My bench opinions (long)
Adam Cherubini, NJ
>Hi Dean,
Please don�t mistake my opinionated, close mindedness for wisdom. I just present my strong opinions and leave it to you all to sort out. Be sure to ask the other fine workmen here for their opinions. I�m not the best, just the most opinionated. And Brother, that�s the truth.
The bench is morphing pretty much to a version of a Nicholson, sans the front apron with the series of holes.
Just for the sake of clarity, a Nicholson bench minus the apron and with a thicker top is called a French bench. This was first drawn by Felibien in 1676 or so, later copied by Moxon.
It's too late to add the front apron, my base is built and there is no way to attach the apron as the legs are not flush with the front of the bench.
That�s a problem. You don�t have to have an apron, but it�s a huge advantage to have legs flush with the front. Here�s why:
1) What you�ll want to do is bore holes in the legs, insert holdfasts, then both support and clamp a board to the front of the bench for jointing.
2) You will want a sliding board jack that will ride on the lower stretcher.
Do your best to think through edge jointing. You should be able to handle boards 4-20 inches wide 12-100 inches long. If you can't, I recommend redesign. This is a critical function often overlooked. Woodworkers need straight, square edges to work from.
Twin screw vise on front left.
Consider very seriously using a crochet and placing the twin screws 20� apart (not center to center, 20� between them) straddling the rear leg. You can then place a holdfast in a leg hole as a vertical support, and clamp to the face with the twin screw. Do you have a copy of Moxon? Landis may have reproduced Felibien or Moxon in his �seminal� text (The Workbench Book).
Planing stop(s). Front left corner. Now, if I set them near the very far right corner I have a vice in my hip during plane operations. If I move it back somewhat my bench becomes shorter...
Planing stop should be in the far left corner. Place it very near the front, like an inch or two away so you can stick narrow stock. If your twin screw is like mine you can remove it in minutes. If it is on the right end and your bench is long (8� is long in my book), you�ll find you�ll be able to live with it most of the time.
Holdfasts -- Are there any available now days that are really going to set well?
Mine are Jorgensen�s from Highland Hardware. Get forged, not cast. Buy two. They are very nice and always grab for me. Bench material may effect grab. Frankly, I don�t get it. My bench and saw horses are beech. I�ve tried setting holdfasts in fir 4x4�s with no trouble.
Where do I place the holes? Center of bench? Biased toward rear?
Unless you want a swiss cheese bench, you really have to think this through. On the legs, you want a set of holes as near the top as possible to permit narrow stock to be edge jointed. I�d put them every 2 or 3 inches after that.
On the top you need a hole 1-2 inches to the right of the planing stop and 10-12 inches away (for planing 1x12�s). In this case the 1x12 will be resting against the holdfasts shank, which is good. For narrower stock, you�ll swing the HF�s foot over, set it hard against the bench, then bank your stock against that. I�d place another hole in line with this first one pretty far from the front, maybe 20� depending on the width of your bench to facilitate wide board work.
You�ll need a series of holes down the length of your bench, maybe every foot or so. Spacing could increase as you go right, since longer boards could use any of the holes to the left.
Bore as few as possible to start, then add holes as needed.
I scrub from both sides (both diagonals) currently, is there any way to stop that other direction of movement, or just no need?
No. Scrub in one direction only then fore plane with the grain more or less.
I'm also thinking of a series of dog holes which line up with a few dog holes in the face vise...
(i.e. running from the front of the bench to the rear, rather than side to side)
If your twin screw is like mine, this won�t work. You can�t get good pressure cantilevering off a screw with no other support. You could do that with a leg vise, but not a twin screw. Its just not structurally efficient. I did this with my first bench and it was a waste of time anyway, so I�d skip it.
As a side effect I can clamp a board for cross grain operations -- dado etc...
Its not necessary to pinch a board for dadoes. You can simply bank it against a pair of holdfasts. Anymore, I�m nailing fences on my carcasses when I cut dadoes. If you want to place a hand screw at one corner just to hold the work to the bench, that�s fine. But you won�t do it, because you don�t need it. The trick to working quickly with hand tools is challenging arbitrary requirements and skipping jigs and test cuts. We spend our time creating value, not preparing to create value.
Ideas, issues, rude comments?
Yeah, I have a few rude comments (at least I admit it). This is a big and complicated subject. Somebody should write a book about it! Why didn�t Scott Landis? Instead of taking pretty pictures, he could have interviewed real woodworkers and analyzed their benches, how they function, and how they don�t. Don�t show me a guy bragging about his bench when he doesn�t use it for anything but impressing customers and drinking his coffee. This isn�t rocket science and it also isn�t merely opinion. You need certain specific things for planing, you need things for jointing, you need things for dovetailing. There are a couple different ways of doing each. We could easily compare and contrast.
Adam
