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Bear with me. It’ll make sense eventually.
I’ve got two vise screws. One was generously donated by a “homeboy” from the Porch, Bill Taggart, when I visited his place a couple few years ago. The other was a $10 eBay purchase. I’m trying to decide which one to use in my leg vise. Allow me to present the two candidates, and then leave your verdict in the comments below.
Candidate A is a standard metal vise screw. I dunno, looks like about an inch or so thick, and the screw itself is about 12″ long. The nut might look a little odd to you because it was originally on a plate that was intended to mount to the underside of the bench. Bill Taggart hacksawed it off for me since I was going to mount it into the leg instead. I figured I’d just drill a hole in the leg to receive the nut, and then do a little chiseling to make room for the plate remnant.
Pros: Metal is strong. I shouldn’t have any problems with vise strength.
Cons: The screw is pretty short. Taking into account a 6″ leg and a 2″ jaw, I’ll be limited to clamping stock that is not much more than 4″ thick. I suppose I could bury the nut inside the leg during the glueup, which would give me an additional 4″ or so, but that would mean if I ever wanted to change vises I’d have to take an axe to the leg to hack the nut out, and then I’d have to build a new leg.
Candidate B is an old wooden bench screw (about 2″ thick) that I just couldn’t pass up for $10 on eBay. This thing is in rough shape. At first glance it might not look too bad:
But pick it up (gingerly, now!) and you see that this is a fixer-upper. First the nut. Outside – ugh. Nasty. But the inside is solid and the threads are in perfect condition:
The screw itself is in great shape. There are one or maybe two places where a small segment of thread is missing, but otherwise it’s solid. But the head of the screw…oh my:
Pros: The vise jaw would be able to open about 10″ or so. The threads are huge and in good shape, so the vise is theoretically very strong.
Cons: In order to keep the vise from shedding bits of wood anytime it’s handled, I’d have to plane/chisel/sand about 1/2″ or maybe more off of the surface of the screw head (I’d likely leave the nut as is). Would that affect in any way the integrity of the vise? There’d be very little shoulder to catch the jaw of the vise, but I suppose if the hole for the screw is exactly the right size, I wouldn’t need much of a shoulder, right?
I have now presented the two candidates. For which one would you cast your vote?
P.S. Oh yes. The title of this post. I was looking for a witty title so I went searching for quotes containing the word “vice”. The title above came from Thornton Wilder. Below, for your reading pleasure, are more quotes with the word “vice” that almost make sense with the word “vise”.
- We do not despise all those who have vices, but we despise all those who have not a single virtue. - Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
- Vices of the time; vices of the man. [Lat., Vitia temporis; vitia hominis.] - Francis Bacon
- Times change. The vices of your age are stylish today. - Aristophanes
- There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts. -William Shakespeare
- Vices are often habits rather than passions. -Antoine Rivarol
- Nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring up modestly around it. Then you’ll have the miser who’s no liar; and the drunkard who’s the benefactor of the whole city. -Thornton Wilder
- It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. – Abraham Lincoln
So I had my order all lined up: 123 board feet of kapur wood. But I couldn’t pull the trigger. Why? The price. The total cost of the lumber needed for my workbench would have been $212. Maybe that’s not a lot; I don’t know what lumber costs are like where you are. But it’s about $50 more than I expected to have to pay, and in our world, $50 is a lot of money.
While I was there, I did find out that they have four different kinds of wood: nyatoh, selangan batu, kapur and “oti”. This oti was the cheapest by far. In fact, if I selected this wood for my workbench, the total cost would have been $120.
When I inquired about this oti, I learned that it is in fact “O.T.” which stands for “other timber.” I tried to learn what this meant – is it different species of wood all lumped together? All I could learn is that some of the boards are light in color while others are dark or red; some boards are harder while others are softer.
So here’s my question for you experienced woodworkers and armchair wood jockeys. Do you think I’d be okay using this “O.T.” wood for my workbench? I’m thinking that since we’re in Malaysia, most if not all of the wood here is hardwood. And I would be able to choose the individual boards. And they still would plane it down for me so it’s all of a uniform thickness.
I don’t really care if the wood isn’t all the same color. This is a workbench, not a work of art (I just heard some of you workbench lovers gasp). And frankly, I don’t care if it isn’t all the same species. Of course, I might be forgetting to consider something, which is why I pose these questions.
So I’ll either go back to the lumber yard this week to select the O.T. boards for the bench, or I’ll save up my money a bit longer and then go back for the kapur.
When going through marathon training (I ran three in 2001 and hope to run another in December of this year), one thing that you should always incorporate is cross-training. Typically one day a week, do something other than running to perhaps develop supporting muscle groups, or at least to give your body a little variety.
While I’m not too sure how much it will “develop supporting muscle groups” for my woodworking, I have picked up a new hobby. Thanks to a birthday present from my parents in celebration of turning 40, I took an Open Water scuba diving course and am now a certified diver!
But while scuba diving is as much a hobby as woodworking, the two couldn’t be more different. And I don’t just mean that you can’t build furniture underwater (your coral workbench would just snap right in two). What I mean is that woodworking is a productive hobby. You can’t take up the hobby of woodworking for very long before you produce SOMETHING tangible. Of course, it may take a little longer before you produce something that will actually last, but that’s another issue. If you’re a woodworker who doesn’t have anything to show for it, then you’re really just a tool collector (another hobby).
Scuba diving is entirely unproductive. But being unproductive doesn’t mean it’s useless. It’s just that the things you get out of scuba diving are internal, entirely for you. It enriches your own personal soul, enhances your appreciation of God and his creation, and gives you some memories and perhaps stories. But other than that (unless you have an underwater camera), you have nothing really to show for it.
I think I like that this hobby is so very different from woodworking. Honestly, my time on the islands entirely wiped the Roubo from my brain. That’s good. My slate is clean, and as I start planning again, I’ll be more fresh and will be able to think more clearly.
There was (and still is) a book called The Inner Game of Tennis, and while I never read it, I remember one of the claims the book made. The claim was that the more one thought about playing tennis (and playing it well), the better one played tennis in real life. The parallels have been drawn in many other sports and indeed, in many other facets of life. So why not woodworking? I am convinced that my workbench will be far better, and the construction far smoother, because of my ruminations. With that, here are my latest thoughts, with questions in bold face:
- I think I need to build a bowsaw or frame saw before starting my bench. I think that will be a much better way of cutting the legs (and later, the benchtop) to size. My ryoba is great, but is so thin it could easily wander while cutting a 6″ square leg, or a 2′-wide benchtop.
- I’m not sure in what order people build benches, but I get the idea that it’s better to build the base and then the top. For me, I’ll have to do a little of each. The center of my bench will be made up of the the thickest stock I can find (probably only 3″ or 4″ laminated to about 12″ total). I’ll have to see what that total thickness is before figuring out how long my short stretchers will be. So here’s what I’ll do: First I’ll build the legs, then I’ll laminate the thick stock for the middle, then I’ll build the stretchers, and lastly I’ll laminate the three outer boards (8/4) on each side of the top (with mortises for the leg tenons).
- Where should I position the legs on a 6′ bench? Should I allow 6 inches of free space on each end? Or 1 foot? Or other?
- Do I need to add anything to my F-style clamps? They only have smallish pads unlike parallel clamps. Will they be sufficient for laminating my 8/4 stock for the top, or for the 12/4 stock for the legs? Or do I need to use cross pieces to better distribute the clamping pressure?
I hope to buy all the lumber this week!
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