Holding and planing large box carcass
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- This topic has 7 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 9 months ago by Pepper Pot.
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Hello, I’ve already finished this particular piece (speaker cabinet), but there might be better ways of holding and finish planing the surface I haven’t thought of yet. So I ask, how would you hold and smooth the faces if the piece is already assembled? Consider it doesn’t fit the vise jaws anymore.
I’m thinking the craftsman way of doing it is to avoid planing in the latter stages and prepare the boards well in advance, but sometimes I think it’s unavoidable.
Anyway, my solution involved not using the wokbench, and using a block plane. And my off-hand and leg holding the piece butting against a low chair. It might sound awkward and crude, and it really is. I’d like to improve the method if there are any suggestions.
The Youtube channel of the Renaissance woodworker has a video on a similar thing…he was building a blanket chest, and needed to do some planing on the chest after assembly.
His solution was to put the chest on his sawbench, then put the sawbench up against his workbench and its leg vise, and they served as a suitable planing stop.
The piece looks to cumbersome for the clamp-in-a-vise trick, but maybe if you had one of those parallel clamps with big jaws it might serve, if the planing isn’t too serious.
@HR
If you have got holes for bench dogs in your workbench, then the “off-centered dowel in a quadratic piece of wood with a wedge” approach – probably better when combined with a holdfast – could help: https://www.infixiert.org/img/hw/20170529_hw_0002.jpg
E.
There are several things to try.
I have a pop-up planing stop in my bench. I can push against that.
You can make an L-shaped device…imagine dovetailing a piece that is 3″ wide, 1/2″ thick, and 6″ long to another piece that is 12 to 18″ long, forming an L. You put the short leg in the vice and the long leg lies across the top of your bench. You can push into it as a stop.
You can try Paul’s clamp in a vice.
Depending upon the details of the box, you might be able to grab it with a hand screw and then grab the hand screw in your vise.
It’s hard to tell the size of your box, but my vise is the 10″ Eclipse, which opens to around 15″, so I might have been able to just put the box in my vise directly.
I used Paul’s clamp in a vise on a big blanket chest. Sometimes, this approach introduces a new problem of figuring out what to stand on while you plane because the work is so high.
Yes that’s it. The surface to be planed becomes too high to work on comfortably (for planing stops or clamp in vise), and there isn’t a clean inside face for the vise jaws to hold onto. I’m liking the sawhorse method on the RW channel. Thanks to the poster with that lead, I think I have a few ideas now I could keep in mind the next time I run into this situation.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by HR.
I’ve placed work on an improvised table or a couple of buckets and then done the clamp in the vice. So, the improvised table gets the work surface to the right height and the clamp-in-vice keeps it from sliding around while working. This means the clamp is a longer clamp and the “tail” of unused clamp length goes in the vise while both clamp jaws are off to the side. Of course, the clamp jaws are sideways to grab the work rather than vertical like Paul usually shows.
Sometimes you can clamp a stick or two of wood to the work to act like table leg(s) to support the work at the right height while you catch an edge in the vise. This might work with the clamp in a vise, too.
In all of these, you’re going to be unhappy if the vertical support fails or is kicked out while working. Not saying I’ve ever done that to myself : – )
25 June 2017 at 7:02 am #313224Maybe a wooden pallet might be an idea. Put on the floor and set against a wall, it might substitute for a very low “tabletop” and you can put clamps and planing stops in lots of places. You could build a frame from cheap construction lumber, if a pallet is too big.
Something like this might work too (which actually gave me the idea):
Cheap benchtop & clamping station
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