it was first built. I replaced the front row of dog holes with square dogs, filled in the center, put a shelf underneath.

I'm looking for new vice options now for both the front vise and tail vise.

My thoughts are to just build one and modify as needed based on the work you do. The best plans for a certain type of bench may not match up with how you work.

 

@98tacoma27 If you dont have plans this weekend, a couple people around me are getting together for a little mod day (well most of it is helping one guy replace his clutch). I believe you only live about 2 hours north of me. I think there will be around 4-6 people there for most of the day. Come down, have some burgers, help out with some mods, and check out the shop.

 

So this is a photo of a work in progress from a year ago of a tray I made for my mom. The bottom is Alaskan yellow cedar, the upper is western red cedar. I was an idiot and decided to cut dovetails in cedar, terrible idea lol. They function, but even soaking the ends in water, using a really sharp chisel and taking my time they don’t look great.

I’ll take a picture of my work bench tomorrow, I have an Irwin bench vice I believe that I got off Amazon that works pretty well for my needs.

 

thats a hefty tray, still would knock you out if you make Mom mad

 

Veritas QR Front Vice:
http://www.leevalley.com/us/Wood/page.aspx?p=67755&cat=1,41659

..and, i use this with it:
http://www.leevalley.com/us/Wood/page.aspx?p=69605&cat=1,41659


...if i were to do it again, i might consider a twin screw vice...

 

...things to consider:

- hardness/density: harder means, more difficult to mill it and drill it, ..and harder also means that it may be more likely you'll dent/ding your projects while building them on a bench w/ a hard top... i made mine from poplar, ...it's a fairly "soft" hardwood...

- on the flipside, ...more density means more "mass", which can be advantageous for hand-tool work especially...

...as for the latter question, ...i think the workbench you build should be something you feel "good" about, i.e. the craftsmanship, ...perhaps learning a new joint/technique, ...challenge yourself a little... maybe make some nice stopped bevels on the corners of legs, or other simple decorative touches... good form carries through to your projects!

 

Found a deal!

Regular $112.xx, on sale for 35 canadian coins.. "open box" and mastercraft quality, but been waiting for a deal to come around on a set of these for hwhile now.

 

Dude those aren’t metric sizes. How are you ever going to figure out how to use them?

Nice find...

 

oh yeah, laugh it up, one day Canada will take over the world, then you'll all be sorry..

best part of it is canada is covered in a grid of square miles.. country kids grow up driving the mile roads, everything is still built with an imperial tape.. I've had to teach myself metric, where imperial was just natural..

 

Actually the math is a whole lot easier with metric so wish I had grown up on that system. Once I started buying Festool products I’ve sorta become “bilingual” myself.

 

For the record, Canada is one of my favorite vacation destinations. We were up in Banff for New Years. It was so cold the Canadians brought their New Years celebration inside. Our second trip up that way in the last 2 years. I love that area of your country.