I wanna tell you a story 5 - resources

These are just the sources of information/supply that I used; there are others, but it's amazing what you find after you've started...

The Iron Hand for general information, especially Emmert Vise Anatomy.

Previous Emmert fitting experiences:

Russ Allen

John Gunterman

Roger Van Maren

James Watriss

The Workbench Book

Original instructions:

Union Hill Antique Tools are the clearest.

Assorted hints and tips:

Okay, so like many others, I have some issues with how the Sawmill Creek forum goes about its business, but it seems to be a bit of a hotbed of Emmert tips and information. Well worth a search. And the Old Tools List, of course.

Screws:

There seems to be a lot of variation in what size and how many screws are needed. There are a total of seven screw holes in my hinged mounting plate, and I found I didn't seem to have quite enough room to take a full 2" in the hole over the hub. In my case I used 14g Silicon Bronze wood screws from Seaware. They were very helpful, didn't turn a hair at the assortment of lengths and small quantities I needed, and were happy to take anything back if it didn't fit. I took the tilt adjustment bracket with me, as it had the same size holes, which helped a lot.

Magnetic sheet:

e-Magnets Again, top notch service and the first place I've bought from that outdoes Lee Valley in a love of, or should I say attraction to all things magnetic.

Cork sheet:

Gaugemaster No complaints, except the embarrassment if my brother finds out I've been buying anything to do with model railways...

Think that's the lot, but subject to editing and any comments of a "where did you...?" nature :)

I wanna tell you a story 4

With the vice all apparently working, the unskilled labour was drafted in to help me flip the thing over so I could flatten the top. After all the bumps and dings the top got during this whole process, I'm glad I decided to leave the refinishing 'til the end. The Emmert's hinge mounting plate was deliberately set slightly below the bench surface to facilitate that, and it worked fine.

The Millers Falls jack and Veritas bevel-up jointer did the necessary, with the 3x2 now drafted in to act as a lateral stop. Unfortunately I had no means of stopping it walking lengthways across the workshop as I planed, so I was pretty much pulling it back into position after every stroke. All jolly good fun and reminder, if reminder was needed, why a workbench that doesn't move is so essential for successful planing.

Couple of coats of finishing oil later, and it's like having a brand new bench. Cool.

The unskilled labour was called upon again and the top was lifted back in place. Oh happy day! Vice (or vise) reassembled and proving what I'd suspected all along - it would have looked bloody ridiculous on a 5ft long bench.

And the obligatory Emmert rotate 'n' tilt shot.

But I wasn't finished there, reader; there was the tool tray to fill in. Some laminate flooring filled that need admirably - I told you it was going to be shallow.

While I was at it, it seemed a shame not to make a better job of the shelf below as well. I even went so far as to swap round my available plastic boxes so I had a matched set of three at last.

Then I lined the jaws; starting out with leather in mind, but the price almost makes wood look like it grows on trees, so I ditched that idea and went for cork instead. This stuff is sold to the model railway layout fraternity and is 1/8" thick.

Now you're probably gathering up the breath to say "But Alf, is it wise to glue it to the cast 'arn? What about if you ever get the tilting jaw insert thingy? How will you fit it?" Step forward Dave Anderson, who's pearl of wisdom I culled from Sawmill Creek during my reading of all things Emmert - self-adhesive flexible magnetic sheet. Make the liner in two halves and you can pop it off and on as occasion demands. Brilliant.

As I had the cork out, I lined the jaws of the tail vice too; something I've been meaning to do for ages.

Behold; all looking worryingly smart.

You see how it looks like the floor's sloping fairly drastically from left to right in that photo? That's because the floor slopes fairly drastically from left to right. This may be why I can't decide what height of bench I like; it depends on which end of it I'm standing at... I do know that for a while it felt amazingly tall having go used to it down at saw horse level.

Anyway, it looking all fancy like that was a bit unnerving, but luckily, by the time I'd loaded up the shelf with the bench-on-bench, the bench hooks, the shooting boards, etc, it was much more normal. I dallied with making some new bench dogs, but decided a bit of familiarity would be nice to retain.

I may yet have to move things about a little, in case there's not enough room for the vice's beam to swing when it tilts, but that's not a problem.

