workbench question

[Zahid Naqvi]

I'm headed to join the neanderthal brethren in building a work bench. Have some questions, figured I'd ask some of you who have been there done that. I have the design in my head and most of the lumber, sans the top, already acquired and in the process of hand planing/dimensioning. I want to keep the stretchers bolted as opposed to glued. This is for ease of transportation. I am using Ash (thanks to Ric DeRogue) for the base and the top will most probably be laminated Cypress (Home Depot or Lowes). Back to questions

1. Most designs I see only have a single stretcher across the front and back. I got the Ash at a very "competitive" price, as a consequence the boards are not wider than 5" and some only have 3.5/4" usable width after I trim out the bark etc. So the question is, is a single stretcher each side ,perhaps 4" wide, bolted towards the bottom of the legs enough to prevent any racking during hand plane use. The top will sit on dowels and will not be glued to the legs either.

2. When building the top is it easier to just put all the boards together and be done with the gluing, and tackle the making of the cutouts for the front vice, tail vice etc after the slab is ready. Or cut individual pieces first before glue up and just make final touches after glue up.

3. So really how useful is the leg vice. I have hardware for a quick release front vice and a bench screw. The choices I am contemplating are: use the quick release as a front vice and use the bench screw to make an L shaped end vice. Or use the quick release as the end vice and use the bench screw for a leg vice.

I think I started something like this a couple years ago, but life got in the way. Hopefully this time I can get this accomplished finally! As a side note my electron burners for WWing are limited to a bandsaw, router and a skill saw, I do everything else by hand and plan to keep it that way.

[John Sanford]

1. Most designs I see only have a single stretcher across the front and back. I got the Ash at a very "competitive" price, as a consequence the boards are not wider than 5" and some only have 3.5/4" usable width after I trim out the bark etc. So the question is, is a single stretcher each side ,perhaps 4" wide, bolted towards the bottom of the legs enough to prevent any racking during hand plane use. The top will sit on dowels and will not be glued to the legs either.

Yes, as long as the stretcher is also of reasonable thickness. 1/2" stretchers probably won't be adequate, but my stretchers are simple 2x4s and the bench does not rack. I do have a shelf screwed down to the stretchers though, that may add a bit of stiffness.

Keep the stretcher as low as possible, while still giving you foot room under the bench, i.e. similar to a kitchen cabinet's toekick.

2. When building the top is it easier to just put all the boards together and be done with the gluing, and tackle the making of the cutouts for the front vice, tail vice etc after the slab is ready. Or cut individual pieces first before glue up and just make final touches after glue up.

I don't know. My first benchtop was a repurposed solid core interior door topped with hardboard and a quick release face vise added.

My second top is a manufactured laminated maple top from Jorgensen, which I cut a notch for the same vise to sit back into it. Setting the vise back, which puts the benchtop edge flush with the rear face of the vise, has greatly improved the utility of the vise.

I also use round dogs, not square. Everything I've seen indicates that you definitely, positively want to cut the square dog holes before gluing up the top. Round you can drill after.

3. So really how useful is the leg vice. I have hardware for a quick release front vice and a bench screw. The choices I am contemplating are: use the quick release as a front vice and use the bench screw to make an L shaped end vice. Or use the quick release as the end vice and use the bench screw for a leg vice.

With those Givens, I'd go with the leg vise and put the QR vise on the end. I have a Record QR vise, and when I build my next bench, it's migrating from the face to the end.

Good luck with your build.

[Jim Koepke]

+1 to what John said and…

1. Most designs I see only have a single stretcher across the front and back. I got the Ash at a very "competitive" price, as a consequence the boards are not wider than 5" and some only have 3.5/4" usable width after I trim out the bark etc. So the question is, is a single stretcher each side ,perhaps 4" wide, bolted towards the bottom of the legs enough to prevent any racking during hand plane use. The top will sit on dowels and will not be glued to the legs either.

I think you would do well to mortise this in a bit and then use barrel nuts and a bolt through the leg. This would let you keep them tight and also take them apart if needed. As John said, keep them low.
My problem was with my bench being too light and the tail lifting off the floor when planing long boards. Even with a light frame, it didn't rack.

I would suggest a bolt into the top at each cross support. It could even be a threaded dowel.

2. When building the top is it easier to just put all the boards together and be done with the gluing, and tackle the making of the cutouts for the front vice, tail vice etc after the slab is ready. Or cut individual pieces first before glue up and just make final touches after glue up.

I think it would be easiest to plan where the hardware for vises and such are going to need to go into the top before it is a solid mass.

