Making Square Bench Dogs

 When I started woodworking in 2015, I really knew nothing.  As such, I had zero confidence in making a work bench.  I bought one.  Yes, it was expensive.  I've been happy with it ever since.  I suspect once you figure out how to securely clamp your wood to do the various operations, many of the traditional workbenches will work just fine.  My bench happens to have a tail vise and square bench dogs.

I bought three pairs of the square bench dogs early on.  In all reality, this has been more than enough.  However, I have wanted to fill the holes.  Since they cost $50 for two, I decided I would eventually make my own.  This is where I ended up getting happy.  At one point, I had finished a few projects out of my favorite wood - cherry.  I realized that I had enough scrap offcuts that weren't good for much BUT were the perfect size for making extra bench dogs.

There wasn't much to making them.  Just find the extreme width and length and saw and plane.  Then, I used a mixture of a handsaw and coping saw to put the little curve.  I used one of the bench dogs I owned as a template for this tough I knew it wasn't a super critical precise component so I didn't stress too much over it.

The way the bench dog stays in place is by having a thin piece of wood glued onto the side.  Before I could do this, I needed to put an angle onto one of the long sides.  Again, just used a ruler to measure how much and used a mixture of chisel and hand plane to put the angle.

With this all done, now was the time to get the thin pieces of wood prepared to glue on the wooden dogs.  It's the spring in this side wood that makes them stay in place.  I was a bit apprehensive on how to do this as all I have are hand tools.  With calipers, I measure that I needed to make the wood 3/32" thick.  I wasn't sure how to do this.  This is where I have to thank Paul Sellers.  I remember from his Master Class series on making a chess board, a simple wooden jig he used to get exact reproducible thicknesses.  It seemed the perfect solution for me.  Using some scrap pine, a a chissel, and a router plane, I quickly prepared a 3/32" deep housing dado in the pine.  I then centered my #3 handplane over it and glued two pieces of guide wood just slightly wider than the hand plane.  Since the blade doesn't go all the way to edge, I now basically have a simple jig to uniformly mill my wood.  It literally took less than 15 minutes to make this jig.  It worked very well.

I then simply glued thin wood onto the  angled side of the dog and secured it in place with tape and left it overnight.  I elected to leave them unfinished though eventually I put some shellac onto the top of them when I was finishing another project.  

It took a little over 8 hours to make 9 of these bench dogs.  Cost to purchase would have been $200.   Not that I sell my work, or really care how long it takes.  However, it is nice to feel as if I wasn't "working" for minimum wage on a project.   Best part is that I used scrap wood that was destined for the bbq.   I've been using them for a few months now.  They work just as good as the purchased one.  I like it when I can make some tools of my own.  Speaking of my own tools, at some point I will make a workbench so I have a second one.  That way, my daughter can use one while I am woodworking.  Also, at some point, I may just sell my Lie Nielsen workbench.  I can likely sell it for nearly what I paid for it.

On a side note, cherry is my favorite wood.  I like the way it ages and darkens in color.  I make most things with cherry but not everything.  I like other woods as well and I enjoy learning how different woods behave with hand tools.  It is also reasonably affordable.  As of today 16Jul2021 (when writing this blog), I can get two side surfaced (one face and edge) cherry for $5.55 a board foot.  I don't know exactly the cost of rough sawn cherry today, but when I bought some three years ago, it was $3.75 a board foot and they had a huge inventory to choose from.