> On Feb 19, 2018, at 7:31 PM, Don Schwartz  wrote:
> 
> Provisionally, I am finding the top too slick. I sawed up some stickers today
for some cherry I milled, and my little saw hooks were sliding around on the
surface. Never happened before.
> 
As Ed mentioned, we  were at the Williamsburg Woodworking symposium a few weeks
back use of a toothing plane passed over the bench surface was great for helping
stuff to stick was mentioned by Patrick Edwards — If you aren’t familiar with
him, check out http://
www.americanschooloffrenchmarquetry.com/ . Chris Schwarz has recommended
toothing your bench top in the past and after Patrick, with all his training and
exp. said the same I thot it time to give it a try.

My top is Maple and when I built the bench in 2012 I flattened the top and put a
coat of BLO on it. Glue doesn’t stick well to BLO so it has been easy to
maintain. Anyway, I went at it w/ my toothing plane and planed at 45* from each
side. The surface is rough and i have been working at it for several days and it
certainly does help to keep things in place. I have not spilled any clue yet so
i don’t know how it will clean off. I imagine it will require re-toothing when I
do.
> 
> As an aside, I filled a bunch of the dog-holes with pieces of foam backer rod,
and am finding I'm already pushing some of them out.
> 
I read the comments about stuff falling thru the holes in the bench and just
figured some guys were more fastidious than me. I have a shelf under the bench
where I store the long planes, bench hooks and shooting board. It is always full
of shavings, but they come right off the front of the bench. Shavings are too
big to fall down thru the dog holes. OTOH, I most certainly have had screws drop
thru the dog holes, but that is generally OK because there is always a lot more
detritus on the floor than the shelf.

Bill