But we're still not done really, although you're now as up to date with things as I am. I really would like to make some improvements to holding work on the front of the bench, and I think another holdfast hole or two might be a Good Thing.

Oh, and I've got to put all the tools back. Which reminds me, tools used...

What? If you think I'm listing that lot, you must reckon I'm crazy. Crazier than chopping a big hole in my bench, that is...

I wanna tell you a story 3

An Emmert vice that doesn't rotate is an abomination. Really, if you think about it, it's virtually any old face vice but with big dreams. That won't do, so allowing it to rotate was essential. (I dunno, should I really call it a "vise", it being 'Murrican an' all? But I digress...)I have to say my inability to think in 15 dimensions really didn't help at this stage. It took me ages of paring and testing. At this point I really learnt to hate the end cap - the end grain complicated things just that little bit more.

I'm no carver, and although I think I may have a couple of carving gouges somewhere in the pile o' tools, they're hardly ready for use, so I resorted to using a couple on in-cannel firmer gouges. They did pretty well, but did I mention I'm no carver? Yeah, well, this confirmed it. Thank God for the invention of the drum sander, s'all I'm going to say on that...

As you could see from that photo, another dog hole was rapidly ceasing to exist. Really I should have blocked it off before I started, but I got away with it. Only downside is the beech I had available to use for the job is much whiter than the bench, so although the fit is good, it doesn't exactly blend in. Heigh ho. Also evidence of when tiredness overcomes good practice; nasty breakout on the bottom edge from cross grain work after a failure to appreciate that the initial chamfer had been obliterated by the amount of wood I'd had to remove. Annoying, but not fatal.

Planing up the beech to plug the dog hole was interesting. The only accessible means of holding it was the front edge of the tail vice, but that was with the bench still resting on its edge and therefore hardly a secure platform. I resorted to Eastern practices and used my small Mujingfang plane on the pull stroke, so I could keep the workbench upright at the same time. I'm not going to dump all my Western pushing planes as a result, but in this kind of situation, it proved to be a bit of a life saver.

Meanwhile a third dog hole was looking decidedly ropey. I'm reluctant to lose it completely - after all, you never know when you might need it - so I chiseled off the wafer thin section to at least leave a stronger edge. Don't anticipate it being a problem, but I'll see how it goes and can always fill it in later if necessary.

And the completed curvy cut out. No, it doesn't necessarily rotate completely at any tilt angle, but I'll wait and see if that's a problem. If it is, I will joyously embrace further hours of paring and fitting. And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you...

Houston, we have rotation. I first 360° spin was, I admit, a bit of a buzz. I did it a couple of times, just for the hell of it. I may have gone "Wheeeee" as I did so, but I ain't telling.

Around this point, my view of the Emmert switched from "millstone around my neck (or ankles)" to "Ooo, I could like this". This is a Good Thing. Thus, with renewed appetite for the battle, I approached the matter of the space for the beam.

More sawing, chiselling - with yet another (shorter) chisel, 'cos now I was working with a restricted space - and I had a perfectly fitting hole. Which was stupid, because obviously I needed to make it wide enough to allow the beam to rotate too. So a bit more sawing and chiselling later...

Yes, the tilt adjust mechanism has put in an appearance too. The Emmert instructions advise benches under 3" thick should have a padding piece added under the bracket, which I duly did. Quite a lot of padding in the end, to bridge the pocket in the bench top where the nut for the bolt holding on that pesky end cap resides, and to stop the tilt bar hitting the front edge of the tool tray as it moved downwards. Besides, it seemed to me that, within reason, the more accessible the lever was, the better.

All looking very purposeful at this point. Great.

So then I took it all apart again in order to flip the top back over.

Well removed the jaws anyway. Sigh. But by this stage the finishing line definitely felt in sight.

I wanna tell you a story 2

In the first instalment I left you hanging from a router-infested cliff; would our heroine survive another encounter with the Power Tool of Her Nightmares? Read on...

You may imagine how I agonised over the whole thing, my record being what it is. But I made a template and used the guide bush and it was... okay. In fact it was fine. I managed to be a muppet and lightly graze an area of bench top I didn't want to, but nothing serious.

And there it is. Not bad, eh? I could almost - almost - learn to like the router if it always behaved like that.

