Scandinavian Vise

[Jim Koepke]

Square it is then, lol. I have some real Iron wood I might make into dogs. Other than that u have various rosewoods in small chucks laying around.

My thought on bench dogs is they should be sacrificial while not sacrificing my plane blades. Bench dogs are easy to make whether they be round or squared.

I kind of cringe watching Roy Underhill with his big iron bench dogs. All too often one of my dogs has been clipped by a plane to even consider something that could take a big hunk out a blade.

Exotic woods are nice for projects that will be enjoyed for a long time.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

My thought on bench dogs is they should be sacrificial while not sacrificing my plane blades. Bench dogs are easy to make whether they be round or squared.

I kind of cringe watching Roy Underhill with his big iron bench dogs. All too often one of my dogs has been clipped by a plane to even consider something that could take a big hunk out a blade.

Exotic woods are nice for projects that will be enjoyed for a long time.

jtk

I suppose something more readily disposable would be better.

Have you guys any experience with a deadman on a sliding dovetail? Seems like it will work well in theory.

[Jim Koepke]

I suppose something more readily disposable would be better.

Have you guys any experience with a deadman on a sliding dovetail? Seems like it will work well in theory.

I think one of the design principles of a deadman is being able to be lifted off of its bottom runner if it needs to be removed. Then there is all of the shavings and saw dust that could jam the works.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Just kicking around ideas, but my other thought is to build a board jack. to clamp into the tail vise.

[John Walkowiak]

I have to comment and defend square, steel bench dogs. Antique ones or ones made like antiques. That is, the toothed side is tapered a bit from top to bottom and the teeth are filed SHARP like a knife blade. The top row of teeth will look like the HF stops that blacksmith Peter Ross made for the Benchcrafted Rubo bench build. If sharpened properly, like this, they need only be up 1/16" from the bench top to hold tight. You can safely plane 1/4" thick material without risking damage to your plane. No matter what the thickness, if they are kept below the top of the wood you are planning, they can't jump up and bite the plane or blade. I have never, ever, hit the top of the dog. And I use Spiers planes, which I do not want damaged! If I am needing to hold something that I don't want teeth marks in, I place a piece of leather in-between the dog and the work. I would suggest buying a pair of steel dogs and sizing the holes to them. You can always make wooden dogs to fit those holes. Good luck, the bench looks great so far.

My thought on bench dogs is they should be sacrificial while not sacrificing my plane blades. Bench dogs are easy to make whether they be round or squared.

I kind of cringe watching Roy Underhill with his big iron bench dogs. All too often one of my dogs has been clipped by a plane to even consider something that could take a big hunk out a blade.

Exotic woods are nice for projects that will be enjoyed for a long time.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks John. I haven't eliminated steel dogs. Speaking of which, are there any places which sell a router template (gasp) for square bench dogs?

[Winton Applegate]

I will combine a few responses into one post (because I am feeling lazy (stayed up way too late last night)).

Board jack :
Debris getting in the slide : I haven't made one and don't really intend to. Not against it just not my need right now. But some where, maybe in Chris Schwarz's book I remember seeing the bottom slide configured so stuff can't collect but just falls away from the track. Seems to me the rail was triangular shaped with the point up with an inverted V shape in the jack that mated with it. By the way this is the way the "ways" are designed on the metal lathe so the metal chips are wiped off and fall to the collection tray bellow.

Wood dogs :
I would save your rosewood and ironwood for projects unless it is just straight grained and not interesting to look at. The purple heart I used was plain Jane and fairly cheep. I used it because it is very strong.

I am not against steel bench dogs, Frank Klausz uses them, I used wood to see how they hold up and grip (just fine) and I planned to put one in about every dog hole so I could just push up the one I needed rather than a couple of metal dogs. I could see myself pulling the metal dog out, droping it on the bench dinging the bench, or on my foot etc. each time I needed it in an new location.

I agree that if the top of the dog is kept well bellow the wood being planed probably fine using steel. I have never run into one of my wood dogs with a plane blade.

At some point I will probably get (or make ) some steel ones to try out. Or make some out of brass or bronze. I just haven't done it yet.

PS: as I have posted before . . . I cheated when I cut my dog holes and used a nice big O dado stack in the table saw. That is what table saws do best after all ; a quantity of identical repetitive cuts.

[Winton Applegate]

router template (gasp) for square bench dogs?

I think you are over thinking it. Mine are just lengths of rectangular stock. No "head" or shaped grip area.

I considered making them with the head but seemed to make more sense just straight. I didn't relieve the top of the dog hole for the head. I figured I could chop it out later if I wanted that. I don't so far.

