Building a bench but have tons of dog hole questions

[Brandon Hanley]

I'm building the $110 workbench from Jay Bates plans but using Oak instead of Home Depot wood. This is my first bench and I am a newbie woodworker so I am absolutely puzzled with everything involving the holes for bench dogs. Pretty much the only thing that I do know about them is that I'm going to want them LOL

At first I was really worried about the spacing now I still don't know what spacing I should use but I'm not as worried about it because it seems it's very subjective, now I'm wondering how to even make the holes since I have a few options. My tabletop will consist of glued up 2x6x6 for a 6in thick top. To make that happen with the tools I have and the limitations of my jointer and planer I will have to do the top and three or four sections before gluing those sections together.

I'm worried that if I try to drill the dog holes in each section with the drill press before gluing them up I will end up screwing the pooch and they won't line up right but on the other hand I don't have the slightest idea how I would make it work trying to drill them all in the top after it is complete without having them angled Every Witch Way.

[Robert Cherry]

I drilled mine with a 3/4" spiral cutter in a plunge router to guarantee they were straight. Do it after your top is finished and align the router with a straightedge clamped to the top.

[Jason Baker IX]

A 6in thick top? I would carefully think about that decision. 3in or 4in (max) is plenty of mass, and increasing size likely leads to diminishing returns. I think you are creating unnecessary problems for your future self. Fewer dog holes the better. I might have like 5 on my bench. It's easier to add holes than remove them, so start with the bare minimum and work on a couple projects. Over time you will figure out where you need to add additional holes. Here's a good starting place: https://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodworking-blogs/chris-schwarz-blog/holdfast-holes-where-should-they-be-located

I add holes using an ultra smooth wood owl bit. That really helps to produce clean cut holes. I just drill them freehand and might use something like a sliding bevel to ensure the hole is relatively straight. You can also make a simple wood drill guide. It doesn't have to be perfect.

[Rush Paul]

For tips on drilling straight vertical holes you might watch this quick YouTube video from Richard Maguire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtayvNvIa6E

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Lee Valley sells a dog hole kit that works simply. http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=72602&cat=1,41637
Space your dog holes just less than the jaw opening of your vise- so if the vise opens 12", make them 11" apart or less. That way you are sure to have clamping force and always have a dog hole no matter what length of board you are clamping (to a limit of the length of bench).

[Prashun Patel]

Make a hole in a scrap piece of 2x4. If you don’t own a drill press, drill in from each side after carefully marking. You then use this block as a drill guide for your dog holes.

I would invest in a 3/4” Forstner bit. It will give you clean holes.

To make it cut more efficiently, I start the hole in the bench with the forstner then drill all the way through with a 1/2” twist bit, then finish with the forstner.

[Phil Mueller]

I don’t have a lot of holes in my bench top...four across the back. I use battans and clamps when needed and it seems to work just fine. So as suggested above, you may want to start with just a few and see where you might want more later.

Check out a youtube video by Mike Siemsen...workholding on viseless bench. It may not be the same bench design as what you are building, but gives some good ways to hold work without a lot of bench holes.

For me, the fewer holes, just means less sawdust, etc., falling through onto the shelf/floor.

[David Eisenhauer]

I'm with Jason on the benchtop thickness. I think 6" will be a heavy top to move around during assembly and I can't see how it would add any to it's final function. Besides that, you will probably want to rip off the rounded edges of the 2x6. 6" thickness could cause issues with holdfast use, but that is only a guess on my part. My split tops are 12" wide by 8' long by 4" thick each and they are all I want to pick up. I suppose there could be two types of dog holes - some for using in conjunction with a tail vise and others for use with holdfasts. If you are going with round dog holes for your tail vise (of whatever type you choose) use, then both kinds can be (and best done so IMO) drilled after final bench construction. As stated above, many folks start with a router or forstner bit and finish with a longer spade bit or a brace. It is easy enough to draw a straight/square-to-the-world line from your tail vise dog location out along the length of the bench, but I would drill them at a minimum spacing of 1/2 of the travel of your tail vise and a 3"-4" spacing is nice to use. Holdfast holes can be put in later when you start seeing where you will work, but I took care to locate mine so that the sweep of the holdfast (around 7" or so) from hole to hole would just meet.

