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:

1. 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.
2. 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).
3. 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?
4. 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!

Until last week, I had never read Woodworking Magazine. It first hit the press when I was already in Malaysia, and I never ran across it during my time in the States in 2006-7.

But when my Shortcut on cutting curves without a bandsaw got accepted for the Spring 2009 issue, I got a free one-year subscription. I got my first issue – along with Winter 2008 – the other day.

Wow.

I had read woodworking magazines before, but as a neanderthal was always put off by the powertoolcenteredness of the articles. The team of editors over at WM (not just Chris Schwarz!) have clearly decided to give the hand tools enthusiasts a bit more to work with, while still letting the majority of you know how to tackle the project with power tools as well.

Literally every single article (of the two issues I have seen) are either directly relevant or at least informative to me. Recently I went through all the woodworking magazines I had, and found myself saving one or two articles out of each – throwing the rest away. Not with WM!

I’d be curious to know how you blended or power tool woodworkers feel about WM. I admit that my enthusiasm for it stems mostly from the fact that I’m a neanderthal apprentice hungry for instruction, tips, techniques, etc. from any source I can find. And I’ve been plenty frustrated in the past by magazines and books that don’t even seem to know people like me exist.

In my short time in this great craft, I’ve many times wanted to give up on a project. Sometimes the difficulties seem too great, or the things that go wrong seem unfixable. Yet I’ve always managed to carry on and finish.

Today I had my first shop time since before we moved (on May 13). I am far from set up at our new place, and I knew it would be a while before I was, so I had left all my woodworking stuff at the old place.

So I had about 2 hours of shop time, and planned to work on the Sawdust Chronicles desk organizer build challenge. If I had a shop full of power tools, I’d probably be half done! As it is, I got just far enough to realize that there’s no way I’ll be able to finish this thing in a week.

I set up shop in our kids’ former room, so I could make use of the A/C. Hey, climate control in my shop, this was a first! My first task was to fix my planing mess from the other week. And just like some of you said, it was a simple matter of evening the blade with the lateral arm. It all went smoothly. Pun intended.

Getting most of my lumber smooth (planing and a bit of sanding), and then cutting the first four pieces I’d need, took about an hour. The next hour I worked on the dados into which the bottom two pieces would go. I was going to have two horizontal pieces to form the paper slot, and each of those would just fit into dados in the side pieces. Here you can see my initial knife lines to define the dado.

Then I used a 1/8″ chisel to hog out the waste. I tried deepening the lines with the knife, but in the end found it more effective to use my saw to try to cut to the depth of the dado. Then I had to do the same kind of thing to make the tongue for the paper slot pieces. Oh, if only I had a rabbet plane.

It doesn’t look pretty, but it doesn’t really need to because I was going to have a horizontal piece dovetailed into the front to cover it up. The piece was to look decorative but would actually be removable, revealing a secret document compartment.

Alas, I think I’m going to have to give in on this particular project. If the contest had been held in any other month but May 2009, I’d probably have been able to do it. But right now with our unpacking and everything, a desk organizer [that we don't really need] isn’t the highest priority right now.

I’m bummed, because I’m a finisher. But now I can at least start to set my mind running again on my workbench!

P.S. Yes, I’m aware that the Schwarz had just written about dados by hand. Believe it or not, I just read it this evening. I’m such a dork.

I’m out of town for a few days and have a little evening free time, so I thought I’d jot down my thoughts as to what kind of Roubo I’d like to build (yes, there are many styles of Roubo!):

1. I plan to have the legs tenoned straight through the top, including the dovetailed outer tenons. It looks cool, but more importantly, fewer mortises to chop!
2. I’m considering ironwood for the top. It’s very heavy, very strong and very durable.
3. Most people do laminations of 8/4 boards for the top. I’m considering using a few thicker (12/4? 16/4?) boards in the middle, and then on the outside where my mortises will be I’ll use 8/4. Fewer laminations in the middle, and fewer mortises on the outside. It’s all about saving time.
4. I’m not concerned with the legs being square (in shape). I think I’ll laminate 4 boards together for the legs. Outermost is dovetailed tenon, then shoulder, then regular tenon, and then another shoulder. This is shown in one of Roubo’s illustrations. Whatever the thickness of that is, is what it’ll be.
5. I plan to use a typical leg vise, but I’m still considering angling it (without angling the leg). I have metal and wooden vise hardware but don’t know which one I’ll use (the wooden one is a $10 eBay find that needs some rehab).
6. Not sure yet about holdfasts. I got an offer to try out a couple made from crowbars that someone would ship to me (free I think except for shipping?), and I also may try to find a local blacksmith who can make some.
7. The bench will be about 6′ long. That’ll fit in a spot that’s about 8 1/2′ wide. Enough leftover room for planing and crosscutting.
8. I like the planing stop and plan to have one, but am not a fan of the chamfered top. I’ll either find a metal solution or just leave it unchamfered.
9. No tail or wagon vise.
10. Almost all the mortises will not be cut, but will exist via gaps in the glueup. The only mortises that I’ll need to cut will be in the short stretchers, and perhaps for the parallel guide on the leg vise.

