Whats your Work-Bench/lab look like? Post some pictures of your Lab. - Page Top 5 Best Miter Saw Review - Woodworking Finest. Check out our top 5 miter saw review. A miter saw is an essential tool in your arsenal. It’s why you need to find the best miter saw for woodworking to rely on a wide range of tasks. If you’re looking to pick the right miter saw, compare the following and their features and later decide which one to Whats your Work-Bench/lab look like? Post some pictures of your Lab. - Page Whats your Work-Bench/lab look like? Post some pictures of your Lab. - Page   I designed this particular bench to free up space and yet give me a good work area for what ever project I may be working on. So far I Rolling Lumber & Sheet Goods Cart. A well-thought-out collection of 6 best woodworking benches are available in this post. These are the most to-the-point answers to your working space and purposes. The workspace materials, measurements, and preferable features are waiting eagerly for you in an A-Z review guide that can help you make a right choice.  So a woodworking bench is an urgent piece of tool to get your job done with ease and inspiration. But to single out a perfect one from myriads of selections for your place, space, and specific needs is not that easy. Preview. What is the best woodworking bench? Whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional, a workbench comes in handy if you want a comfortable workspace when doing your woodworking projects. In today’s review, we’ll focus on the best woodworking workbenches that will help you perform any task with ease and comfort. Check them out. 1. Windsor Design Workbench. I'd intentionally made it oversize, intending to trim it flush. More Reviews. The bench would end up being about 5 feet long. This doesn't take long, if you chuck up the rod in your drill and let it do the work. For the drill, I ended up purchasing a Wolfcraft drill benxh. With the 2x4's.

Fume Hoods or other safety containment devices. Services i. Flexible i. Yes No. Please upload your image files accepted are. What phase is this project in? Budget Phase Need an estimate to allocate funds for the project. Quoting Phase Project is moving forward and need a hard number. When would you like this project completed?

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These stretchers already have a groove running their length, centered on the bottom edge. Precise placement isn't necessary, but keeping track of which part is which is.

We need a hole in each end of each stretcher. Take care to keep these holes square, you don't want them running at angles. Mark the leg dowel holes Lay a leg flat on your work surface, with the countersink side of the thru-holes down. Stick a piece of threaded rod in each hole. Take a stretcher that is marked to have one end adjoin the top of this leg, stick a dowel center in its dowel hole, line it up against the leg, using the threaded rod for positioning, You want the top of the stretcher to be even with the top of the leg, or just slightly above it.

Give the end of the stretcher a whack with your rubber mallet. This will leave a mark indicating where the matching dowel hole in the leg needs to be drilled. Repeat with the lower stretcher than adjoins this leg. Then repeat for the other leg that will form this trestle, and the other ends of the two stretchers. Drill the leg dowel holes When you have both legs for this stretcher marked, drill the other dowel holes at the marks.

Again, take care to make the holes square. A board jack is mechanism to provide support to long boards that are being held in the vise. These can be quite sophisticated, involving parts that can be moved both horizontally and vertically.

The simplest mechanism is simply to stick a dowel into a hole drilled into the front of your bench. The "Getting Started in Woodworking" video showed only one hole, drilled in the right front leg, level with the vise. This is useful only for a narrow range of boards.

I decided to drill holes at four different heights in each of the front legs, six inches apart. The Jig Drilling a precisely positioned, deep, wide hole isn't easy, without a drill press. So I bought a WolfCraft drill guide.

After experimenting with it, and drilling some test holes, I build a jig around it. To mark the centerline, set a compass to span something more than half the width of the leg. Draw an arc from corner of the leg. The point where the arcs intersect will be on the centerline. With a centerline point on each end of the leg, place a scribe on the point, slide a straightedge up to touch the scribe.

Do the same on the other end. When you have the straightedge positioned so that you can touch both points with the scribe, and in each case it is touching the straightedge - without moving the straightedge - scribe the line.

