Workbench Wednesday – Bare Bones Nicholson

I’ve laid the bench over to drill the holdfast holes in the apron.

As I prepare for the upcoming Historic Trades event over Labor Day weekend I am bringing to completion this latest of my Nicholson benches, originally fabricated for use in the Build A Gragg Chair workshop two summers ago.  Well, something like “completion.”  Given the utilities needed for that exercise the benches were never “finished,” all they needed were to be solid worktables able to hold Moxon and Zyliss vises.

With a drill jig I easily bored as many holes as I wanted across the front and in the top.

I went back and forth on this; do I add a nice leg vise?  How about twin screw face vise, a/k/a Moxon.

In the end I decided to follow the muse of Mike Siemsen, whose brilliant video is a “must watch.”

I might go back and add a big screw leg vise, mostly for the experience of making the threaded screw, but for now I’m going to use this as a bare-bones bench.  If I have time before the event I will tooth the work surfaces,