| Blog series by grfrazee | updated 9 days ago | 5 parts | 5081 reads | 29 comments total |
Part 1: 80% Complete
I was fortunate enough to be able to take off Christmas week and get a good start on my workbench. I’ve had the idea to build one in my head for a few months now, and have been slowly accumulating the parts and hardware necessary. My intention was to make it possible to take the bench apart and move it with relative ease since I will be moving it from my dad’s shop once I have a shop of my own (side note: apartments suck). I used southern yellow pine, special ordered from Men...
Part 2: Finished Leg Vise
I finally got some shop time this weekend and had a chance to complete my leg vise. After my last building session, I had left it basically functional, but lacking a couple bells and whistles to make it really nice. The first addition was a guide wheel on the underside of the parallel guide. I bought another plastic wheel from Woodcraft and mounted it below the guide. It looks like it could become an ankle biter, but I haven’t run into any problems yet. It’s only pock...
Part 3: (Mostly) Finished Tail Vise
Previously, I had run out of time to complete the tail vise on my workbench: This weekend I finally got the time to remedy that situation. I started off by routing the dog holes in one of the boards, then gluing up the leg vise block. The dog holes are spaced at 3” for versatility. Then I needed to figure out what to remove for the various pieces of the vise hardware. Some time was spent with the adjustable square to figure out the recess locations. Note: the measureme...
Part 4: Cost & Weight Estimate
I’m sure there are those of you interested in how much this thing weighs and (more importantly) how much it cost to build. A quick volume estimate puts the total amount of wood at ~5 cubic feet. Considering an average specific gravity of about 0.60 (range for SYP is 0.54 – 0.65, and the hickory is more than that), the weight is: (5 cu. ft.)(62.4 lbs/cu. ft.)(0.60) = 187 lbs So, the wood alone is about 190 lbs. Factor in the weight of the vise hardware and the many metal...
Part 5: Drilling Holdfast Holes
Happy Mothers’ Day everyone! Finally got a chance to go back to my parents’ house for the weekend (i.e., the location of my shop). Went into the shop and this is what my bench looked like: Looks like my dad has been at work in the 2.5 months I’ve been away. No surprises there. I made a pair of holdfasts in a blacksmithing class last fall. When I made them, I tried to round them down to about 3/4”. Since they aren’t necessarily a standard size sha...