Especially if you are going to want some square dog holes. It is easier to cut them with a router, skill saw or even a chisel before glue up. After glue up, it is a lot of beating on a mortise chisel.

3. So really how useful is the leg vice. I have hardware for a quick release front vice and a bench screw. The choices I am contemplating are: use the quick release as a front vice and use the bench screw to make an L shaped end vice. Or use the quick release as the end vice and use the bench screw for a leg vice.

I think the attraction of the leg vise is the depth of the work that it can hold. It can also be fine tuned to tilt forward or back when desired. Some find this to be a disadvantage if their lower rail doesn't have enough adjustment.

The disadvantage is it is prone to racking when holding a piece vertically. My simple vises have a tendency to do this also. My solution is to have a lot of thin pieces and also some thick pieces to counter the racking. Some will mount a leg vise at an angle so pieces that are held vertically will cross the center line and this helps to lessen the racking.

That could be a good new thread for all of us to talk about our vises and maybe move to Off Topic if people want to talk about their vices.

Maybe some of the leg vise users could tell us what they like about them.

jtk

[Russell Sansom]

Some decades ago I built my current bench which is really modest compared to the Schwartz-inspired balloon in bench making going on right now. It was 6' 6" long and 19" wide using 8/4 hard Maple. I glued it up, THEN put in the hand-made tail vise. I still have a serious scar on my right shin where the bench came off a low support and landed just there, requiring a pain-wracked trip to the Veteran's hospital ( I was so poor back then I actually went to the VA for health care! ). I say all that to say this: Be really careful of the potential energy in a fully-sized workbench top. It is really dangerous and will crush fingers, scrape off skin and break things if you let it.
In retrospect, I'd cut any fixtures for vises in the thinest width of top available, then finish gluing the top up as an entire slab. Once the slab is flattened you can install the vises that need to be co-planer with the big slab ... Like a tail vise. If you apply your engineering sense, you can predict how ( incredibly ) heavy that top will be and behave accordingly. It will be really awkward to handle and to perch on an edge while you saw on it.
And about positively cutting the square dog holes ... I chopped mine and will do it again. It's rewarding, instructional, and in my case it was much easier than cutting out a comb and laminating on a front strip. Many older benches that I've seen have had chopped dog holes...perhaps because hide glue wouldn't have been an ideal adhesive. It's fairly easy. Drill a set of holes very precisely, incise the squares with a knife, sides tangent to the ( accurately! ) drilled holes, and chop out the triangles that the drill didn't remove.
I now have one of those monster pig-stickers that is vibrating in its cabinet in anticipation of my bench-build this spring.

[Michael Peet]

2. When building the top is it easier to just put all the boards together and be done with the gluing, and tackle the making of the cutouts for the front vice, tail vice etc after the slab is ready. Or cut individual pieces first before glue up and just make final touches after glue up.

I built the cavity for a Benchcrafted wagon vise into the top lamination. It's the newer version one with the rectangular cavity. It was trivial to do while building the top, and when I got to the vise installation step I was very glad that part was already done.

Mike

[Chris Griggs]

1) +1 what other have said. Just make sure a) the lower stretcher connects securely. Bed/bench bolts will work as will a threaded rod running through the stretcher. A stub tenon will also help keep things aligned.

Also make sure the top of the legs are securely connected to either the top or some top stretchers. It really takes 2 strong connections, 1 top and 1 bottom to prevent racking.

2) eeeerh. Not sure. I guess its depends on the vise. For a leg vise I would definitely drill the large screw hole and mortise the leg before putting everything together.

3) I really wasn't sure I would like a leg vise before I had one. Well I've only been using my leg vise for about a week but I can't say enough good about it. The clamping capacity if quite large, particularly in terms of depth. I have zero problems with racking when clamping vertical pieces, although the mine is slanted which I'm told helps with this. One of the cool things about a leg vise that gives it so much power is that it uses racking to its advantage. The pin is placed just a hair wider then the piece you need to clamp which causes the top of the vise to rack into the work piece. The only disadvantage to a leg vise is if you are switching between clamping a lot of very wide and very thin stock with regularity. Those big screws certainly aren't the fastest things ever (although they're fast enough), and when you have major changes in thickness you need to move the pin in the guide (although this only takes all of 3 seconds

IMHO build the leg vise and stick the quick release on the end.

