response to wagon vise

[Tom Bussey]

I responded to a post about a wagon vise and a person commented on the color of my bench. I did not wish to hijack his thread but I thought I would respond with a new post.


In( The Workbench Book), Scott Landis shows a picture of of a 19 century shaker bench, that is in a museum in Hancock Massachusetts. I matched the color as best I could with paint samples. Anyway it is chalk paint, antiqued, then used Van Dike Brown glazes and a coat of Minwax antique oil finish.


Because I responded to a post about a wagon vise I would post a couple more pictures of the bench but it is to point out that one does not have to spend a lot of money on vise screws. I know I have less that $150 total in vises.The tail vise being the most expensive, at about $75. I think I got it on sale for less but can't be for sure.


Anyway a couple more pictures showing that there are other ways of getting ( thinking outside the box) a great bench besides spending a lot of money.


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[Tom M King]

And indeed it does look to be a great bench!

[Mark Rainey]

Impressive Tom! It is like having two benches.

[Bruce Page]

That is a beauty!

[Josh Robinson]

Sweet! How long did it take you to build it?

[David Eisenhauer]

Great, great bench Tom and I don't even particularly care for the color green in general but it works here. And then there is that one-of-its-kind-to-me-anyway deadman tree just waiting to hold something long up. Thanks Tom.

[Tom Bussey]

Green isn't my favorite but I did it because I liked the looks of 19 century shaker bench, that is in a museum in Hancock Massachusetts. Here is a better picture of the wagon vise hardware on the bench where it will end up.

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I don't heat my shop soI only have from around April 1st to the end of Oct-Mid November so it took a while. I took some time off to build my 12 old, at the time grandson a christmas present. It took part of two seasons.

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[Tom Bussey]

This is really getting off the vise subject but here are some pictures of the beginning I used 3 pieces of cherry timber about this size. The one pictures weighed 93 pounds at the start and the little block that can be seen in the first picture is a 1x2x3 steel block so the slab was about 4 by 11 by 10 foot.

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[Tom Bussey]

In( The Workbench Book), Scott Landis shows a picture of of a 19 century shaker bench, that is in a museum in Hancock Massachusetts. I matched the color as best I could with paint samples. Anyway it is chalk paint, antiqued, then used Van Dike Brown glazes and a coat of Minwax antique oil finish. I took this picture from the book so all can see it my inspiration. I hope I don't get in trouble because of it.

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[David Eisenhauer]

Thanks again Tom. Merry Christmas and we will fund your prison commisary fund for you so you can buy some snacks from time to time.

[Jim Koepke]

What really appeals to me is having you bench built ambidextrous. That is in consideration of my bench that is taking forever to build.

jtk

[michael langman]

You built a really nice bench for yourself Tom. Really nice. It looks like you have a shop most of us could just dream about.
I was going to build the bench like you built for your grand son, but went a slightly different route.
It is a great bench to learn the fundamentals of wood working on. I'm sure he will love it, until he inherits your bench!

[Joshua Lucas]

Is that a wooden crisscross on the leg vise? I've been considering making one of those for my work-in-progress bench. How does yours work? I saw a video on Youtube a while ago of a guy making one, but his was rather poorly engineered and racked badly. (He ended up replacing it with a custom steel crisscross.) I would be using pretty hefty pecan components and a symmetrical design (think two Benchcrafted crisscrosses next to each other, but with one mirrored).

[Tom Bussey]

Yes the criss- cross is wood And it is made out of hickory. The top is also hickory so with a lot lying around it was the logical choice. I have heard hickory and pecan are very similar in attributes. Pecan is not available here locally so I have never worked with it. Each piece is 3/4 thick and the pocket is just over 1 1/2 wide so no racking. The pivot pin is in the middle and the width at the top is 1 1/2 wide and the bottom is 1 3/4 wide. It gives an space of 1/4 at the bottom for better clamping power at the top

Here is a couple of pictures of glued up wood for working out how the criss- cross worked and for finalizing the lengths.

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[Tom Levy]

What really appeals to me is having you bench built ambidextrous. That is in consideration of my bench that is taking forever to build.

jtk

Interestingly I built my (first) bench with almost the exact same layout, except swapping the location of the wagon vice and end vice. I really like having both at times, but I'm going to make a change when I make my next bench (sometime 2020). I'm right handed and don't like how the non-shoulder side is setup for a lefty. I'm going to switch the end vice to line up on one side (for righty) and I'm going to swap the wagon vice all the way to the other end so it is arranged for righty as well.

I'm also considering ditching the shoulder vice. I'm very new, but I've found most of the time I'm using the end vice or holdfasts/plane stops/benchhooks. I do want to build a moxon, but I'm finding that vices are not the end-all for work holding. I'm thinking one or two should be sufficient.

Luckily this first bench I made was out of cheap 2x3 in 8' lengths from the big box store and cost very little. It was a good learning exercise. The next one I want made from legitimate hardwood and using correct joinery. I like the idea of a moravian bench, but not sure about how the end vice would work with it.