Use scribes, rather than pencils or pens, because they make more precise marks. Then mark the second hole on the centerline, six inches below the first. Repeat for the other two holes. To precisely set the span of the compass, use a rule with etched markings, and set the points of the compass into the etched grooves. Place a centerpunch on each of your four points in turn, and press down to make an indentation.

This will mark the center of the hole. Drilling the holes Because of the depth of the holes, drilling each hole became a four step process: 1. Flip the leg, position the jig, and finish the hole off with the Forstner bit. This gives a clean exit. The top hole on each does not extend through, and only steps 1 and 2 are necessary. If you bought 6' lengths, cut off two 24" long lengths. On one end of each, place a washer and a nut.

Screw on the nut only half way, you don't want the end of the rod protruding. Thread the rods through one of the legs, then set the leg flat on the table.

Insert dowels into the dowel holes. Place the matching stretchers into place. Put dowels into the dowel holes at the top end of the stretchers. Place the other leg onto the threaded rod and settle it down onto the dowels.

You'll probably have another opportunity to whack away with your rubber mallet. When you have the other leg seated, the threaded rods will extend father than you want them to. You'll want to mark them so they can be cut to length. Place a washer and a nut on each threaded rod, and then tighten down the nut to pull everything tight. Depending upon the wrench you are using, and how much longer the rod is than it needs to be, you may find it necessary to stack up a number of washers, so that the nut is positioned where the wrench can operate on it.

Once you have pulled everything tight. You want to cut it slightly below flush. Then take everything apart. Cutting the rods There's nothing very tricky about cutting the rods. Clamp them to your temporary table, and cut them off with a hacksaw. Make sure you're using a sharp blade. While you're setting up the clamps,. The hacksaw will often damage the last thread when it cuts.

Running a nut off the end will fix this. You'll have to run the nut all the way down from the other end. This doesn't take long, if you chuck up the rod in your drill and let it do the work. Hold the rod vertically, with the drill pointing down, and just hold on to the nut enough to keep it from spinning. Assembly When you have the rods cut to length, put everything together the way you did before, and you'll have your first trestle.

Repeat the same process for the second trestle, and then for long stretchers to assemble the base Once the stretchers and legs have been connected, flip the assembly upside down, and install the levelers. Then flip it back upright. Next is the shelf. Start with the 24x48" piece of MDF. Clamp this on top of the base, and pencil in the outside of the stretchers and the inside angle of the legs.

Flip it over, pull out your trusty cutting guide, and cut it to width and to length. Cutting out the angles is simple, with a jig saw. It's not much work with a hand saw. If you took enough care with supporting blocks and stops, you could probably do it with a circular saw. Since I did have a jig saw, I used it. I'd decided on an oil-and-wax finish.

Oil finishes are by no means the toughest. In fact, they're really rather pathetic, so far as protecting the wood goes. But they're easy to apply, and not even the toughest finish will stand up to the abuse that a workbench will suffer, so it's more important that it be easy to repair.

Wax is usually used to add a high gloss. On a bench, it's there to keep glue from sticking. And then decided that the oil alone would be sufficient for the base. The wax serves to give the surface a gloss which I see no need for , and to make it easier to remove spilled glue and paint which I also see no need for, on the base.

So I oiled the base and oiled and waxed the top. The "Getting Started in Woodworking" video series has an episode on applying oil-and-wax finishes, that includes steps such as wetting the wood, and then sanding down the raised grain. All of this seemed excessive, for something that I was going to put in my basement and bang on with a hammer. I made a low table out of a couple of step-stools, my hollow-core door, and one of the MDF panels that would eventually form part of my top.

I was concerned that any oil that dripped on the door might interfere with its glue adhesion, when I finally get around to the project for which I'd purchased it.

The top side of the top sheet of MDF, though, I planned to oil, anyway. Ditto for the bottom side of the bottom sheet. Putting the base up on this temporary table put it an a more convenient height than it would have been on the floor or on a full-height table. Applying the oil is easy. Put on some vinyl gloves, pour some oil in a bowl, take a piece of clean cotton cloth the size of washcloth or smaller, dip it in the oil, and apply it to the wood.

