Soooo… Sunday, and the main vice is looking and working great. I’m very pleased. I sanded off some excess wood-filler (the white stuff!), along some of the seams. The flat work surface is fab!
The side of the bench, or the rear face of jaws that face out towards work/me are less contiguous. But the new insertion is better/truer that the former side of the bench itself was.
I put a nice meaty large-ish jaw on the front/opening face. So hopefully I can clamp up big chunky stuff! Because my bench is made of pine floorboards, it’s not as heavy as might be ideal. And despite all the stuff – five full toolboxes filled with hefty toolage! – certain things can still make the whole bench move a bit. Which is obviously annoying and disappointing. Still, this is my first ever DIY workbench. So it’s hardly surprising it ain’t poifeck!
A second Fuller 3 & 1/2” clamp sits clamped in to the main vise; a useful addition to and extension of what the main vice facilitates.
In other less happy news, my two home-made plane handles have both failed. And both in exactly the same weak spot. What one might want to call the Achilles’ heel of the plane ‘tote’, albeit it’s actually midway between the ‘ankle’ and the ‘toe’! My knob is faring fine tho’!
More Knobs!
Another knob. This one’s from a harder, denser wood. Mind, it’s not my knobs that’ve failed thus far, but my ‘andles. The wood is from a load of evergreen for tree type wood we got off Freecycle, for firewood. I wish I knew exactly what kind of wood it is!
Making these is great fun. Now I’m into the sanding and varnishing stages. Sand, varnish, sand, varnish, sand, varnish, sand, varnish, and so on.
