[TheForge] Re: Benches

[Mike Spencer]

> ...bench to mount the leg vices on, and probably an engineers vice
> as well. Question is, do I make it out of wood or metal? What do you
> folks prefer?

My main vise is mounted on a wooden bench, rough-sawn 2x6 with 4x4
legs, achored to a wall.  In the former shop, that bench was covered
with fitted galvanized sheet metal, which proved a good idea for 25
years.  I haven't gotten around to putting the sheet metal on the
present bench.  Height is correct for hand-filing, which works out
okay for light to medium hot-metal beating, too.

The leg, not the bench, is supposed to take the load for heavy
pounding.  For twisting and bending, the bench has to be anchored
pretty well or very heavy.  But I'd still go with wood, myself, unless
there's no way to anchor it firmly.  I guess if I were doing
something where biggish pieces of hot metal had to fall/lie on the
bench itself, I'd go with Albin's idea and face the bench with 3/16"
sheet.

My main leg vise is on a wooden bench real handy to the forge but when
I finally got an 8", biiig mother leg vise, I put it on a 5x5 HSS post
on a 4'x4' piece of 1/4" plate (since I didn't have an IH baler
flywheel. :-) so I can work all around it. It's mounted a little lower
to make heavy hammering mo' easier. (I have a bolt of 6x6 wood with a
D-handle under the main bench that I can toss down on the floor to
stand on, to quickly adjust hammering height. Good height for filing
and dinking small things is bad ergonomics for slugging away with a 5#
hammer.)

So: Engineer's vise at filing height, wooden bench.

    Leg vise a little lower on a metal-clad wooden bench or
    free-standing on a heavy pedestal.

FWIW, natter natter etc. :-)

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^