Sitting here thinking today

[country gent]

Sitting here thinking thru a small heavy bench for n arbor press. I had a brain distraction. I build my benches with doweled mortise and tenon joints. I was thinking the legs and this came to me.

If the front legs have 2 mortise joints on the front open then a post can be made with the tenons aligned to slide in a heavy dowel in each presses lubsizers trimmers all the extras on these posts slide in 2 dowels lock and the tooling sets in front of the bench top allowing access from 3 sides. Even better would be tapered wedges to lock them in Would be very solid great access and allow quick repetitive changes. the matching mortises in each front leg would allow 2 tools to be mounted at the same time and no more swiss cheese on the bench top. When you want a bench to work on pull them out and you have a bench top with out holes or bosses .

[Scrounge]

Sitting here thinking thru a small heavy bench for n arbor press. I had a brain distraction. I build my benches with doweled mortise and tenon joints. I was thinking the legs and this came to me.

If the front legs have 2 mortise joints on the front open then a post can be made with the tenons aligned to slide in a heavy dowel in each presses lubsizers trimmers all the extras on these posts slide in 2 dowels lock and the tooling sets in front of the bench top allowing access from 3 sides. Even better would be tapered wedges to lock them in Would be very solid great access and allow quick repetitive changes. the matching mortises in each front leg would allow 2 tools to be mounted at the same time and no more swiss cheese on the bench top. When you want a bench to work on pull them out and you have a bench top with out holes or bosses .

I am a wood butcher, not a wood worker. I'd have to see drawings to have a clue what you're wanting to do. Being able to swap stuff in and out as you need it sounds good to me, but metal plates on a laminate benchtop is probably more my speed. If you don't mind developing this idea further I'd be willing to chuck in the occasional useless comment. ;)

Bill

[country gent]

This is how the old barns and furniture were built before nails and screws became popular, It makes a very strong solid joint.

What Im thinking is in each front leg there would be 2 square sockets 1 1/2"wide and 5 1/2"long thru the leg 2" longer if you went with the tightening wedge. The legs can be a stack of 2 X 6s with the center one cut out to form the mortises in the legs. A simple dowel hole 1 1/4-1 1/2 thru the leg and on center of the mortise will lock the mount in place.

The mount is the same stack up with a 2 x 6s the length you want ( 12" + any more you want between bench top and tooling) pinned and glued in to it. These tenons will slide into the mortises and the 2 pins lock them in place, or the tapered wedges. I believe the tapered wedges would be more than what is needed here