Workbench repair

[Josh Doran]

I built a nice roubo bench last year. It has 3/4" holes all along the front side. However several of the holes are not vertical since I used a brace and am not that skilled with it yet. I want to correct these holes and wish for others suggestions. My idea is to fill in the holes with glued dowels and redrill the holes in the same spot. I'd glue the dowels a little below the surface to provide a starting guide for the bit. Questions. There's a lot of end grain in the holes. Would the glue on the side grain be strong enough? Also once the holes are redrilled, would the remaining glued dowel pieces endure the use of benchdogs and holdfasts? Alternative ideas?

Thanks, Josh

[David Weaver]

I'd plug the holes and drill new holes in entirely different spots.

[Jim Koepke]

+1 on what David said.

First my question would be how bad are your original holes?

Second would be has your skill improved enough to not make the same off vertical holes?

Finally consider when plugging and reboring an auger might tend to follow the previously drilled hole.

The type of tail vise you have could make a difference in laying out and re-drilling the dog holes.

If your holes are not real far off, my advice would be to live with what you have. Plugging and re-drilling may introduce more problems.

jtk

[Andrae Covington]

...several of the holes are not vertical...

I have some of those. One of them is out of plumb in two axes. However, they still work. It bothers me every time I sight down the hole, but, you know it's just a workbench.

[Adam Cruea]

I have some of those. One of them is out of plumb in two axes. However, they still work. It bothers me every time I sight down the hole, but, you know it's just a workbench.

I hear you. . .I've got a few of those because of my hard-headed idea to use hickory (wanna see an 18V drill cry? Drill a 3/4" hole in 3.5" of hickory). The battery on my poor Dewalt was dying as was my wrist, and some of the holes wandered a bit.

In the end, it's a workbench. As long as it holds your work piece, it's doing its job. :)

[Jim Matthews]

...you know it's just a workbench.

Amen, Reverend.

[Glen Johnson]

Shannon Rogers uses a simple pad for his hold fasts. It is a narrow piece of wood with a hole for the bar of the hold fast to pass through. The wood extends a little past the pad of the holdfast and keeps the pad from marring the wood that it holds. You could cut cut this wood pad to a complementary angle so the wood pad would form a flat angle to what you are holding down. Of course if you rotate the holdfast 180 degrees, the angle is off again.

if it makes you feel better, I built a jig to drill my dog hole through my two inch teak bench top. I thought since i used the bench press to form jig a guide my holes would be plumb. Somehow, the jig was off and every hole slants a few degrees. At least they are consistent. It hasn't affected my work much, it just irritates me I didn't check after the first hole.

[harry strasil]

drilling the hole bigger and plugging and redrilling, anything thin you end up with is going to split up and fall out no matter what glue you use, use the bench and if the hole doesn't cause a huge problem, forget about it.

[Mike Brady]

I would remove (rip saw) that entire length of benchtop lamination containing the dog holes and make a replacement for it; except this time use a drill press and a 3/4" twist drill to bore new straight dog holes where you want them. Then just relaminate that board into your top. Job done, perfectly, in probably less time than plugging-and-drilling and being unhappy with the result.