Next step was to fit the hinged mounting plate to its recess. A matter complicated by the fact that it's been repaired with a weld at some point, so all sorts of relief in odd places was required. I procured a candle and sooted up the plate so I could see where I needed to remove wood and where I didn't. Viz. It's not pretty, is it? A very real work in progress shot, that.

After considerable testing, fitting, paring, tweaking and general madness-inducing work, it fitted. Woot!

So I had to try it with the jaw in place too, didn't I? A word of huge love and affection for the Veritas hold down; it made the job 2000% easier. It just sat there in its hole and held that hinged mounting plate in its recess like a champ. Without it I would have gone even more insane than I did anyway; with it I could hold the thing in place while I endlessly fiddled about.

Even to the point of putting the front jaw in place. Which reminds me; another tip I found somewhere was to install a screw so the hub rests on the head - that way to can make sure your rear jaw is at 90° to the bench top. Very handy.

With the beam in situ, I was able to mark off where I needed to remove yet more precious bench in order to be able to close the vice at all.

At this point I almost had a functional face vice, but of course it wouldn't rotate for toffee.

I wanna tell you a story...

Ah, starting a blog entry with Max Bygraves; never a good sign.

Now strictly speaking I'm not done, but I promised more detail and the theory is that if I do this in instalments, by the time I get to the end, I will actually have, um, got to the end. That's the theory.

So, last March, I think it was, I got an email telling me "You're about to get a weird email". Arguably I'd just received one, but no, I was to expect another one. Thus, in April, I received - well, not so much a weird email as an unexpected email, asking me if it would be okay to ship the Emmert vice this week. Well after I'd picked myself up off the floor and processed the whole concept of orphaned vices turning up on the doorstep, I agreed it was. Quelling the urge to move house before it could get here, the saga began. Hit the "emmert" tag at the bottom of the post, and you can refresh your memory. But take note, gentle reader - it's been under a year. I'm speeding up in my old age...

Well having finally decided that it was going to go on my existing bench after all, first step was to mark out where it was going to go. I nicked a cunning tip from James Watriss' blog of clamping a board in the existing face vice, then clamping the Emmert on the board to get it lined up. (He's subsequently appeared in the comments box, so hello and thank you, James!) The result:

The next step was to remove the existing face vice; which is large and heavy. This is a running theme with this whole task. So are bruises. My bruises have bruises from moving, lifting, inadvertently walking into, and generally encountering heavy lumps of cast iron and beech. You don't tend to notice at the time - except knocking your shin on an Emmert vice jaw, which you really do. A lot. I've never physically hopped across the workshop swearing a blue streak before, but I bet it would have been amusing for an observer.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Then I drafted in the unskilled labour to help me lift the bench top off its trestle base and onto the saw horses. I've mentioned the saw horses before, haven't I? And how brilliant they are. Well next time I'm making three. Two for the work and one for me to sit down on in a state of exhaustion... Once the bench top was on edge, I propped it up with a length of 3x2 against the Maxi 26 so at least it wouldn't fall over one way. This was just as well, as it turned out, because the one time it did fall over - loudly and terrifyingly - it fell away from me. Which as I was crouching down at the time was just as well, or I'd have had one hell of a headache. At best. You can't blame the bench top for trying to get away though, when I did this to it.

Keep an eye on the background in these pics, and see how the number of tools used steadily mounts up. Or in this case, the foreground, where the oak mallet I made years ago still refuses to die as I wield it mercilessly on an assortment of chisels, trying to find the best one for the job. Turns out, despite my little chisel problem, I don't have a long, wide, beat-to-death chisel amongst them. But I managed.

The idea was to make as close a fit to the rear jaw as possible to start with, and then go from there. Speed of progress wasn't helped by the nature of the beech being such that it naturally wanted to run out to the top side when I spit it off. Such is life - and wood.

Spokeshaves were out of their depth with this job, or I was. Maybe both of us. But a combination of a Stanley #78 (Type 1 - no depth stop or fence) and wooden rounds worked across grain worked splendidly.

Step two was to cut the notch to take the bulk of the hinged mounting plate. Bye-bye to our first dog hole, and yet more of my precious bench. *sob*

Same saw and chisel procedure as before. If you've been reading this blog since I made the chair, you might recall how my thumb joints strongly protested about the mallet work? They still do, it seems. Sigh.