[Robert Engel]

Dittos on the thickness. Spacing is quite subjective. If you have a quick release vice, it is less important. Mine are 4 1/2".

Distance from the edge is also a consideration. I suggest 2 1/2".

I recommend not drilling a bunch of holdfast holes until you've started using the bench. One or two locations may be all you need.

Sans a drill press, I would use a drilling guide such as this. (http://www.rockler.com/how-to/accurate-drilling-without-a-drill-press/)

A sharp spade bit will do an good job in hardwood. Try in some scrap first. The quality of finish of the hole is not critical. Drill the holes before the final planing.

[Prashun Patel]

Spacing and placement is subjective, but this is what works for me:
- Keep your dog spacing less than the full travel of your vise. IMHO, the more the merrier, because it means less opening/closing to get where you need to be.
- I like keeping the dogs 2" from the front edge. This keeps me from having to reach too far in when planing.

[Peter Christensen]

The only thing I would add is clamp a sacrificial board to the underside when you drill the holes. It helps preventing the splintering or blowout on the underside. Admittedly not seen but pride of accomplishment even if you are the only one that knows of it. If you use a different species or colour of wood you know when you are through.

[Marshall Harrison]

I don’t have a lot of holes in my bench top...four across the back. I use battans and clamps when needed and it seems to work just fine. So as suggested above, you may want to start with just a few and see where you might want more later. Check out a youtube video by Mike Siemsen...workholding on viseless bench. It may not be the same bench design as what you are building, but gives some good ways to hold work without a lot of bench holes. For me, the fewer holes, just means less sawdust, etc., falling through onto the shelf/floor.
Phil, thanks for that tip. I just watched the video and I think I want to build my bench viseless now. Its like any part of the bench can be made to hold down the workpiece. After being away for 17 years I am in the process of cleaning out thegarage and setting up a new shop. This seems like a perfect bench for me as I want to blend hand tools and power tools in my work.

[Brandon Hanley]

A 6in thick top? I would carefully think about that decision. 3in or 4in (max) is plenty of mass, and increasing size likely leads to diminishing returns. I think you are creating unnecessary problems for your future self. can you elaborate on why the thick top would be an issue?

I kind of worded that wrong anyway. The 6in would be the starting dimension of the rough cut Oak and it is a give or take a half inch measurement. After ripping the wider boards to the same size as the narrow boards and cutting off some defect I'm already down to 5 1/8". By the time I joint, plane, square up to glue into a few sections, I expect to lose at least another inch bringing us to 4.25 in. And after gluing so sections into one solid top and using a hand plane to flatten the whole top together God only knows how much I will take off their with my lack of skill. I'm expecting to finish what's close to a 4-inch top. I saw it bigger and heavier was better. I have been looking forward to having some Goliath of a bench that doesn't move and wiggle everytime I try to hand plane, chisel, or saw on it.

[Edwin Santos]

For tips on drilling straight vertical holes you might watch this quick YouTube video from Richard Maguire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtayvNvIa6E

Simple and clever! Thank you for the link

I don't think a bench dog hole needs to be perfectly vertical to an engineer's degree of accuracy. Would an 89 degree bench dog hole fail to function the same as a perfect 90 degree hole?

[Pat Barry]

I used a 3/4" simple spade bit with an electric handheld drill in my 2 1/4" Ash bench top and the holes were no problem. If anything they drilled too fast. So fast that I had a problem keeping the the first couple holes perpendicular. So practice in some scrap before you do it so you can perfect your process.

[Prashun Patel]

"I don't think a bench dog hole needs to be perfectly vertical."

The only time that fails is if you have jigs, like a stop, that you may wish to insert into two holes simultaneously.

I agree though, it doesn't need to be dead on vertical.

[Edwin Santos]

"I don't think a bench dog hole needs to be perfectly vertical."

