My Inlay Bench

A few weeks ago I attended a class with Steve Latta on making federal card table legs.  In this class he showed off and demoed from a bench he designed to do inlay work on.  (The main reason for the bench is to get the work elevated off your bench to help eliminate back pain.)

After getting an opportunity to work on his elevated bench in class I decided I had to go home and build one.  But in typical Tim “The Tool-man” Taylor fashion I had to make it better to make it mine.

Once I set out to make this I had 3 things in mind:

1. I was determined that I was going to use what I had on hand to make it. (lumber, vise, etc)
2. I was going to modify it to hold wide boards as well.
3. I was also going to build different sized bench dogs to accommodate any clamping range.

I built my version of the bench to be 9″ x 9″ x 45″ overall.  It consists of a 1 3/4″ poplar top and a pair supports for that are I-beam shaped and constructed from two 1 1/2″ x 4″ pieces of pine with a 1″ thick piece of plywood connecting them.

Once I had the bench assembled I routed 3/4″ diameter holes (4″ on center) down the center of the top to accommodate holding card table legs.  I then routed two more rows near the outside of the bench to accommodate holding wide boards (such as spice box doors) for doing inlay work.  In addition I stole a vise from another bench I no longer use and installed it on one end.

I didn’t want to use the steel dog included on my vise as the only way to secure my work. To get around this, I elevated the board I installed on the vise jaw to give me 9” of space for clamping pressure.

By doing this, I was able to change this from a simple leg bench to something that I can utilize more when doing inlay work.

(P.S. No I don’t do any inlay work in plywood.  It was just used to in the example.)

LESSONS LEARNED – Actually prior to assembling the bench I took the top over to my drill press so I could drill 3/4″ holes but the bit deflected/broke and bored an oval that I had the joy of plugging.  Stupid mistake on my part!

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August 26th, 2009