The vise backer is installed. All that is left is making and fitting the chop and making a tool tray.
I figure the chop is a couple or three hours (which means at least 6) and the tool tray a couple more. After those jobs the bench will be functional, just needing a little clean up. You may see joinery markings for months, clean up is usually pretty low on my list. I'd lot rather be making things.
The vise backer with the vise hole and the parallel guide hole:
My back is telling me it is whisky time in Tucson.
ken
That is a fine looking bench.
ReplyDeleteHow does the vise backer affect the knockdownability of the bench?
Yes, I'm too lazy to look it up in the last bench you made...
Steve,
ReplyDeleteThanks,
The vise backer is just another component that separates. I use a brass garder on the screw so the chop, screw, and backer usually come off as one unit. Because this bench was built as a shop bench everything is heavier but still true to being easily knocked down with nothing more than a mallet and moved.
The original builders were damn smart, the bench is a great engineering feat. There is nothing extra but everything that is needed and it works well above its weight class. My hat's off to Will Myers for recognizing the value of the bench and doing the work to revive the form.
ken
It would be hard to fit a left face vise on that but pretty easy for a leftie on the right. I really like the massive, rock solid look of the bench. Is it longer than the one in back or is a photo trick I'm looking at?
ReplyDeleteRalph,
ReplyDeleteThe slab on the portable bench is 1750mm (~69"). The new bench slab is ~2130mm (~83"). This bench, while it can be broken down into components for moving, is very heavy and definitely not portable. It is rock solid, as solid as the French/English bench which is, my best guess, two hundred lb, heavier.
I'm not sure about your face vise question.
ken
Ralph, the left and right side are the mirror of each other.
ReplyDeleteI have seen one Moravian workbench with a metal vise:
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/265810
I think this makes it much more difficult to assemble/knock down due to the vise mass. I wouldn't do it unless I wouldn't regularly need the portability feature.
Sylvain