You want the wood to be wet. Apply oil to the entire surface, and then go over it looking for dry spots, applying more oil as needed. After fifteen minutes of keeping it wet, let it sit for another fifteen minutes. Then apply another coat of oil, and let it sit for another fifteen minutes.

Rub it dry. Wait half-an-hour, and then wipe dry any oil has seeped out. Check it every half hour and do the same, for a couple of hours. The next day, apply another coat, wait half an hour, then wipe it dry. Do the same on successive days for as many coats as you think are necessary.

I applied three. Remember those fire safety tips you used to get in grade school, about the dangers of oily rags? It was linseed oil they were talking about.

All oily rags are dangerously flammable. Linseed oil will self-combust. Linseed oil doesn't evaporate, it oxidizes. The oxidization generates heat, and the increased temperature increases the rate of oxidation. Linseed oil sitting in a bowl, or spread on the surface of wood, is perfectly safe. But a linseed oil soaked rag provides a vastly increase surface area, so the oxidation happens faster, and the rag can provide insulation, trapping the heat.

The increased temperature speeds up the oxidation even more, which raises the temperature even more, and the runaway feedback can quickly result in temperatures that will cause the rag to spontaneously burst into flame.

This isn't one of those "do not drive car while sunscreen is in place" warnings. This is one of those "keep your finger off the trigger until you have the gun pointed at something you want to shoot" warnings.

Rags soaked in linseed oil will catch fire, if you don't handle them properly, and they can do so far more quickly than you might think. Hang them up outside, away from anything combustible, and where there's enough air circulation to keep them cool. Or put them in a bucket of water, and hang them outside later.

If you're just setting a rag down for the moment, set it out flat, without folds, on something non-flammable. Hanging outside in the breeze, the oil in the rags won't retain heat while they oxidize. For the oil to completely oxidize can take in a couple of days, if it's warm, or more than a week, if it's cold and rainy. When fully oxidized, the oil will be solid and the rags will be stiff. At that point, they're safe, and can be thrown in the trash.

Toss them in the trash before that, and you might as well say goodbye to your garage. Before you start cutting or drilling the pieces that will make up the top, determine the layout of the top. This should include the dimensions of the MDF, the dimensions of the edging, the locations of the vises, and of the screws or bolts that will support the vises, and of all of the benchdog holes and of all of the drywall screws you will use to laminate the panels, If you don't lay it all out in advance, you could easily find that you have a bolt where you need to put a benchdog hole, or something of the sort.

I sketched out ideas on graph paper, then drew the plan full-size on the top side of the bottom layer of MDF, using the actual parts as templates. The width of the top is determined by the width of the base.

The length of the top depends upon the vise or vises you uses. The end vise I had purchased was intended to be used with hardwood jaws that extend the width of the bench.

I had a piece of 2x6" white oak I intended to cut down for the purpose. The decision to be made with respect to the end vise is whether the support plate should be mounted to on the inside or on the outside of the stretcher. Mounting the plate on the inside of the stretcher reduces the reach of the vise - it can't open as far, because the support plate is back from the edge by a couple of inches.

But mounting the plate on the outside of the stretcher means that we need to add some support structure for the inner jaw of the vise, which the legs would have provided if we'd mounted the plate on the inside. I mocked up the two scenarios, and determined that with the plate inside the stretcher the vise would have a reach of 8 inches, and with it outside the stretcher it would have a reach of 9 inches.

I decided that 8 inches was enough, and that the extra inch wasn't worth the extra effort. With the end vise mounted like this, the right edge of the top would have no overhang.

I wanted the left edge of the jaw of the front vise to be flush with the left edge of the top, the right edge with the left edge of the left front leg. So the amount of overhang on the left depends upon the width of the front vise jaw. The width of the jaw is, at a minimum, the width of the plate that supports it, but it's normal to make the jaw extend a bit beyond the plate.