[Jim Koepke]

I have to comment and defend square, steel bench dogs. Antique ones or ones made like antiques. That is, the toothed side is tapered a bit from top to bottom and the teeth are filed SHARP like a knife blade. The top row of teeth will look like the HF stops that blacksmith Peter Ross made for the Benchcrafted Rubo bench build. If sharpened properly, like this, they need only be up 1/16" from the bench top to hold tight. You can safely plane 1/4" thick material without risking damage to your plane. No matter what the thickness, if they are kept below the top of the wood you are planning, they can't jump up and bite the plane or blade. I have never, ever, hit the top of the dog. And I use Spiers planes, which I do not want damaged! If I am needing to hold something that I don't want teeth marks in, I place a piece of leather in-between the dog and the work. I would suggest buying a pair of steel dogs and sizing the holes to them. You can always make wooden dogs to fit those holes. Good luck, the bench looks great so far.

John,

I don't think you have to defend square, steel bench dogs. Your comment is informative and appreciated, thank you.

Steel, square bench dogs seem to work fine for many people, but I do not think they are my cup of meat. First problem for me is my bench came with round dog holes. Dog holes are kind of like cutting dovetails, people can argue forever about square or round and pins or tails first. For my way of thinking the fact that square dogs never turn is a big selling point.

For me even with the dogs well below the planing action, occasionally evidence of clipping is seen on a dog. Another problem is I am not always the only one working on my bench. Sometimes it is another woodworker seeking information or taking a tool for a test drive. Sometimes it is my grandchildren learning to do what grandpa does in the shop.

jtk

[Christopher Charles]

Check the benchcrafted site and search on "bench dog" for a plan and video for using a router to cut dog holes and plan for making wooden dogs. I've just switch from round to square and much prefer the square so far, in no small part due the springs on the new square ones. I made a batch of 14 dogs in a morning out of left over hard maple using the plan (one for each hole).

Looking great!

Cheers,
C

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks guys, plenty to think about. Winton, I like the idea of the grip area and I may actually buy a set of dogs to get started, so I'm dedicated to the slight cutout in the bench since most of the commercial dogs have them.

Ideally I would like to have a dog for every hole on the bench, but I will probably start with two.

[Karl Andersson]

Brian,
sorry I'm late jumping in to this, as I built a Douglas Fir Scandinavian style bench a couple years ago with a lot of the design and tech issues you've been discussing. I posted here about it - the post title starts with "finally", that should help you find it if interested in seeing the whole thing (it's also in a gallery on my profile page).
bench01.JPGbench03.JPGbench10.JPG

A few points:

- The tusk tenons work great - I widened the stretcher ends to make more bearing surface and it is rock-solid.
- The sliding deadman works well for most jobs- I sometimes have to put a block between the peg and the bottom edge of narrow stock because I didn't want the face edge of the bench to look like Swiss cheese. The track is, as Winton stated, an inverted vee shape and it clears shavings well. At 3 inches wide, the rails tend to gather shavings a lot, so i do keep a brush handy for that.
- I use two rectangular dogs with no metal grips or sandpaper facings and they hold the work just fine. I added a peg to use as a planing stop - just a dog with a 1/4 in tall "head" on it (to keep it from sliding down into the dog hole). I plan to add a separate planing stop some day, either a flip-up one or MAYBE a friction-fit dog-style one.
- The shoulder vise faceplate is trickier to shape and tune that you'd think - could be that the vise screw hardware I got is OK, but not great; the socket the the faceplate screws to binds with the tip of the screw and the whole thing tends to "climb" away from the rotation. I've got more tuning to do on that.

You've got plenty of great advice so far, please let me know if you have any functional questions.
Karl

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks Karl, I appreciate the insight.

I'm pretty happy with the tusk tenons, once i gave them a few taps with the mallet they locked in and this thing doesn't wiggle in the least.

I suppose the sliding deadman does require a top and bottom track, so I think I will just instead use a clamp-in board jack.

Like this one;
board%u00252Bjack%u00252B6560.jpg

When it comes to the vise, this doesnt fit well in neander territory, but I plan to cut everything associated with that in a bridgeport milling machine.

[Karl Andersson]

Brian,
sorry, I posted from a computer that wouldn't let me see how far you've gotten - looks great. Regarding the sliding deadman, it does require one trestle (the end vise one) to be made with bridle joints at the top so the stretcher is in line with the edge of the bench top, but there doesn't have to be a top track- just a routed groove. the bottom track is just a stick of moulding, basically. But those are just creative details - the real advantage is the shoulder vise when used for more than just edge jointing - I've used mine for marking and cutting dovetails, holding boards up to 6' for ripping vertically, and instead of a shaving horse when using a drawknife. I plan to make a saw vise accessory that uses the shoulder vise as the gripping power eventually as well.
great job so far, I'm sure you'll enjoy it when it is finished. I think these discussions on which vise/ bench is best and why are useful, but in the end we choose what appeals to us and learn to work with it.
Karl

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks! Your thoughts are similar to mine in how in envision using the bench and that's actually what landed me on the shoulder vise. For instance; I plan to build a wall hung cabinet next with dovetails on the case which is going to be 20" deep. This allows me to clamp that in all the ways I need to but is not too big of a hulk to work on small projects.

Basically I needed a bench where I could build everything from exterior doors to small humidors.