OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

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