Last night I finished the leg vise, drilled the holdfast holes and installed the shelf.
Now I just have to flatten the top (and yes, tooth it) and tend to some accessories:
1. A drawer to the right of the right leg.
2. A swing-out grease box.
3. A tool rack at the rear.
I hope to flatten the benchtop today because tomorrow this bench is going to work. I have a potential buyer for my 2005 Southern yellow pine bench stopping by early Friday morning.
— Christopher Schwarz
To the relief of my family (“Hey, I didn’t know dad had a beard,”), I’m paring back my teaching schedule with a machete. However, there are several schools I have committed to for the upcoming year. Here is a partial list:
Nov. 2-3, 2013, Wortheffort school of woodworking, San Marcos, Texas
Dutch Tool Chest
This is a new woodworking school in Texas with a strong focus on the community and teaching young woodworkers. I’ll be there teaching a class on the Dutch tool chest to woodworkers of all ages. Shawn Graham tells me the class is full, but it is definitely worth your while to get on the wait list – classes always have churn.
March 17-20, 2014, William Ng Woodworking School, Anaheim, Calif.
Roorkhee Chair
This will be my first time to teach in California. The Roorkhee chair class is probably my favorite class for a couple reasons – the chair teaches you a lot of unusual skill (riveting?) and we always have time to finish and wax the chairs.
March 22-23, William Ng Woodworking School, Anaheim, Calif
Dutch Tool Chest
May 5-9, The Woodworkers Club, Rockville, Md.
The Anarchist’s Tool Chest
Another school (and area of the country) that is new to me.
June 9-13, Marc Adams School of Woodworking, Franklin, Ind.
Build an 18th-century Workbench
This workbench will be the full-on plate 11 Roubo workbench with its sliding dovetail joinery. I’m already working on sourcing some fantastic wood for it. This is the only workbench class I will be teaching until 2015.
And that’s about it. I have a few weekend commitments with clubs in various places – Alabama, Alaska, Michigan etc., but other than that, I’ll be shackled to my keyboard and workbench here in Kentucky.
— Christopher Schwarz
When I talk to furniture geeks about my upcoming book, “Campaign Furniture,” they almost all have the same objection to a book on this style of furniture: “It’s interesting, but your readers won’t be able to get the hardware to make the pieces.”
Au contraire, mon petit chou.
Many of the better hardware sellers have campaign brasses in their stocklists. Talk to Orion Henderson at Horton Brasses – he put together a suite of hardware for my campaign secretary that was on the cover of Popular Woodworking Magazine last year.
Today Nancy Anderson, the owner of Londonderry Brasses, said she was adding several pages of campaign furniture brasses to her catalog. I used Londonderry Brasses for my latest campaign chest and could not be more pleased with the color and workmanship of the hardware.
You can contact Nancy at londonderry@epix.net or 610-593-6239. In addition to the brasses shown here, Nancy has access to many others and – like Orion at Horton – will help track them down for you.
Several other catalogers carry campaign brasses, including Lee Valley. You just have to dig.
So, problem solved. I guess it’s OK to publish this book on campaign furniture.
— Christopher Schwarz
You can download data sheets and prices here.
CP dimensions
CP PRICE CHART 2013_rev
Truth be told, I’m happy if you drill an array of 1” holdfast holes on 3/4” centers on your workbench, but I get asked a lot about where my holes are.
So here is my theoretical theory on this.
I bore eight holdfast holes that help me deal with common sawing, planing and mortising chores. Each hole has a particular job to do. Now, I’m no Joel Moskowitz, but I did my best to sketch out the holes in the drawing above (click on it and it will expand).
1. A Hole for a Bench Hook and Mortising
The first hole I bore is 7-1/2” from the front edge of the benchtop and a few inches forward of the face vise. This hole has two jobs. It allows me to hold my work down with a bench hook, which is of a fairly standard size. The key thing is that this hole should be behind the fence of your bench hook. Otherwise, it is fairly useless.
The hole is also handy for mortising. It is close to the front leg so I can mortise on top of the workbench’s leg and hold the work down with the holdfast.
2. A Hole for a Shooting Board
Likewise, I bore a hole that is 15” from the front edge of the benchtop and a few inches forward of hole No. 1. I use this hole to hold work down on my shooting board when I am trying to take that all-critical final pass (for most work on a shooting board I use my off-hand to hold the work).
I usually use the holdfast to hold the shooting board down to the bench when it’s not being used on the final pass.
3. The Hole for Planing Panels
Then I bore a series of holes along the back edge of the benchtop – 3-1/2” from the rear edge is good. Where to locate the first hole? It should be behind your planing stop so you can clamp down a batten to plane up panels. For me, that put the hole 3” from the end of the bench.
4. The Back Row of 5 Holes
From hole No. 3, I measure 15” and put a row of holes on 15” centers down the length of the benchtop. These holes are used with battens for traversing panels. I use them constantly.
With some benches, I add a few more holes in the top, but I usually wait until I absolutely need a particular hole in a particular place for a particular reason.
— Christopher Schwarz
“You may loan your last dollar to a friend; but never loan him your axe, unless you are certain that he knows how to use it.”
— Horace Kephart, “The Book of Camping and Woodcraft” (The Outing Publishing Co.) 1908