Recently I wrote a post about why you don't need a tail vice on your workbench. now we're looking at the other end of the bench and going through my favourite options when it comes to choosing a face vice. What Do We Want From A Workbench Vice? A face vice should be...
Workbenches
Woodworking Workbenches – Design, Building & Use
Here you’ll find all of our post about woodworking workbenches.
There’s details about traditional bench design and vices, along with other alternate methods for holding your work.
Whether you’re building your workbench from scratch, or looking to make better use of an existing bench, we hope you’ll learn something useful.
Why Your Workbench Needs One Vice (Or Less)
A workbench is only a success if it can keep itself still and provide means to hold your work. A woodworking vice is not an essential feature of this. Typically though we can expect to see two vices on a workbench today. One will be installed on the front of the...
Choosing Timber – The Best Wood For Building A Workbench
If you're going to build yourself a chest of drawers, what wood would you build it out of? You'd build it out of whatever you fancy building it out of. What you like, what's to hand, what's cheapest. Who, bloody cares? It's the same when you're building a workbench....
Holdfasts – How Should You Be Using Them?
When I started building workbenches, I pushed my way of working on to my customers. I wasn't aware I was doing this. But my cave's a small place, and I forget there's other people out there. Every workbench went out complete with sliding board jack, large planing...
Face Vice Rack – How To Work With It
Without a reliable way to hold your work for woodworking we’ll quickly become frustrated. Whilst I’m a firm believer…
Build A Workbench Top That’s Simple Yet Strong.
Since first showing photos of our English workbench, I’ve had almost as many questions about this top as I have about …
Drawer and Carcase Holding
A planing sleeve is a work holding method for things such as assembled drawers and open carcases, so you can plane or work on the outside faces. These are enormously handy when the carcase is too big for your vice, and knocking one up is as easy as fixing a couple of...
Arnold and The Bench Knife
Today I wanted to share another work holding method that's as simple as it is effective (the best ones always are) and is suited only to those who've broken the fear of scathing their bench. 'The Bench Knife' is an old method certainly used...
Workbench Holdfasts
For a simple woodworker when it comes to a problem in life the best bet is to hit hard with a hammer. It's an effective if not delicate approach and once you get in to the mind set there's little that can't be solved. If you find you're spending a lot of time at your...
Help Me Decide?!
In the new year I'll be building a workbench. That's not unusual except that this particular workbench will be forming part of a lengthy chapter within our book. 'The French Bench' (not the Roubo) is where the design will be based and I've come to a bit of a head...
Related Posts:
The Most Stable Workbench Top
This surprised me. After tarting up some benches recently I had to check and flatten the tops. They all needed just a little skim, which is what I'd expected.What I didn't expect though, was just how stable my 12ft English bench top was. This is a big bench, and the...
Selling My Workbench
Finally… after taking a bit of a handful on, I've now got my old workbench ready for sale. Most of you will know this bench well. It's been used in most of the videos and has also been the bench that I built 99% of Maguire Workbenches on. It's the bench that built...
Workbenches For Sale!
The workshop stinks of nuts at the moment. I'm also tripping over big wooden vice screws and having to breath in to squeeze by the massive slabs of ash that are sitting there on my trestles. This all feels familiar. It's because I've just finished tarting up some...