Roubo #7: Woof Woof!

I didn’t think to get a good set of photos of my dog hole jig, and the cutting process. I simply made a small template out of scrap ply, and routed out the dog holes with a big honking pattern bit.

While things were setting up, I got out my templates, and began to mark out the cavity for the Benchcrafted Tail Vise

Some circular saw cutting, hammering, chiseling, and gouging later, and I’ve got a rough cavity started. From here on it was mostly worth with the gouge. I made a small counter-template out of 1/4” ply to make sure there were no high spots that would interfere with the action of the vise.

Finally, I applied the outer strip. I wanted my dog holes a few inches in, so I could cleanly grab a board of decent width, 8” or so. The dog holes are about 4” in.

(What you see sticking up in the back is the cutoff from the dog hole strip where the vise block will go. I didn’t want to pinch that area, so I saved the cutoff so the spacer would be the same size.

While that set up, i switched to the base, and cut my legs and short stretchers to size, and roughed out the cheeks.

Before I left the shop, I set up the first cheek cut. I find leaving something ‘ready to go’ is a good way to get back up to speed when you re-enter the shop, and also keeps your momentum going, so you want to head back to the shop the next day.