Despite my love of the drill press for building benches, you don’t need one to bore dead-straight holes for your dogs and holdfasts.
When I need to add a hole to a benchtop that is already assembled (or is a large slab), I use the jig shown above with a brace and auger. I call it the “Cletus Bore-drunk” jig because you can bore a hole dead straight even if you have been drinking (thanks to several people for the in-shop testing).
The jig is three pieces of wood: A flat platform that you can clamp to the benchtop, a thick block of wood (about 3” thick) with a dead-straight hole bored through it and a wooden fence that registers against an edge of the benchtop.
It is much like an oversized doweling jig.
The photo above is about 14 years old from when I was building the “$175 Workbench.” I usually make these jigs when I need them and then recycle their parts when I’m done, so I don’t have any of these jigs on hand.
In “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” I call out the thickness planer and the band saw as the two most useful pieces of machinery in a shop that is focused on furniture.
But as someone who builds lots of workbenches, I would be lost (or at least, quite fatigued) if I didn’t have a beefy, accurate and tuned-up drill press. Because of the way I build benches, the drill press is what makes everything come together quickly and precisely.
Here’s why:
1. The mortises are too big for a typical mortiser. So I cut all the mortises with the drill press.
2. If the bench is a knockdown model, all the holes and counterbores have to be accurate to accept the bolts, nuts, washers and crossbolts.
3. Straight holes for 5/8” drawbores ensures there will be a lot fewer exit-wound explosions.
4. Mounting vises (especially those with crossbolts) is easy with a drill press. Holes have to be straight so vises don’t bind. Drill presses also make it easy to install a crochet. Drilling counterbores on a curved surface can be tricky with a brace.
5. Round dog holes are easy with a drill press and a big bit.
6. Holdfast holes are always better with a drill press. The more I use holdfasts, the more I understand this point. If your holdfast hole is even slightly off plumb, then the holdfast is likely to work in only about 180° of the possible orientations of its pad. This is also why a tight hole is better than a loose one. Both of these factors – plumb and tight – make it easy for the holdfast to wedge in the hole.
I don’t have a fancy drill press. Years ago I bought a Grizzly G7944 drill press, a 14” model with 12 speeds. The drill press is powerful enough for building benches (and for furniture, of course), but I long for an old Powermatic or something bigger that has a beefier depth stop (I am always bending my stop, or it loosens too easily).
The only modification I’ve made to my Grizzly is I added a large accessory table and fence, which makes drilling out mortises a snap.
Today I drilled out the first trench for the Benchcrafted Crisscross using some huge sawtooth Forstners in my drill press. Now I have to make the same trench in the leg of the assembled bench, which means I’m going to have to switch to a brace or (if I’m lucky) a corded drill.
Many of you told us that “blue” was not a manly enough color. And so we now offer our hats in battleship gray with black thread.
These hats are – like everything in the Lost Art Press store – made in the United States. The soft and unstructured hat is made by Bayside and embroidered in Indiana. The hat’s size is adjustable by a steel clasp and headband. It fits everyone except Sean Thomas.
They are in stock and available for immediate shipment. The cost is $17.
My Dutch tool chest isn’t big enough to hold full-size handsaws, so I’ve been on a long search for the right panel saws that fit the chest and suit the work I do on the road.
After searching three tool-swap meets without success, I grew tired of the hunt and asked Matt Cianci at the SawWright.com to find some panel saws for me and fix them up so they were good to go.
I’d met Cianci in person for the first time last year at a meeting of the Early American Industries Association (no good panel saws there, either). There I watched him sharpen a few saws and tried out several of the saws he had sharpened or made. The guy is dead serious about saws, and his filework is both crisp and precise.
The panel saws arrived this week, and I’ve been breaking them in. For those who are curious about the configurations of my saws, here are the details of what I like in toolbox saws.
Crosscut Panel Saw: Matt found a 22” Disston D8 that he restored for me. The saw is taper-ground (.035” at the toothline; .025” at the spine). Matt filed it as an 8-point with 15° of rake and 25° of fleam. That is a good general filing configuration for a crosscut saw – a filing I also have on my full-size handsaw.
The saw was made during the early years of the 20th century – check out the Disstonian Institute to learn a crazy amount of information on dating Disston saws.
Rip Panel Saw: Spear & Jackson No. 88, also with a 22” blade. Matt estimates it’s circa 1930. This saw is also taper-ground, though not as much as the Disston. Matt refiled this one with 7 points, 0° rake and 0° fleam. That is a fairly standard filing for someone who is comfortable with rip saws. If you are a new sawyer, you might like 3° to 5° of rake to make the saw easier to manage.
I file my own saws and am good at it. But Matt is embarrassingly better. If you have some old saws that need to be refiled or restored, I highly recommend you drop Matt a line. I am a satisfied customer. Matt’s filing job will be an excellent foundation for me as I file these saws in the future.
Thanks Matt – not only for digging up these saws for me, but for making sure the “art manual” of saw filing isn’t lost. After Tom Law died, I was worried. Now, not so much.
The late Frank David at Midwest Woodworking in Norwood, Ohio, was quite particular about who could use the machines in his shop. It took several visits before Frank would let me operate his massive radial-arm saw, jointer and planer.
To say he was deeply concerned about my safety isn’t quite right. It was more accurate to say that he didn’t want to get my blood on his machinery.
“Once a machine gets a taste of blood, it’s useless,” he’d say. “I have to get rid of it.”
During Frank’s long life as a woodworker and employer, he observed that certain machines were cursed. Once they were involved in an accident, more accidents would follow on that machine.
A scientific mind could formulate several theories as to why this might be true:
1. The machine was inherently unsafe. Accidents were bound to happen over and over on a machine with an ill-fitted guard or a poor design for a cutterhead.
2. After an accident, workers would be psychologically affected when using a machine that had been involved in an accident. Their lack of confidence would lead to another accident.
3. Machines that were involved in an accident might become neglected. And that neglect could lead to a machine that was “bitey.”
4. Hemoglobin-loving fairies start growing in the dust-collection chute and offgas a neurotoxin that makes you think about giving a foot massage to Uma Thurman when you should be watching the cutterhead and fence.
To be honest, I think a little superstition and ritualistic behavior is a good thing in a woodworking shop. Think of baseball players who perform odd luck-inducing activities before going to bat (wearing a special piece of underwear, picking their noses in a special way). They repeat an activity exactly as they did once before (licking that lightswitch six times) so the result (home run!) is the same.
In the shop, I have many activities that I perform as ritual. The way I sharpen, chisel, fit dovetails and rip on a table saw are practically scripture. They might look odd – I always grip my honing guide with my left hand. My left thumb presses the plane iron in place as my right hand uses a screwdriver to tighten the guide’s screw. But the rituals remove as many variables as possible from an equation that has one incredible wild card: the wood itself.
Now if you will please excuse me, I have to do six jumping jacks while humming Prince’s “Batdance.” I have tenons to cut.
