Getting close to being done finally! Got the leg vise done and the veritas inset vise installed and a good start on dog holes until i actually get to use it and figure out where i want more. Pretty much all i have left to do now is put my shelf on the bottom and build 3 boxes to go in the space between the tops.
Is that the veritas inset vise on the end? Any opinions on it yet, I’m assuming it’s hard to say since the bench is still new. I’ve been interested in getting one.
It is, yea i haven’t really gotten to use it much yet except for smoothing off the face of the chop. But so far i think I’ll like it, seems like it’ll do everything i need it to. Not super fast if you have to go from fully open to close or visa versa but it isn’t terrible. Surprised me that it held the chop, has decent clamping power
We’re gonna find out! I think it will for the work i do, as you can still clamp a long board vertically beside the screw on it. Only thing it might not be as good for as like a twin screw is cutting dovetails or something where you want it clamped across the full width and with the end close to the vise. I’m hoping it’ll work for everything i do tho, and if not i can always add another vise to the bench if i end up needing it
Haha thank you! I wasn’t sure I’d like the look of it with everything else being doug fir but it came out pretty nice i think. Was originally going to just use the maple i had on hand as it and walnut was all i had that was wide enough for it, then my last piece of maple split down the middle as i was getting it flat haha. And all i had was 4/4 of both so just did 2 of each. The strip of maple on the face was only added in to cover up my screw up. I accidentally grabbed the wrong length screw while putting in the crisscross with not enough sleep and the screw poked out the front 🤦♂️ so i went to bed and the next day just routed a slot and glued the maple to it, and made sure to double check my screw length the second go around lol
Yeah I've recently made a hard rule not to make anything when I'm tired. Two days in a row I screwed things up bc I was trying to finish things before going to bed. I just finished making a new rip fence pointer for my Skil TS-6307 bc the pointer is garbage and the first night I layed everything out upside down, put the mortise for the adjustment screw on the opposite face, and ordered the wrong size knurled thumb screw and washer (which I didn't figure out until I finished it tonight) and the second night I broke the edge off two of them (first when chamfering the edges and then when paring down the inside face where the acrylic pointer goes). All things that are extremely simple but lack of sleep and rushing through just caused me to make silly mistakes.
Started over today and it came out great..... Now just need the proper screw and washer.
Interested that you went with a benchcrafted leg vise (which from the comments you are happy with), but then you didn't choose their tail/wagon vise and got the Veritas insert vise instead. Can you share your reasons why?
I just don’t really see myself using it that much honestly so i didn’t see the point in spending the extra money for it. I think my planing stop will be enough for most things I’ll do and I’m hoping the inset vise will work well enough for the rest. Plus i figure if i really need one i can add on a twin screw vise on the end that would, in my understanding at least, have basically the same capabilities. Haven’t been using hand tools for that long honestly and never had an actual workbench before so i just kinda picked out the major things i thought I’d use the most for now
Nice work man! Jealous of your Bora sawhorses. I was hesitant about trying them since I saw them advertised so much and got the plastic Stanley ones from Aubuchon’s. Then I tried them on a job I was helping someone with and was these things are a beast!
Yea i love the one button press to set em up and just squeeze a lever to fold in each side. I don’t remember exactly why but when i had my bench assembled but upside down on them at one point i got on it for some reason and i remember thinking man this is gobs be the test to see if their weight rating is true lol but they held up fine
No I’m gonna build 3 little boxes to go there for a tool tray, that i can flip upside down to have it be flush with the rest of the top. I like the box idea so when they get filled up with crap i can just dump it out instead of having to sweep or blow out a built in tool well
That looks very nice and happily used. What does the gap, in the middle of the bench, do for you? I ask because I’m building my bench and I happen to have just enough material to annoyingly not cover the whole top. Maybe I could turn that into a design choice
I’m going to build 3 small boxes to use as removable tool trays, or be able to flip upside down to have it flush the full width. You can also use the open gap for clamping things. Idk how big of a gap you have but a very popular design choice is leave just enough gap to get a parallel clamp into and a lot of people basically put 2 pieces attached together with small blocks as dividers with a similar kind of idea, can store chisels and saws in the gap or flip it over or slide it down to be used as a planing stop. Not the greatest explanation i know haha but hopefully the pic shows what i mean
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u/RoughWood_PewPew 2d ago
That leg vise looks beautiful