How far? The more it extends, the deeper a bite you can take with the edge of the vise, when, for example, you are clamping the side of a board being held vertically. But the more it extends, the less support it has. What you need to determine, by this drawing, is where you need to drill the dog holes, the mounting holes for the vises, and where you will put the drywall screws you'll be using for the lamination.

As well as where the edges of the top will be cut. The next step is to laminate the two sheets of MDF that will make up the lower layers of the top. First, trim the MDF to slightly oversize. You'll want room to clean up the edges after the pieces are joined, but you don't need more than a half-an-inch on each side for that, and there's no point in wasting glue.

If you're lucky enough to have a vacuum press, use that. Otherwise drill holes for the screws in the bottom layer at all the points you had indicated in your layout. You'll also want to either drill a row of screws around the outside edge, in the bit you're going to trim off, or you'll need clamps all around the edge.

I just added more screws. The screw holes should have sufficient diameter that the screws pass through freely. You want the screw to dig into the second layer and to pull it tight against the first.

If the threads engage both layers, they will tend to keep them at a fixed distance. If you're using drywall screws, you'll want to countersink the holes. Drywall screws are flat-head, and need a countersink to seat solidly. If you're using Kreg pocket screws, the way I did, you won't want to counter-sink the holes.

Kreg screws are pan-head, and seat just fine against a flat surface. Both drywall screws and Kreg pocket screws are self-threading, so you don't need pilot holes in the second sheet of MDF. Regardless of which type of screw you use, you'll need to flip the panel and use a countersink drill to on all of the exit holes. Drilling MDF leaves bumps, the countersink bit will remove them, and will create a little bit of space for material drawn up by the screw from the second sheet of MDF.

You want to remove anything that might keep the two panels from mating up flat. I set a block plane to a very shallow bite and ran it over what was left of the bumps and over the edges. The edges of MDF can be bulged by by sawing or just by handling, and you want to knock that down. After you have all the holes clean, set things up for your glue-up.

You want everything on-hand before you start - drill, driver bit, glue, roller or whatever you're going to spread the glue with, and four clamps for the corners. You'll need a flat surface to do the glue-up on - I used my hollow core door on top my bench base - and another somewhat-flat surface to put the other panel on.

My folding table was still holding my oak countertop, which makes a great flat surface, but I want to make sure I didn't drip glue on it so I covered it with some painters plastic that was left over from the last bedroom we painted. Put the upper panel of MDF on your glue-up surface, bottom side up.

Put the bottom panel of MDF on your other surface, bottom side down. The panel with the holes drilled in it is the bottom panel, and the side that has the your layout diagram on it is the bottom side.

Chuck up in your drill the appropriate driver bit for the screws your using. Make sure you have a freshly-charged battery, and crank the speed down and the torque way down.

You don't want to over-tighten the screws, MDF strips easily. Once you start spreading glue, you have maybe five minutes to get the two panels mated, aligned, and clamped together. So make sure you have everything on-hand, and you're not gong to be interrupted. Start squeezing out the glue on one MDF panel, and spreading it around in a thin, even coating, making sure you leave no bare areas. Then do the same to the other MDF panel.

Then pick up the bottom panel and flip it over onto the upper panel. Slide it around some to make sure the glue is spread evenly, then line up one corner and drive in a screw.

Line up the opposite corner and drive in a screw there. Clamp all four corners to your flat surface, then start driving the rest of the screws, in a spiral pattern from the center. When you're done, let it sit for 24 hours.

The edges of MDF are fragile, easily crushed or torn. MDF is also notorious for absorbing water through these edges, causing the panels to swell. This edging is one of the complexities that Asa Christiana left out in his simplified design. I think this was a mistake. MDF really needs some sort of protection, especially on the edges.

Of course, I, on the other hand, with my Ikea oak countertop, probable went overboard in the other direction. I clamped the countertop to my bench base, and used the long cutting guide. I'd asked around for advice on cutting this large a piece of oak, and was told to try a Freud Diablo tooth blade in my circular saw.

