Dog Hole Locations

[Craig Meaney]

Hi all - longtime reader, first time poster.

I’m finishing up my Moravian bench and wanted to hear your thoughts on where to place dog holes near middle/far edge of my bench. The bench top is 13.5” wide (with a tool tray against the inside edge) and already has a row of holes 4” on center near the front edge of the bench, in line with the wagon vise. My questions are:

1. Should the “inner” dog holes be offset from the ones near the edge? If so, what is the advantage of this?
2. I have a 9” Veritas planing stop that I need to drill two parallel holes for. Should I space these as far apart as the stop allows (the posts are movable), or should I try to keep the inner hole more central and drill the others in line with it?

For reference, Will Myers (who repopularized this design) only drills one inner dog hole about 8” in from the edge of the benchtop near the leg vise: https://eclecticmechanicals.files.wo...7-2.jpg?w=1472 His appears slightly offset.

Here is a photo of my bench for visual reference. The planing stop only has one post on, I haven’t yet drilled a hole for the inner one. I also left some space between the final hole and the ones before it as I plan to install a toothed planing stop from Benchcrafted as well.
68216E3D-1806-4421-BFA0-E4F133B4B55C.jpg

Thank you in advance!

[Jim Becker]

Everybody works differently so ultimately, how you intend to use the bench is going to impact how many and where any additional dog holes go. I'm a committed user of hold-fasts (Gramercy in my case) so my benches have provisions for using them in flexible ways. I also embrace the 96mm grid of 20mm holes from the Festool world so my benches, one existing and one being retrofitted, support both systems. How you use your vice(s) also impacts dog hole location and frequency. I'm not a big hand-tool user, but I do use them and the bench helps with that.

So...how do you intend to actually use your bench?

BTW, Welcome to SMC!!!

[Phil Mueller]

As Jim said, we all work differently. I’m a dog hole minimalist. I have four holes across the back to hold work if I am cross grain planning. One is aligned so that I can clamp a planning stop in my leg vise and then use the hole with a hold down to secure the planning stop. I think it is best to use the bench through a few projects and see where you may want to add holes.

The good news is that it can be changed. Just fill an unwanted hole with a dowel and level it smooth.

[Timothy Thorpe Allen]

Looking at your bench, it seems to me that the only reasons you might need more dog holes than you already have are:

(1) you add the ability to have a dog on the top of your leg vise, so you would want dog holes extending back across the bench in line with that.

(2) for your planing stop. assuming you use the front line of dog holes for one leg of the stop, you will want other holes in line with those front ones for the second leg of your stop. I would put them as far back as the planing stop will allow, so they are spaced near the ends of the stop. You only need them where ever you think you are going to use the stop, not necessarily inline with every front hole(?).

(3) any additional holes wherever you think they would be useful with your holdfasts, if there are places you would like to use the holdfasts that don't already have holes (from above).

(4) any other accessories that might use dog holes: clamps, lamps, etc..., if they would best be situated somewhere where there isn't already a hole.

(5) if you add any other vices with the ability to use one or more dogs, you'll want dog holes to match the vice.

So I guess I am in the camp of dog hole minimalists, in that there is no sense in drilling holes just for the sake of drilling holes, but I'm not afraid of drilling holes if they are going to be useful.

[Robert Engel]

My advice is leave it as is, and as you work, you'll better determine where/if you need them.