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265178 Don Schwartz <dks@t...> 2018‑02‑20 update 1 Veritas Deluxe workbench kit
About 10 days after I contacted their customer service folks about the 
bench top, they called me to arrange a swap. Two friendly guys from the 
Calgary store showed up, carried the new bench slabs down to the cave, 
and hauled the other ones away. I have set them up on my existing bench 
base, so I can get a few things done before I decide exactly how I'll 
set the new bench up. I have the slabs set up with a 5/8 inch gap 
between them. So far, I have not attached a vise.

Observations

The slabs look good, quite flat, nicely milled and finished, and up to 
spec AFAIK.

The Grammercy and Veritas holdfasts work very well with the dog-holes.

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.

I tried smoothing a small piece of oak, using the 10in Veritas planing 
stop, http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=69837&cat=1,41637 and 
had the same issue. Slip-sliding at the least excuse.

I have a 4in Record vise mounted to a piece of finished 3/4 in plywood 
bench hook. In the past, I secured it in my WW vise whenever I needed 
it, but I was thinking it would be more versatile if I could just secure 
it with hold-fasts. I tried that this afternoon, so I could fettle one 
of my spokeshaves. The vise would not stay put with 3 holdfasts on the 
plywood.

On the upside, I did a bit of gluing with Titebond, and naturally 
slopped a bit on the top. It wiped up readily with a damp rag.

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.

Don

-- 
"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses"
The Famous Pig Song, Clarke Van Ness

The harder they come, the bigger they fall." Ry Cooder
265179 Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> 2018‑02‑20 Re: update 1 Veritas Deluxe workbench kit
Bill Ghio and I were at the Williamsburg Woodworking symposium a few weeks back.
It was mentioned that a toothing plane passed over the bench surface did a great
job of helping stuff to stick to it. Bill went home and tried it on his bench -
maybe he will check in here.


Ed Minch
265180 William Ghio <bghio@m...> 2018‑02‑20 Re: update 1 Veritas Deluxe workbench kit
> 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
265181 Don Schwartz <dks@t...> 2018‑02‑20 Re: update 1 Veritas Deluxe workbench kit
On 2018-02-19 6:43 PM, William Ghio wrote:
>> 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 ht
tp://www.americanschooloffrenchmarquetry.com/ .
Yeah, his work is amazing.
> 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 old bench-top was bare Doug fir, as hard and slick as it gets after 
50+ yrs of use, but not nearly as slick as the Veritas slabs.
>
> 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.
I am prepared to do some flattening and toothing, but want to give the 
top a chance to settle in to our semi-arid climate here, and take some 
time to decide if it's really necessary. The slabs just arrived from 
Ottawa a couple of weeks ago. It has a humid climate, so I'll give it 
some time to dry out some before getting too excited. I can live with 
slick for a while. I'm not as big a fan of BLO as some other 
porch-dwellers, but don't need to decide about that just now. All in 
good OT time...
>> 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

I'm by no means fastidious - and I have many witnesses to that! Dust I 
can live with, but I hate losing screws and such to the lower decks. It 
always happens at the worst time.

Don


-- 
"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses"
The Famous Pig Song, Clarke Van Ness

The harder they come, the bigger they fall." Ry Cooder

Recent Bios FAQ