The only time that fails is if you have jigs, like a stop, that you may wish to insert into two holes simultaneously.



Prashun, In theory yes, but in practice, in the vast majority of situations the jig should still perform even if there is a small deviation from vertical. If the holes were way off, and/or the jig had long posts, that's another story.

I do think the goal should be to work accurately, but speaking for myself, sometimes I can get too anxious about achieving perfection when it's just not essential.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

can you elaborate on why the thick top would be an issue?

A few issues come to mind; not that I am an expert, so assume that I might be wrong


Heavy and hard to move around. If you will not move it, that is a good thing. Very difficult to deal with while creating it in the first place.

I understand that dog holes sometimes do not work so well in a very thick bench. It has something to do with a hold fast wedging a bit when you pound it in and the depth keeps it straight. This is the part that I don't remember well as to accuracy, but that is the "fact" stuck in my mind. I can think of ways around this if it is a problem, like hollowing out the bottom to be a bit wider.

[Prashun Patel]

I speak from personal experience regarding the stop. But I DO take your point that it's not super critical otherwise.

[glenn bradley]

An additional opinion on random angle dog holes. First, to clarify, I am talking about 3/4" round dog holes for which there are so many accessories. My first bench with dog holes had holes that I thought were pretty close. I didn't have problems when putting some serious grip on a rough plank for some initial work. The "pretty close" parameter started to fail when I had to do things that required a little more finesse. Dog faces were skewed enough to allow the work to slip, fixtures with multiple dogs would not seat correctly and so forth. I worked through this by filling a few of the more "relaxed" specification holes and re-drilling.

When I added more holes to that bench I used a router to assure perpendicularity. This moved me from "pretty close" to "really close". Although certainly nothing like 'machine shop' accuracy, well within my requirements. The problem now was I found myself always working at that end of the bench because the dogs always worked well :). No problem. I used the router on the next bench and all is well. Like a lot of things, dog holes can be over-thought. The likelihood of you getting it 'right' on your first bench will be increased by the information from the forum but, in the end, your requirements are your requirements.

As to spacing; the holes should at least be closer together than your vice jaw's travel. That is, you should never find yourself trying to tighten up to a dog and find one hole too close and another too far. This basic can then be tuned on your tolerance for winding your vise handle. Using my fist dogged bench again as an example, I set the dog holes based on the vises opening (which was plenty). This gave me a workable solution but, sometimes involved a lot of winding. My new bench has dogs about every 4-1/2" at the front vise and about 6" at the end vise position. This has worked well for me to date.

375947 . 375948

Who knows what the future holds.

[Brandon Hanley]

If I were to go to the plunge router route what sort of bit would I need? I'm assuming not just any three-quarter inch bit would work

[glenn bradley]

I use something like this (https://www.amazon.com/Onsrud-Up-Cut-Spiral-Mortising-Router/dp/B0020B358G). I drill a 3/8" through hole down the center of each position to make the job for the 3/4" bit easier.

[Robert Cherry]

I used an inexpensive 3/4" HHS spiral upcut bit from MLCS when I cut my bench dog holes with a plunge router.

https://www.mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/pages/bt_solid.html

[Mike Manning]

For tips on drilling straight vertical holes you might watch this quick YouTube video from Richard Maguire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtayvNvIa6E

This is a great idea! Thanks for sharing.

[David Eisenhauer]

They said it. Pre drill on penciled in lines with a spade bit to remove lots of the bulk of the waste and then use a 3/4" up cut spiral bit with some type of guide setup (if your German blood, like mine, demands it) to route the main hole down as deep as the router bit will go. Use the straight sided router holes to guide either a brace/bit combo or a long enough spade bit to finish the complete depth of the holes.

[Tom Trees]

Here is a witty post by Chris Schwarz on the subject
The 6 Personalities of Workbench Builders | Lost Art Press (https://blog.lostartpress.com/2017/12/07/the-6-personalities-of-workbench-builders/)
I havent figured out which one I am yet
Good luck
Tom