By this point I was thinking that a little electrickery was required, if I wasn't to still be doing this by next Christmas. Plus the lack of a useable workbench was really getting me down. To those who believe you have to build your workbench to be properly attached to it, I say 'tis not so. I was like a woman missing a limb the whole eight days while the bench was out of action. Horrible, 'twas.

Indeed such was my mentally weakened state, I...

Reader, I got out the router.

But I'll tell you how that went in the next entry ;)

Shallow thinking

Still restrain yourselves from getting excited, but things all appear to tilt, rotate, and tilt'n'rotate like they're supposed to. Of course this is when it's upside down, so it may only work the right way up in Australia...

Just a few minor things still to do, like flattening the bench top, thinking up a wizard scheme to solve my board jack problem and so forth. Oh, and of course at the moment there's a hole in my tool tray, dear Liza.

I was going to fill in one end, but then I started to wonder. While I like my tool tray for catching things from throwing themselves off the back of the bench when it's not standing against a wall and being able to stand my planes upright but with the blade over the open tray, it's true it does harbour things, particularly in the front corner, where I can't see them. So I was wondering about making the whole tool tray simply shallower. Say an inch or so. What say the reader? Any precedents for that?

Fit, mark, pare, fit, mark, pare...

Don't get excited; it may look like it's virtually done, but actually I'm at the finicky stage of the fitting and the whole thing's taking approximately 500% longer than I anticipated. My own fault for being too tentative at the main stock removal stage. It's not the first three inches that are the difficult bit; it's the last 1/8th. Or rather 1/4. I need to allow more room, but am loathe to remove more bench than absolutely necessary, hence the sloooow progress.

More fulsome detail when it's done - I hope - but thought I'd better do a brief update in case the reader was worried I was lying trapped under an Emmert vice jaw... ;)

Musings from the, er...

Reader, I believe now would be a good time not to come up with a convincing argument not to do this.

And yes, I felt physically sick doing this, thanks for asking. My poor baby. What am I doing to you?!

If any man know of any just cause...

Well, The Schwarz was effective - in all the wrong way.

First up, and most unhappily, it didn't make me want to build a workbench any more than I did before. i.e. Not at all. I'm just not convinced that your "Roubo" didn't go out of fashion for darn good reasons. The not-really-Nicholson just screams "You will curse that apron each and every time you have to fumble beneath it to pop up a bench dog". The wide-spread Continental/European workbench design didn't take off for nothing, I'm convinced. It's not easy to build, and frankly if the factories wanted a material-cheap, easy to build and transport bench, the Nicholson variety would have been a better choice.

In short, I like my hopeless Euro bench with its thicker sides and mere 2" central section. I like its tail vice (that doesn't sag). I like its dog holes handy to the front edge. I like its sturdy beech construction. I like its knock-down design and its sled feet that won't wick up moisture from the concrete floor like end grain will.

But like every other bench ever made, (and why there is no perfect bench, and why Chris is, in my opinion, doomed to make benches for the rest of his life - or until he comes to his senses) my Schwarz-unfriendly bench has flaws. It does, it's true, totally suck at holding boards on edge. And the face vice has been annoying me for ages, because the end cap has shrunk towards the back, so the left corner of the rear jaw is fractionally out of line. It's a small thing, but you'd be amazed how irritating it can be.

So I'm going to give the behemoth a refurb. I'm going to make it a board jack, if I can work out how to get a rail for it far enough out. If not, even some holes along the front will at least be something.

And I'm going to replace the front vice.

Yes, you know where I'm going with this. But look, the darn thing will be smaller than the existing front vice. See?

You've still got time to talk me out of this, but I took the existing front vice mechanism off. Just to have a look...

Okay, so a couple of dog holes are going to die horribly, but on the other hand look how the lovely people at E C Emmerich have practically done half the work already. The only annoying bit is having to break into the tool tray (I didn't mention how I like my tool tray too, did I...?). But I have some beech knocking about, and I'm sure I can fill in with the necessary to tidy up.

So there we are, that's how it's looking at the moment. Like I say, I haven't done anything terminal yet, so by all means fill up the comments box with impassioned argument as to why this is a Bad Idea. But for those readers who want to see me suffering in the making of a bench, bear one thing in mind.