There. Shouldn’t be that hard to do, right? This bench won’t be much more than just gluing a bunch of boards together!

P.S. How many of you are going to quote that last paragraph back to me in about a month or two? :^)

Okay, so I had 30 minutes to work on the TSDC desk organizer build challenge. I figured the first step is to prep my stock – plane, then sand if necessary. I’m hot and grumpy. It’s like 85 to 90 degrees outside, like always, and I don’t have any fan in the shop.

But my Stanley #4 seems to be doing its job pretty well. At least, until I ran my hand over the board.

So I guess I’m going to work on cambering my blade before doing anything else. Either that or go over this board with the cabinet scraper. But with more wood to prep, I may as well take the time to do this right. Right?

Okay, so I’ve decided to sign up for The Sawdust Chronicles (TSDC) challenge to build a desk organizer. Never mind that this is a busy month for me, and that we’re moving on top of that.

So on Saturday I went to the lumberyard and looked for – um, lumber. I was looking for something that was under 3/4″ thick, but they didn’t have anything. However, they said they could rip some 1 1/4″ thick stock (is that 5/4? I’m still not up on all the lumber lingo), and then plane it down to 1/2″ for me. Sweet, done!

So here’s what I got. I estimate it’s about 7 board feet, including that little thin strip. The wood is all kapur, which is just about all that this lumberyard carries. I chose some slightly darker and redder stuff for that thin piece just to add some natural contrast.

I pretty much have the entire thing planned out in my mind. And I’m surprised at how fun it is just to think about woodworking. I can stare at my sketch for a good 10 minutes or more, just thinking and tinkering with the plan. And when I’m not thinking about this organizer, I mentally build the Roubo.

Not sure when I’ll have time next to actually put tool to wood, since I’m going out of town this week. But of course, pics will follow once I do!

I’ve been a blogger since 2004 (this is my third or fourth), but I’ve never been one to track blogging milestones. But today when I logged into my WordPress dashboard, I saw that I had written 99 posts on Adventures in Woodworking. So hey, 100 posts! And I’ve received 274 non-spam comments here, so that’s a pretty good return, I’d say!

But my main reason for posting today was to talk about the big news: We have a house! We put down the deposit yesterday, and today I took possession of the keys. This is fantastic. In our 10 years as a couple, we’ve never had a place to really call home. We’ve moved 12 times in our 10 years of marriage (counting places where we’ve stayed at least two months). The longest we’ve ever stayed at one place was 1 year and 9 months. And while we still will go back to the States every couple years or so, we’ll maintain this place so there’ll always be “home” to come back to.

And the big ramifications of this event is that at last, I can invest my time and energies into having a workshop! Like most places we’ve been, my space will be very limited. Fortunately, though, for a neanderthal like myself I only need a couple dozen square feet and I’m set. :^)

We’ve identified the area that would be best for my workbench (my wife has very graciously included “proper shop space” into our wishlist when househunting), and I’ll have pics later. I’ll be in the kitchen, but really – it’s better than it sounds!

So now I’m planning my bench. For the longest time I had dreamed of a Roubo, but gave that dream up recently and switched to the idea of a Japanese bench like The Schwarz profiled on his blog. But now, I’m thinking that the Roubo would really be ideal, so I’m thinking about it during every spare moment.

We’ll start moving non-essential stuff this weekend and next week, and then after I return from an out-of-town trip next week, we’ll complete the move. Then I can get started on my bench! Oh, after I see if I can complete the Sawdust Chronicles challenge…