[Richard Francis]

Look at Patrick Edwards bench on the woodtreks site. He has an excellent solution to vice placement and work practice.
http://woodtreks.com/design-build-tr...eg-vises/1651/

[Joe O'Leary]

I have my 3 1/2 in. thick top resting on dowels and it works fine. The legs are 3.5 x 5. No racking BUT...pay attention to what Russell said! I almost lost a finger when the top unexpectedly dropped onto the dowels. Be careful out there!

[Zahid Naqvi]

I do plan to make about 1/2" deep mortises for the lower stretchers, makes it more secure and prevents twisting. The top (Cypress) is probably not going to be as heavy as maple or oak, but the point on careful handling is well taken.
I am also inclining towards the leg vice, if only to avoid making an overly complicated L shaped end vice. I need mortising practice so I guess I will take your advice Russel and chop them out after the bench is put together.
I don't know if I have enough lumber to laminate two 3/4" boards to thicken the stretchers. For now I will stick with 3/4" thick stretchers, if I notice any racking during use I can probably add a top stretcher as a later modification if needed.

Now that I am back in a house and done with moving around, hopefully this time I will have a bench to show as a result of this discussion.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Zahid, Do yourself a favor and somehow make arrangements to somehow get the extra lumber to laminate your lower stretchers to make them thicker. If the stretchers were 6" wie or wider, you might be OK with a single layer, but at 4" you are looking at the possibility of the stretchers bowing in and out perpendicular to the 4" width. Even a stiffener (spine) half of the 4 " width would do the job and would have the added benefit of providing you a ledger to rest a shelf on. Skimping on $10 worth of lumber with all of the work you are going to put into this bench is not going to please you down the road.

Congratulations on having a new home.

[David Keller NC]

Zahid - You might want to watch this video:

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/...-of-a-lifetime

Garrett has a different take on the lower stretchers to prevent racking. You could easily do the same by edge-gluing two of your boards together and make wide double-tenons as shown. Personally, I think using a tensioning rod the entire length fo the stretcher as he shows is a bit of overkill. However, this is a guy that's been doing handtool work long before it became the "in" thing, so a layperson's overkill might be his necessity.

As for a leg vise - I've built a number of benches. My last one had me considering a leg vise after reading The Schwarz, but I eventually rejected it. Instead, I used a Jorgensen quick-release vise in the face position. For me, that was the best compromise in 1) low investment (about $130), 2) ease of use, 3) long service life (these vises' design is superior to the Record design, in my opinion), and (most importantly) the ease of clamping wide panels for carcass dovetailing.

One last comment. Since you've no machines for surfacing, do yourself a huge favor and seek out some thick (at least 8/4, but at least 12/4 and much more preferably, 16/4) wood for the top. Hand surfacing a bunch of 4/4 to laminate together is going to be a very large task, even if it's softwood like Cypress or SYP.

[Yuri Sadykov]

I completely agree with Dave and want to highlight that 3/4" is NOT enough. Will be weakest place in your bench, and you know what? Whole bench will be as strong as weakest part in it, so have everything balanced is the key.

[Zahid Naqvi]

Only if you insist David
I can probably use some other wood for the side stretchers and laminate the front and back to get thicker boards. The reason I was reluctant to do so was due to the Ash being very dry due to long time storage and if I mix it with something new from a local store they might give me problems after the glue-up.
But I will heed to your advice of using thicker stretchers.

[Zahid Naqvi]

Hey DK, thanks for that link. The video was very informative. The initial draft me and Dennis came up with a couple years ago was almost like this bench (minus the tool tray). We decided we could use a leg vice on top of a QR front and a tail vice. After watching some of the videos of Robert R. I think we (the amateur WWers) make too much of a workbench. I just want to start with a solid based which I can keep for a long time and if in the future I think the top needs a reconfig, it will be easy to replace. I actually have no table at all, all I have is a computer desk the previous owner used as a counter in the garage, it's particle board and very flexible. So I can't surface plane even if I brought up the will power to do so. I'm thinking even if there are a few gaps here and there in the top there will be enough surface area to hold the laminations together.

[Andrae Covington]

I agree with others that 3/4" thick stretchers are probably too thin. Doubling up (1 1/2"), @ 4" tall should be fine. My stretchers are about 3" x 3", doubled-up old 2x4's, but that's more than enough thickness. I just did it that way to simplify making a shouldered tenon. The long stretchers run though mortises in the legs and are held in place with keys (aka tusks). My top is not glued down, and I haven't had any problems with racking. I do have upper stretchers on the short sides. Both sets of short stretchers are glued and drawbored mortise and tenons.

I like my leg vise, but I haven't had much experience with other options. I also like my sliding leg vise. If I didn't have that, I would want a twin screw vise, either on the front or the end.