Posted by Paul Sellers on 11 Jul 2012 in Paul Sellers' Blog | 2 comments
Read MoreThe Stanley knife I use
Someone posted on Youtube to ask me to talk about the Stanley knife I am using in my videos on making the European workbench used by joiners, carpenters and furniture makers through the centuries. I guarantee one thing, at least I think, they would have loved to own the Stanley knife I have been using for years. It has become the only knife I use for 99.99% of my work and every students that discovers it demands to know where they can get it. I walk in my local Richard Williams in Deganwy and buy Read More
How to Build a Workbench – Vise Pads and Dogs (part15)
I have all three vises fitted to my bench, two at opposite corners and to my right that is to perform tail-vise operations combining the poor man’s dog in the vise with dowel dogs in the benchtop. I will say up front that bench dogs and dogging systems are for me none essentials. Some may counter this and that’s fine, but I can and have worked without using any bench dogs for decades and when I have had them I forgot they were there. That said, the reason I added them here is to make the bench Read More
How to Build a Workbench – Fitting the Vise (part14)
The final stage of the bench make is to install the helping hands that grip the work of a lifetime. It’s so good to get to this stage and though I do not need any more benches (wherever I am I have a dozen or more to choose from), I want to know that you and hundreds if not thousands of others will own a fine workbench.
The vise is best fitted with an auger bit and brace (the first cordless drill) or of course you could use a drill-driver and paddle bit too. I begin by measuring the width of Read More
How to Build a Workbench – Fitting the Well Board (part13)
I realise that these posts are long, but we are invading the worlds of make believe benches, stepping off of the conveyor belt to fantasyland and getting into real woodworking again. To do that we have to have a real working bench that no one can really criticise as being useless, amateurish, fanciful, indulgent or stupid. Time was when a workbench was something you worked on; you cut with a saw on it, chopped on it, chiselled into it even. Sometimes you miscut and gouged it, maybe even once or twice Read More