I started out woodworking on an apartment balcony with a picnic table and clamps as my bench. Later, I got a Workmate, which was a great improvement. Three years ago I picked up a Sjoberg bench new for $150. That was a vast improvement, although the end vise drives me nuts (because I have to spend too much time keeping it from racking), and it’s way too light (so I stack concrete blocks underneath).
I’d love to build a Tage Frid bench, but I’ve been wanting to do that for 20 years. We can analyze to death why some people have no trouble justifying and building a good bench, while others take decades to start their benches — or to finish them.
But I’m not in the mood for that analysis. Instead, I want to think about how to incrementally improve my Sjoberg so that it eventually does everything I need a bench to do.
The first increment, I think, is to build a European-style end vise, modify the top of the Sjoberg to accept it, and modify the dog slots accordingly.
The second increment is to replace the legs and feet with much heavier legs and feet. This year? Next year?
A third increment, more of an experiment really, is to bodge up a tool tray, clamp it in place, and see whether I develop better habits with it in place — or whether it’s just a chip and shaving collector.
Replies
Riverprof,
I too have a small sjoberg bench. If you look at the feet you will see a hole in each, for a bolt. I drilled some holes in the concrete floor, inserted a lead doohickey from the big box (made for this purpose) and used lag bolts to lock the bench down.
Movement solved, but it still racked. This year I got the drawer system from sjoberg and the racking stopped. So the base is simple to solve quickly, bolts are cheap, and if you just screw in a piece of plywood across the back, you will solve the racking.
This leaves you plenty of money and time for the top you want.
Mike
post some pics when you are done.
Thanks for the tips, Mike. Rp
The following suggestions won't be pretty, but are good brute force solutions. And, if you wanted a pretty bench you'd build or buy, a great big classic monster.
Try putting cross pieces between the stringers at the ends, and a couple or three in between, and put 3/4-in plywood above and below to build a torsion box. Before you screw the top on, fill it with sand. It adds a lot of mass down low, and will stiffen things up quite a bit.
To minimize the racking put a sheet of 1/2-in plywood between the back legs, full height from the bottom stringer to the top. Screw it on at 6-inches on center, the racking should be pretty much gone. The idea is to build a shear panel so things can't move
I built my current (Karri and Jarrah) bench about 12 years ago, at a time when I was just starting to get more interested in hand- rather than power tools. It was then just a simple frame and top as the bench was designed more as a support for outfeed than handplaning. It was solid enough but issues of racking were not a priority. As I turned more and more to handtools, so the limitations of the design showed up. I wanted another bench (still do) but I have always prioritized building furniture, etc for the home rather than the workshop. So I just "improved" the bench. Talk about "incremental bench"! This is IT!
At some stage I added another face vise. With a board between the two I could use it to cut dovetails.
View Image
This picure also includes one effort at dealing with racking - ply inserts at the side, base and rear. The filled in sides became a place to hang other vises, etc.
Eventually, an end bench stop was added:
View Image
.. and a better dovetail vise was built:
View Image
Any concerns with racking disappeared completely when I simply bolted the back of the bench to the wall. This bench is as solid as a rock.
View Image
I hope this gives you some ideas to use.
Regards from Perth
Derek
Edited 12/31/2006 11:22 pm ET by derekcohen
Great post,hot to hijack, but how do you get inline pictures to show up.I am web guy know and understand HTML etc....
Bartee
I "discovered" this by chance. All I do is "copy and paste" an image(s) on another website, in this case pictures I have stored in Photobucket.
Can you explain it in plain English?
Regards from Perth
Derek
ok....I use Firefox explorer most of the time.So the box I type in does not do any formatting. I am assuming you use Microsoft IE. When I use that box I get editing options and I get the "copy" function you described. VERY COOL!!!If you go to the bottom of the box you will see "WYSIWYG" and "Source". Do one of those picture copies and then click Source. This will show you the HTML ( the stuff that make browsers works ). You can read some of it. But basically it is an IMG ( image tag ) that describes to the browser where on the web to get find an image. It is common in the browser world for things not to work in FireFox that work in IE. Happy New Year.... Now off to the shop for some real fun !!!
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