Bench dogs holes, how close to the front edge?

[Derek Cohen]

A limiting factor is the end vise you use. In my case I have a Benchcrafted wagon vise. This is the underside of my bench. Note that it cannot be built any closer to the edge ...




The dog holes are rectangular, angled towards the end vise at 3 degrees. The wagon vise dog angles towards the dog holes, also with a 3 degree lean. This is important - tapping down on the dogs tightens them. You cannot have perpendicular holes with this feature.

All this places the dog holes about 60mm from the edge of the bench ...





I have not needed the dogs to be closer to the edge. What purpose would that serve?

Planing wide boards needs wide registration. A stop at the end of the bench helps here ...







When I plane edges for rebates or grooves, I use a sticking board ...





Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jack Frederick]

I’ve been knocking this around myself for my new bench and your sticking board idea seems to solve this issue for me. Thanks for that Derek. I have the BC Classic, Record 52 1/2 & the BC planing stop. My dog holes will be centered on the Record at about 5 1/2-6” inland. The sticking board idea can provide a home for the plane stop and seems a pretty slick solution to Mr Schwartz’ advise. The plane stops are short money so is there a good reason to add one between my Record dogs and the front edge? I so look forward to getting this done as currently I spend most of my time engineering a method of holding the material.

[Derek Cohen]

Details here, Jack: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMad...ingBoard2.html



Regards from Perth

Derek

[Scott Clausen]

On my Moravian bench it was dictated by where my wagon vice was located. I think it was about 3" from the edge. Hold fasts have a long reach so it hasn't been limiting at all. I will say as you get very close to the edge the risk of fracturing the wood grain may increase. I always was going to add more dog holes where needed but that hasn't happened yet. oops, just realized this op is asking in 2014, my bad.

[Tom Bussey]

One of my benches have have a tail vise. Where the dog holes are placed in the tail vise controls the location from the edge of the bench. The screw in the tail vise also controls where the dog holes go. My other bench has a wagon vise and it needs support on both sides of the actual vise so it is also controlled by the wagon vise screw. To me dog holes in a bench are a waist of time without some sort of end vise and dog holes that are not in line to me would leave something to be desired. A planning stop can go anywhere as well as holes for a hold fast. This bench has a right handed and a left handed side and has both a tail and a wagon vise and square dog holes . The left hand side has a leg vise not shone in the picture. My other two benches have wagon vises with round holes.

DSC03409.JPG

[William Fretwell]

Gregory the most relevant factor should be the most likely width you plane on the edge. You don’t want very much hanging over the edge of the bench. You will want the dogs in the middle of the board. If a board is 6 inches you want the dog near the middle at three inches. My bench has oblong dogs angled in at 3 degrees. Don’t go too near the edge or you compromise the board holding.

[Christopher Glanton]

What size dog hole do you all use? And what dog hole clamp/hold down do you all use? I'm glueing up a simple 2" hard maple top bench now and can't decide these two aspects of the bench design.

[Tom M King]

Milled the dog slots/mortises in the edge of the bench top using a router template, and glued on a 5/4 board for the near side top edge, so between 1", and 1'1/4" after the face of that board was planed down. Never even think about their location after that.

[Jim Koepke]

What size dog hole do you all use? And what dog hole clamp/hold down do you all use? I'm glueing up a simple 2" hard maple top bench now and can't decide these two aspects of the bench design.

Some like 'em square and some like 'em round.

Square depends on the bench maker but usually a standard thickness so they can be cut from scrap stock.

For round dog holes, my choice, 3/4" is pretty much the standard.

My holdfasts were made by Harry Strasil Jr. Sadly he is no longer with us.

Many have mentioned these being fine after holding the shaft in sand paper and giving them a few spins > https://toolsforworkingwood.com/stor...chterm=holdfas

There are also extra dog holes in my bench top. Parallel to the front row are a few placed so different widths of stock can be prevented from moving sideways when planing against a dog.

Some are also spaced to hold a planing claw:

In To The Claw.jpg

This and other bench top helpers can be very handy at times. This was better than a quick release vise when running a lot of similar sized pieces.

jtk

[Rob Luter]

Here’s an example of not close enough. I’m planning on installing a wagon vise along the other long edge.

E22761CE-8AB6-41CD-B6BC-8B0582B82DE6.jpg

[chris carter]

What size dog hole do you all use? And what dog hole clamp/hold down do you all use? I'm glueing up a simple 2" hard maple top bench now and can't decide these two aspects of the bench design.

3/4" holes for both dogs and holdfasts. I use the Gramarcy holdfasts in a four inch thick doug fir top. They work great, although I did rough them up with 40 grit sandpaper and also beat up the shafts with a hammer. The hold incredibly well.

[chris carter]

My dog row is 4-1/4” on center from the edge of the bench so it lines up with my screw. But I don’t even use them for moulding. For mouldings I use the back side of my bench where my holdfast holes are positioned so they can easily reach the edge of my bench. If the board is wide enough I just hold it down with the holdfasts. If it’s a narrow board, then I use a sticking board. My sticking board is just a flat piece of pine left over from some project long forgotten with a few screws driven into one end – took a few minutes to make. I then grab any random board that is straight and use that as a fence. I put my piece of moulding at one end so it just barely sticks over the edge, push the fence board up against it and knock down the holdfast. Then I go to the back end of my moulding and position it just over the edge and do the same thing. This distance is infinitely variable – no alignment pins, no hold down knobs, no nothing and it takes maybe 10 seconds or less. I back out any screws showing to act as the stop. It works well. If I need a thin fence because I’m using a combo plane then I grab a thin scrap board. If I need to make a tall piece of moulding then I grab something thicker. It doesn't need to be fancy; a scrap of 2x4 will work as the fence. Usually though, I tend to not use a combo plane so almost any thickness of board will work as a fence.

I’ve never seen a sticking board done this way, although I’m positive I’m about the 10,000^th person to think of it. I was watching a ton of sticking board videos and trying to figure out which way I wanted to build mine for maximum flexibility. Then it occurred to me I didn’t really need to build anything at all!

sticking1.jpgsticking2.jpg

[William Fretwell]

We get the occasional earth tremor, seeing those planes up there makes me nervous!

[Christopher Glanton]

Thank You Jim and Chris, very much appreciated!

[James Pallas]

I put a set of square holes 1 1/4” from the front and a set of round holes 6” on center and in position where the square dogs and round dogs line up across the faces. I also have a set of round dog holes on the end of the tail vise to allow for a little more length. This set up allows the use of Wonder Dogs to clamp odd shapes. The photo shows the bench not complete. It’s now has a leg vise and has been in use for year. So far I’m very pleased with dog hole locations. I haven’t felt the need to add more.
Jim