intermission

now that the dining room is nearly complete
I'm left with an overwhelming sense of absence
I no longer have something to work on
inward I turn

my bench was the first thing I made
and it has been set up backward since the beginning
I'm not a lefty
but my bench is

my future father in law had given me a pair of steel bench screws
one of which just begged to become a leg vise

I made the chop from a length of 2x6 in the corner
and the guide from a bit of walnut that happened to be the right dimensions
it creaked like the smoothly polished floor of an old house
the bench moaned as it experienced new forces never before fathomed
but the chop kept tightening, but never enough
it flexed so much I feared for its future
the top eighth of an inch no longer touched the bench

this just wasn't going to work
so I pursued alternative materials
a nice chunk of maple
some much needed revisions to the design
a good crank on the screw
and

maple's hard...

holy crap!
cranked down tight a test piece in the jaws was immobile
but peering around the side I saw the leg of my bench deflecting nearly an inch!
now I feared for my own life
I slowly backed off the screw
and headed back to the lumber yard

basically the whole contraption is now self contained

bolted to the front of my bench

and only passing through the structural members

I fear the dawning realization that I have begun the ball rolling
this will amount to a new bench in the end
till then; everything I've built has been on this bench
and it's still not over $500 yet

there's still the matter of an end vise of some sort