I found one at my local home center, at a reasonable price, and it worked very well. Remember, you want the width of the top to match the width of the base, and you're adding edging. First, cut one long edge. Second, cut a short edge, making sure it's square to the long edge you just cut. Finally, cut the remaining short edge square to both long edges. The length of the top doesn't need to precisely match anything, so we don't need to bother with clamping the trim before measuring.

Glue up the trim on the end, first. Do a dry fit, first, then as you take it apart lay everything where you can easily reach it as you put it back together again, after adding the glue. To help keep the edge piece aligned, I clamped a pair of hardboard scraps at each end. I used the piece of doubled MDF I'd cut off the end as a cawl, to help spread the pressure of the clamps.

Squeeze some glue into a small bowl, and use a disposable brush. As you clamp down, position the trim just a little bit proud of the top surface. Once you have all the clamps on, take off the scraps of hardboard.

You can clean up the glue squeezeout with a damp rag.. When the glue is dry, trim down the strip flush with the panel using a router and a flush-trim bit. Then cut off the ends of the strip with a flush-cut saw, and clean up with a block plane, an edge scraper, or a sanding block.

Leaving the ends in place while you route the edge helps support the router. The strips along the front and back edge is glued up the same way. I suppose you could try to glue both on simultaneously.

I didn't try. When the top is done, we want the edged MDF and the oak countertop to have exactly the same dimensions, and for their width to exactly match the width of the base.

I could see three ways of doing this: 1, join the MDF to the countertop and use my belt sander to sand down their joined edges to match the base; 2, join the MDF to the countertop and use a hand plane to plane down their joined edges to match the base; or 3, use a flush-trim bit against a straight edge to route the MDF to the width of the base, then join the MDF to the countertop and use the flush-trim bit to route the countertop to match the MDF.

So I chose option 3. If you choose the same, you want to trim the edges of the MDF layer prior to joining it to the countertop.

In other words, now. Put the MDF on the floor, bottom up. Flip the base and place it on the MDF. Line up the base on the MDF in the posiiton you feel best, then mark the position of the legs. Sorry, I have no picture of this. Flip the base upright, put the MDF on top of it, then use a straightedge to draw two straight lines joining the outside edges of the legs and extending the width of the MDF.

I used the countertop as the straightedge. Use a carpenter's square to transfer these lines onto the ends of the MDF. Put the countertop on the base, put the MDF on top of the countertop, and line up the marks you drew on each end of the MDF with the countertop below it. I clamped a couple of scraps of doubled MDF at each end to give the router base something extra to ride on at the ends.

Edge-trimming endgrain can result in tearout at the right side, so route the short edge before you route the right long edge. Routing the right edge can then clean any tearout that occurs on the short edge.. When gluing the oak edges on the MDF, I made a mistake. On the back side, the edging was positioned too low, which would leave a noticeable gap when the MDF and the countertop were joined. I was determined to fix it.

Either of the strips I'd ripped from the oak countertop to remove the factory bevel looked like it would work, if I could figure out how to rip them safely with a circular saw. I ended up using a couple of strips of MDF and a bar clamp to create a clamp that would hold the strip of oak, and had a profile low enough to fit under the cutting guide. Once I had the strip cut, I glued it in place, and clamped everything up. I'd intentionally made it oversize, intending to trim it flush.

Trimming is a little more complicated than usual, because I needed to trim it flush on two faces. Aside from the use of the edge guide, flush trimming the edge face was unremarkable. For trimming the top face, I again stood the panel vertically, with the router base riding on the top edge, and the bit cutting on the far side of the panel. Because I was cutting on the back edge of the work piece, I needed to move the router from right to left.

And here I ran into another problem. The gap in the edging that I was filling was not of even depth. That means that on the right side, I was routing away all of the strip I had glued in.

The result was significant tear-out. I did what I always do when faced with this sort of gumption trap - I turned off the router, set it down, and walked away for a bit.

I've found that whatever action I take in the frustration of dealing with something that hadn't worked right is almost always the wrong one, and usually makes things worse. What I did, when I came back, was to clamp down the strip where it had torn away, and then to start routing from the other end.

