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Thread: A smaller bench, intended for sawing

  1. #1
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    A smaller bench, intended for sawing

    Acting on the example of others with MUCH more tidy shops I'ves sharpening, sawing and planing to their own benches.

    It's still a Trainwreck in progress.


    After wrestling with a shop layout that worked for me, a small workbench design arose.
    33 3/4" high
    26" wide
    37 1/2" long

    Clearance below vise to floor 21" minimum.
    Max height of vise, 39" above floor. With good lighting, fine lines are visibl








    In my opinion most workbench designs try to do too much and have unacceptable compromises as a result. They're also too big for a shop where the longest assembly I can get out the bulkhead door or basement steps is about 60 inches long by 20 inches on a side. Bigger than this and things must be assembled in place (for my house, anyway).

    Given the confines of my basement shop, and accommodating poor vision I determined a dedicated sawing bench made sense. It needed an almost square footprint, and sufficient rigidity to hold my Emmert Patternmaker's vise.

    These present real mounting challenges, as the central mechanism swings between the resting horizontal and vertical positions. (I never use it, fully vertical other than when fitting it to a bench top.)

    The previous bench (seen in the background) was long enough to resist tipping over but was always in the way when I rummaged the storage drawers. It also became the dumping ground for things what dinnae have a proper place.

    More on that later.

    Rather than bodge holes in the top, it's left smooth for easy cleanup and (eventual) assembly tasks.

    The difficulty in this design is from the massive vise. Dunno what it weighs, but it's all I can manage without a proper hoist. The entire assembly twists while sawing - and solving that took some atypical features.

    A series of plywood gussets - front, back, top and bottom worked out well.

    The top is two layers of cast off plywood, fully two inches thick.

    The pieces are held together with countersunk straight shank screws and glue as suggested by Gary Knox Bennett. The top has an uninterrupted flat surface with a taped on vinyl mat. Attempts to glue it down failed, as the topmost layer of the bench is prefinished plywood. That *would* have been the top surface but the countersunk screw tops and seams between the ply pieces (recycled shelves) were holding dust.

    Attached are pictures of the bench and a demonstration of holding positions for crosscutting, ripping and dovetailing. Note the Patternmaker's vise nifty rotation feature - a board can be clamped and oriented at most any angle.

    My low sawbenches will be retired to act as a rest for the vise in storage.

    FYI - For long rips, my Ryoba sings in this orientation AND I can see!

    *Note to mods - all the photos are rotated 90deg and I can't correct this from my Android tablet*


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  2. #2
    Jim,

    A guy gotta work with what he has, looks like you are doing a good job.

    ken

  3. #3
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    The difficulty in this design is from the massive vise. Dunno what it weighs, but it's all I can manage without a proper hoist.
    There is an easier way if you ever want to mount this on another bench.

    The hinge pins can be removed.

    First drill into the end of the pins with a drill sized for a tap, mine was a #21 drill (~5/32") for a 10-32 tap:

    Drill the Pins.jpg

    This only needs to be about 1/2" deep into the pins.

    Next tap the holes in the pins:

    Tap the Pins.jpg

    Finally extract the pins:

    Extract the Pins.jpg

    The 'extractor' consists of a long screw, a washer, a nut and a socket sized to be big enough for the pin to fit inside, easy peasy.

    Also remove the front jaw from the vise, that is a lot of turns on the vise handle. It is easy to mount the back jaw on the hinge once it is in place and drive the pins back into place.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  4. #4
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    I'll copy this and tape it to the underside of the bench.

    I don't anticipate moving it, again - but someone will.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Matthews View Post
    In my opinion most workbench designs try to do too much and have unacceptable compromises as a result.
    Thanks for saying that! I’ve been having that feeling a long time, and arrived at that crossroad just yesterday. Nice job on your sawing station.
    What this world needs is a good retreat.
    --Captain Beefheart

  6. #6
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    Jim,

    Looking at your pictures again it dawned on my that your vise is an original. It may have a single hinge pin that could be driven out simply with a punch. Trying that with a light touch was how it was discovered my copy has two pins.

    Mine had a bit of a wiggle to the hinge so it was disassembled to instal a homemade sleeve to get rid of the hinge wiggle.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    There is an easier way if you ever want to mount this on another bench....
    Thanks for the tip and photo's, Jim. I need to do this with my Emmert copy. I wasn't looking forward to trying to figure out how to move it.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ted Calver View Post
    Thanks for the tip and photo's, Jim. I need to do this with my Emmert copy. I wasn't looking forward to trying to figure out how to move it.
    You are welcome Ted.

    One of my reasons for the disassembly was to see how deep into the face of a bench a pattern vise can be installed:

    Test Mounting.jpg

    A piece of scrap was used to check for full movement of the vise.

    My preference is for the face of the chop to be flush with the edge of the bench. If installed as directed the chop would be a few inches proud of the bench's edge. This helped in planning the bench's apron.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  9. #9
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    Two observations, regarding moving and mounting the PM style vise -

    As a "face vise" is requires lots of clearance to the front of a bench, as the mechanism is bulky and the movements (both tilt and rotation) are so large.

    I think it's better utilized on the end of a bench where collisions with legs (yours and the bench legs) are minimized.

    As an inset vise, it's better to build a skirt to fit, rather than excavate a cavity.

    In practice, I found it less useful holding long boards on edge than simple clamps (cast iron holdfast for mine) as the mechanism tries to rotate.

    For sawing, shaping with a drawknife and filing - it's tops.

    For planing I much prefer a Moxon derivative.

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