If I do this, and screw it up - which, let's face it, is not beyond the bounds of possibility - I could well end up building a bench anyway...

Musings on the workbench

My SU pic in yesterday's entry probably simplified things too much. Great are the possible variations on the theme - hey, it's me, of course it's more complicated. Here's how the thought process is going. Sort of. Much edited, cleaned up and most of the the "Aaaargh, help me" bits removed. Some may creep in though... See if this makes any sense to you.

Firstly, what do I want in this bench? Normal people work out what they want to do with it and then pick a design accordingly. In this case, obviously, things are a bit different. The raison d'être for this workbench is the Emmert vice, and that is my primary consideration. Thus, criterion numero uno:

1. It's a bench for The Vice.

That narrows it down more than you might think, but we'll get to that.

Secondly, I only have working room for about 5ft, or 1.5m or thereabouts, of bench length. I could make it shorter and a dedicated Emmert Station, but see point four. Or I could make it longer, but then I wouldn't have room round it to be able to use it. Plus experience shows that walking into the corner of a bench every time you step through the door of your w'shop tends to result in falling very much out of love with said bench quite quickly. It's also got to be next to a wall, so the classic 2ft or 600mm width is also pretty much set. With my height and the pinkie test, it'll also be around 32-33" high.

2. It's overall dimensions will be 5ft x 2 ft x 2ft 8in.

Thirdly, it occurred to me that having a smaller bench could also result in some benefit in the future. At some point I will inevitably be down-sizing and it could be that, despite the best will in the world, the Behemoth Bench just won't be able to fit into a bedsitter... So it makes sense to make this bench usable for actual woodworking purposes. But more importantly, it makes sense to make it moveable out of the workshop. Thus, a knock-down design would be desirable. It'd also make the construction a little more feasible for just me, rather than having to call in the troops to help me lift the thing.

3. Knock-down design.

4. Workbench suitable for general hand tool woodworking tasks.

At the moment these seem to be the main points. Just for kicks I'd like to make it different from the Behemoth too; round dogs, not a traditional tail vice, etc, but none of these are worthy of a particular point. Anyway...

#4 clashes with #1 more than you might think. Current workbench thinking has it that you should have the legs of your bench in line with the front of your bench to provide more clamping surface. It makes sense, it's not something my current bench has, and it's very of-the-moment. Or very-of-the-18thC, depending on your view. I'd like to do it. But notice in this sketch how, in order to accommodate the rear jaw without hitting the legs you need an overhang of around 18" (450mm).

Now I suppose I could put the vice inside the left leg, but I fear two things. One, that access to the tilt lever under the bench, on the lefthand side of the vice, will be restricted and it'll become a knuckle-skinning operation. Two, that some of the advantage of the vice being able to hold things at extraordinary angles will be lost if said workpiece is restricted by hitting the leg. So, for preference, I'd like to remain outside the leg and stretcher area.

However, if we disregard ancient/modern thinking and have inset legs like wot I'm familiar with, it seems to me you can drastically reduce that overhang - thus increasing the base size and therefore the stability:

I'm currently torn between the two. Naturally the excellent suggestions of having another vice on the other end to balance it up a little is quite appealing, but two problems. One, because of #3 (knock-down design) there'll be a top stretcher on the end leg assemblies, rather complicating fitting a face vice as a tail vice. At least without bringing in further complications of some overhang at that end too. Secondly, there's one thing worse than walking into the end of a wooden workbench top every time you step into the w'shop. Yup. It's walking into a chunk of metal vice every time you step into the w'shop. Tail vice duties are likely to be taken up by a Wonder Dog or other cunning gizmo dreamt up by the Veritas Elves. Something that doesn't jut out much anyway.

On the other hand, I could see if I can at least find that vice that's knocking about somewhere...

So where was I? Oh, yeah. Undecided.

Then there's the top. Now my plan is to laminate up strips and aim for something as close to 3" (75mm) thick as possible. But how in hell am I going to lift that? So then I was wondering about the two-part top variety. Bob Lang makes a pretty good case for same with his 21stC workbench. But then again, I could make it two parts without a gap maybe? Or make the front bit heavy and laminated, and use the old trick of having a thinner rear section. Or...

See what I mean? The angst, folks. The angst.