I still moved the router from right to left, but I did it in six-inch sections, taking light passes, and sort of whittled the strip flush. As the sections I was working were farther to the right, the strip was thinner. Eventually I came to where I was trimming the strip away entirely, at which point I took off the clamps and the remainder fell away. A better solution would have been to route a rabbet into the side, so that the added strip always had thickness.

The way I did it means that the strip I glued in is very narrow, and hence very weak, at a certain point. In this case, that's not a problem, because it's going to be sitting under the countertop layer. I also noticed that because I had only clamped the strip down, and not into the edge, there was a noticeable glue gap where the strip butted up against the MDF. Again, in this application it isn't visible. But if I was doing something like this on the top of a table, I'd make sure to cut a clean rabbet, and to clamp both down and in.

So while for the end vise, if we mount it lower, we can make both the jaws deeper to compensate, for the front vise we cannot, so we want it mounted as close to the edge of the bench as possible. It's usual to attach vises with lag screws from the bottom, but there is a limit as to how many times you can tighten up a lag bolt in MDF. I decided to use bolts from the top down, embedding the heads of the bolts inside the top. First step was to cut a piece of MDF the size of the base of the vise.

I scribed the positions of the bolt holes in it, then driilled small pilot holes. I also drilled larger holes at the corners of the rectangular cutouts, and the joined them with a jigsaw. Then I flipped the top and the base, lied up the base in the proper location relative to the top, I then positioned the front vise and the support MDF for the end vise, and marked the locations of the bolt holes.

Then I flipped the base right side up, drilled small pilot holes from the bottom side where I had marked the locations, and then drilled shallow countersink holes from each side, then a through hole that matched the bolts. Finally I tried out the bolts and washers, and deepened the countersinks until the heads of the bolts were just below flush.

With the holes and countersinks in place, I inserted the bolts, used tape to keep them from falling out, flipped the top, applied glue to the support piece of MDF, fit it over the bolts, added washers and nuts, and tightened it down. The reason I'd cut out the rectangles in the vise support was that I'd intended to put a benchdog hole through each, and I wanted the thickness of the top to be the same for all of the benchdog holes.

Where I messed up was in not cutting out the ends, between the bolt tabs. I'd intended Best Professional Woodworking Bench 60 to put a benchdog hole through there, as well, but I'd forgotten to cut out the segments prior to glue0up. No matter, It was only twenty minute's work to route out the areas flush with the top,. You'll want to get as much done on each of the two layers of the top separately, before we join them, because handling the top after the two layers are joined is going to be a major hassle.

So drill the benchdog holes through the MDF layer. Begin by laying out their positions. You'll want these to be precise, so that the distances between the holes are consistent. The vises you are using will constrain your benchdog spacing. My front vise worked most naturally with two rows of holes four inches apart, my end vise with two pairs of rows, with four inches between the rows and eight inches between the pairs.

Because of this, I decided on a 4" by 4" pattern. I lined up the template, and drilled a second hole, then put another bit through that. From then on, I worked entirely from the template. With two bits through the holes pinning the template in place, the other holes in the template would be precisely located or so the theory goes on a 4x4" grid.

Having done all this, I'm not sure I'd do it this Best Professional Woodworking Bench Use way again. It might well be faster to layout the positions with compass and straightedge directly onto the top. Either way, you'll want to use a scribe rather than a pencil. Scribe lines are hard to see, and impossible to photograph, but the scribe and compass points click into them, allowing a precision that pencils simply cannot match. Once you have all the positions marked, drill them through.

Drilling this many holes in MDF burns up bits. You're going to need to either buy several bits or learn to sharpen them. Forstner bits produce holes with cleaner edges than spade bits, but they cost more and they're more difficult to sharpen. With my layout, I needed to drill 52 precisely located holes. I didn't get every one of them right.

