Portable Workbench Build Process

1/4/2021

Yesterday the postman delivered a 22 mm Forstner bit, so I started today by drilling the clearance holes for the dogs. I clamped a bit of scrap (cut to length using the vice in this bench!) in the vice mechanism "pocket" and used the Forstner bit in my cordless drill to drill to a depth of about 30 mm to give plenty of space for dogs.

All the holes drilled:

Here it is after the vacuum cleaner had done its stuff:

With those holes drilled, I could fit the vice mechanisms for the dual-screw vice. This was a bit of an ordeal, but I got there in the end. I started by pulling the two vice jaws out so that there was some space between the dual-screw vice's thread and the standard vice's rail:

With the screws pushed into their countersunk holes, the mechanism body was then pushed onto the threaded rod & the hinged nut fitted over the threaded rod at the same time.

The lid was then fitted and from there it was a case of much fiddling to get the Torx driver onto the screws and get all the screws into their pilot holes. It was much easier on the second mechanism once I'd figured out a good way of doing it. Having assembled it all the first time, one of the screws wasn't tightening consistently so I had to take it apart again. Thankfully it was just a bit of epoxy squeeze-out that had settled on the outside of the tube part of the hinged nut and that was easily scraped off.

If I were to do this again (which I can guarantee I won't!), I'd get rid of the "wings" on the top of the dual-screw vice end foot so that I could access the top of the vice mechanism. I don't think it's necessary (and you'll see later that I didn't put buttons in that section) and it would have meant I could put the lid on after fitting the mechanism body and hence see what I was doing when tightening the screws.

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