Musings

Workbench Wednesday – Romastonian Low Bench 6b

After much consideration of building a Benchcrafted Carver’s Vise to affix to my Romastionian Low Bench, in the end I decided to go a different direction.  The BC vise was just too complex and robust (read: complicated/time consuming and heavy) and went simpler and lighter.

Yesterday was my first day back in the shop, where I went after packaging and sending a bunch of polissoir and wax orders.  Mrs. Barn gave me a warning in the sternest possible terms about not injuring myself and treating my knee with care, probably a well-founded warning.  Besides, she has more than forty years invested in us/me and she wants to protect her investment.  I was cane-free and pain-free by Saturday afternoon, walking more than a mile at a leisurely pace, so I was sure that a low intensity day in the shop was appropriate.  So late yesterday morning, able to see my breath in the chilly morning, I headed up the hill to continue work on the Low Bench vise.

The tapered open socket on the side of the bench was a perfect place to fit a small-ish vise for use while sitting on the end of the bench.

Beginning with a chunk of pine 4×6 from the scrap pile I cut and planed a tapered edge to fit perfectly into the side notch.  To make this undertaking quicker I cut a shoulder on the inside of the blank so that the vise en toto would project to the inside of the notch.  I decided this was a mistake ex poste, but there you have it.  I spent the time necessary to get the nesting just right so that the vise block was set firmly in place with one whack on top, and released easily with a whack on the bottom.

Once I had the housing and tapered block fit just right I marked out the jaw to be cut from the solid block.  To make the end result the most precise I chopped the mortise for the parallel guide through the whole mass, then drilled the holes for the screw holes.  I drilled a larger hole through the moving jaw face, then the smaller hole for threading by clamping the block in place for the larger hole halfway through, then swapping out the larger bit with one 1/8″ smaller.

Sawing out the movable jaw was just a matter of careful sawing.  Now everything was ready for final work and assembly.