Expand Your Workbench with Versatile Bench Hooks
For hand work such as planing and crosscutting, these simple platforms hold the work steady against the workbench

Synopsis: Chris Gochnour offers plans for a standard bench hook, a miter block, and a miter shooting board, and tells you why you might want them and how to use them to steady a workpiece on your bench. Gochnour also offers tips for using these easily built jigs.
Even in a contemporary workshop filled with power tools and timesaving devices, it often is more practical and convenient to perform some woodworking tasks, such as final fitting of joinery and detail work, at the workbench using hand tools.
Since temporarily relocating with my family to a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Washington, D.C., I’ve embraced this notion to the extreme. My shop here, tucked into the corner of one of the bedrooms, consists of my bench and my most essential hand tools. Just as important is a collection of bench hooks that I draw on regularly, which are capable of performing a…
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