Then there's that nagging option to fit the darn thing to the Behemoth after all, and just hope it'll fit in the bedsit. No-one seems to like that idea. If I said I'd then use the SYP to build a bench anyway, would it get any votes then? ;)

It lives!

The monster lives. And without recourse to an electric storm and an Igor.

I'll admit this is something of a relief. Not just because there's always the worry that you won't remember how it all went back together - the digital camera is worth its weight in gold in that respect - but because I've never actually seen it all in one piece. It was quite a buzz getting it all together.

A sort of idea of how it goes together when fitted on a bench. I cleaned up and refinished the beech handle with the plastic ends (shaving pony, scraper, Speed'n'Eeze polish for, well, speed and ease...) but the long term plan is to replace it with one more like the originals. Anyone know the preferred wood of Joe Emmert and his little elves?

The biggest triumph was that pesky segmented washer. Kids, would you believe the Heap 'o' Washers that have been kicking about Alf Towers since Noah first took to a dinghy offered up one that's not only a perfect fit on the shaft of the Taper Adjustment Knob, but a beautiful friction fit in the casting slot to boot? A little work with hacksaw and file, light tap with mallet on screwdriver, and she was home. I love it when a plan comes together.

So now I'm looking at this gleaming behemoth and wondering if I don't rather fancy it on my existing bench after all. Only problem is the beam is so long that it'd quite possibly necessitate hacking into the tool well and rebuilding it just a tad. Hmm. But I do worry about just how short a bench is really practical for this monster. Here's a naff bit of SketchUp to demonstrate same using the most pathetic rendering of an Emmert vice you could imagine with the SU file of the Holtzapffel type, but reduced in length to 5ft or 1.5m-odd, that being about as much as I can squeeze in (and still be able to use it).

It looks okay, kinda. But, gentle reader, I wake up in the early hours, wild-eyed, having nightmares of this variety:

I'm pretty sure Joe would come and haunt me personally if I let that happen, and I wouldn't blame him. And thus the angsting goes on...

What's Big, Black, Shiny...

...and you really wouldn't want it dropping on your toe?

I swear the thing looks bigger and yet the old adage is that darker colours make you look smaller. But are you going to tell this monster its bum looks big in this? No, me neither...

Things move on apace, and courtesy of Axminster's next day delivery and the Fed-Ex man, I'm almost ready for the next stage. Can you tell what it is yet?

No? Go on, guess.

As a result of said order, I also have another one of those "You can tell you're a woodworker when..." things. Viz: You can tell you're a woodworker (again) when you go from no Axminster orders in three years to two in two weeks... I'd forgotten how active workshop time always causes my bank account to start speaking politely in French.

Yes, it keeps saying "Mercy". Ba-boom, tish.

All right, I'm going.

Maskerade

Is there anything more tiresome than preparation for painting? And in this case, masking. Lots and lots of masking. Bolt holes plugged like the nostrils of so many Captain Blackadders, masking tape finely crafted to fit over all sorts of oddly-shaped areas of machined surface.

I started to wonder if it'd ever end. But I think it has.

Look, kiddies! Woodworking!

What d'you mean "Where?"

There. All those finely crafted lengths of dowel. Oh, and I had to bore four holes in that piece of scrap. Er, no, not scrap. I mean that custom made finishing apparatus... Hey, bits of wood were made into even smaller bits of wood - the very essence of wood butchery, no?

I thought double-sided tape on the back of the lugs to hold them on a more manageable scrap of ply was a crafty wheeze. Until I couldn't find the double-sided. I think it may be somewhere in the tool well on the bench, aka The Black Hole of Calcutta. No matter, masking tape folded over itself worked admirably.

So progress is being made. If you've delved into the comments on the last post, you'll see I have an unexpected vice lubricant suggestion - paraffin wax. It appeals to me. After all, have I not been lubricating my planes with same for yonks? Still open to other suggestions though, 'cos I believe I'm all out of Price's best household candles, so there'll be a hiatus anyway while I procure some of the necessary. Also a couple of suggestions to ease my cut-off wheel angst - thanks chaps. I shall look into it when the time comes.

Anyway, there we are, another week slips by and I haven't even started to angst about workbench design yet. Not in public anyway. Stay tuned though, 'cos it's coming. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the blog...