If you should drill a hole in the wrong position, if it doesn't overlap the correct position you can just ignore it. If it does, you'll need to fill it. Wipe up any glue squeeze out with a damp cloth. The next day, cut it flush. Use a block plane to ensure it truly is flush. This will be the top of the bottom layer of the bench top, so gouges aren't a problem. Wiping up glue with a damp cloth can lead to stains and finishes applying unevenly.

That won't be a problem here, either. But bulges and bumps are a problem - they will keep the two layers of the top from matching up evenly.

Then mark the proper position, and drill it again. There are a few tasks left on the MDF layer, prior to joining it to the countertop layer.

First, we need to drill out the holes for the screws that will hold them together. The oak countertop, like any natural wood product, will expand and contract with humidity changes. If it were glued to the MDF, the difference in expansion of the two layers would cause the countertop to buckle and curl.

For that reason, all of the screw holes except one row along the front edge should be drilled oversize. This gives the wood a bit of room to move. For the most part I drilled through the existing holes left over from laminating the two sheets of MDF. In a few instances I moved a hole over a bit because it was too close to a benchdog hole.

And I created a new row of holes around the outside edge, because our original holes along the outside edge were cut off as we trimmed the MDF to size. Keep an eye on what will be underneath, you don't want the head of the screw to get in the way of the stretchers, legs, or vises.

Practice on some scrap, first, to make sure you have the depth on the bit set right,. The end vise needs holes through the end stretcher. I marked the holes by putting a dowel center in the end of a long piece of 1" dowel. Run it through the holes in the base plate, and bang on its end with a mallet. Rotate it a bit and bang it again, and repeat. Odds are the dowel center won't be precisely in the center of the dowel, so you'll be making a small ring of marks.

The center of the hole is, of course, the center of that ring. You can see my high-tech air-scrubber in one of the pictures. This helps a lot in keeping down the really fine dust that the shop-vac doesn't pick up.

We need to cut it to length, and to width. We need to mark and drill the pilot holes for the screws. We probably don't really need to oil the surface between the two layers, but I decided to do so, anyway.

I decided to drill pilot holes in the oak. Just to make sure, I did a test hole in the scrap piece I'd cut off. That scrap piece of oak looks like I'll be able to use for something, maybe a cutting board.

So I made a platform out of a stool, a scap of 4x4, a couple of srtips of MDF, and some shims, to catch it, as it was cut. My test hole was done at the edge, so as to leave as much of the piece clean as was possible. The last thing is to semi-permanently attach the bolts for the vises. Given the amount of work necessary to get to the bolt heads, once the top is joined, I had intended to tighten them up so they wouldn't spin, and lock them that way with blue Loctite.

That's the strongest non-permanent grade. That didn't work. What I found was that the bottoms of the countersinks weren't quite flat, and when I tightened the nuts down that far, the ends of the bolts would be pulled far enough out of alignment that the vise bases would no longer fit. In order for the vises to fit over the bolts, I had to leave the nuts loose enough that the bolts had a bit of wiggle - which meant that they were almost loose enough for the bolts to spin.

So I put Loctite on the nuts, to keep them from unscrewing, and filled the countersinks with Liquid Nails, in hopes of keeping the bolts from spinning. I considered using epoxy, or a metal-epoxy mix like JB Weld, but I didn't have enough of either on hand. It seems to be working for now, though the real test won't be until I have to take the vises off.

Lay the countertop layer flat, top-side down. Put the MDF layer on top of it, top-side down. Line up the through-holes in the MDF with the pilot holes in the oak. Screw the two layers together. Be careful. A doubled sheet is manageable. It takes real care to lift safely. The joined top - 3" thick of oak and MDF - is past the range that can be lifted safely by one person. Don't try. Get a friend to help, or rig a block-and-tackle. It's pretty easy to keep the drill vertical with the existing hole to guide you.

If you remember, when drilling the MDF I finished the holes from the other side using a Forstner bit. It made for a clean hole, but the positioning wasn't as precise as I really wanted. So for this, I decided to clamp a length of scrap MDF to the back side, and to drill straight through.

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