{"id":549,"date":"2009-12-02T00:20:45","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T05:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/?p=549"},"modified":"2009-12-02T00:20:45","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T05:20:45","slug":"more-workbench-upgrades-pups-anchors-and-stops-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/02\/more-workbench-upgrades-pups-anchors-and-stops-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"More workbench upgrades – Pups, Anchors, and stops, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Holding short, wide boards or intermediate assemblies<\/strong> such as drawers and cabinet doors can be awkward on traditional-style workbenches. Attempting to solve these problems, I have been gradually altering my bench to incorporate two helpful products made by Veritas<\/a>: Bench Pups<\/a> and Bench Anchors<\/a>. This involves drilling 3\/4″ holes<\/strong> in the bench top with considerable forethought<\/strong>. As with any redesign of a basic tool, true success can be declared only after a long time of use encountering a wide variety of jobs. So, I have tried to research and anticipate well and, so far, so good.<\/p>\n

A Bench Pup<\/strong> is a 2 3\/8″ long, round, brass bench dog<\/strong> that fits in a 3\/4″ hole. A Bench Anchor<\/strong> is essentially a portable 1\/2-13<\/strong> threaded insert<\/strong> that is secured in a 3\/4″ hole by means of an expansion system. While the function of the Pup is simple and obvious, the Anchors allow an unlimited variety of stops, boards, and accessories to be secured to bench surfaces. I also added two shop-made dogs<\/strong> on the side of my bench.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start at the left side of the bench<\/strong>. I wanted a planing stop but not the typical wide slide-up stop at the left end of the bench. The problem for me with that design is that the front vise gets in the way of my left hip when planing. Furthermore, the vise handle is at just the right height to bump into parts<\/strong> that I\u2019d rather not have bumped. This causes me to crane over the work piece, creating lower back stress. So, the first two holes were placed in the bench top near the right end of the front vise. There the Anchors can be placed and a \u00bd” board with countersunk holes\u00a0can be\u00a0secured into them with flat head bolts.<\/p>\n

The next step is to permit those two holes to do double duty<\/strong> working with the front vise. Two more holes are placed in the bench top, each equidistant from the vise face with one of the first two holes. Then two more holes are placed in the vise chop, equidistant from the face and each in line with one of the pairs in the bench top.<\/p>\n

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I wanted the holes in the bench top to go fully through to allow access<\/strong> to the Pups and especially the Anchors from underneath. Now, it would have been nifty to arrange the four holes in the top at the corners of a perfect square which would allow one hole spacing to be used in auxiliary boards, but the constraints of my bench and vise hardware did not allow this.<\/p>\n

Two shop-made slide-up dogs<\/strong> were added to the left end of the bench. These are secured with 1\/4-20 finger bolts that enter threaded inserts planted in the side of the bench.<\/p>\n

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Now to the right side of the bench<\/strong>. Two holes were placed parallel to the row of square bench dog holes, one slightly to the right of the closing point of the tail vise, and the other about 7″ to the left of the first.<\/p>\n

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With these alterations to the workbench, I tried to make each hole contribute as much versatility as possible<\/strong>. The next post<\/strong> will show a few of the possibilities for holding work with this system.<\/p>\n

The reason I titled this “More<\/em> workbench upgrades” is to reference an article that I wrote for Popular Woodworking magazine<\/a>, November 2007<\/a> (#165), pages 57-61, “Upgrade Your Workbench,” which readers may find helpful for more ideas on the most important tool in the shop<\/a>. Back issues are available on the PW site and a short video<\/a> relating to the article is also on the site.<\/p>\n

The little hole drilled into the face of the Bench Pup<\/strong> allows one to lever it up with a small screwdriver or hex key. Thanks to Alejandro Balbis! –\u00a0who contributed this tip to the December 2009 Popular Woodworking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holding short, wide boards or intermediate assemblies such as drawers and cabinet doors can be awkward on traditional-style workbenches. Attempting to solve these problems, I have been gradually altering my bench to incorporate two helpful products made by Veritas: Bench Pups and Bench Anchors. This involves drilling 3\/4″ holes in the bench top with considerable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jigs-and-fixtures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions\/555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}