From log to workbench journal

[gee-dub]

On 10/30/2025 at 7:16 AM, Von said:

Thanks. The big challenge is somehow I have three 5/16" depth stops, each of which uses a different size hex key...

That's why I have a plastic tray near my Craftsman toolbox with a dozen or so random hex keys in it.  I have full sets but there are always those weird random ones that come with drill stops, circle cutters, and countersink bits 

[Von]

Shop time has been a little scarce this last week, but I managed to remake my mortising jig to fit my new larger Moxen block, and remember that I have a larger, longer 1/2" spiral upcut bit (note to self: I don't remember everything I have any more, I have to go look...) The larger bit allowed me to make the full 1 3/4" deep mortises that the TWW plans call for.

A couple lessons learned: (1) the router can tip where the mortise only has a 1/2" wall a the top of the leg, so ideally I will have either, as @Ron Swanson Jr. suggested, another leg butted up against that end for support, or leave my leg long until after I cut the mortise; and (2) wrangling a 12" test piece into position isn't too bad, but with the real leg, which will have another 3' of oak in play, I'll need some sort of deadman-type support, or figure out how to put the leg on the bench instead of just clamped to the side of the jig.

 

[Von]

Time to try draw boring with my test joints. Sorry for a long post, but I want to capture this for my own use later.

I decided to try two pegs, 5/8" from the shoulder (about 1/3 of the 1 3/4" long tenon) and each 3/4" in from the edge (the tenon being 3" wide). I'm doing 1/2" pegs. I started by drilling through the walls of the mortise.

Then I used the same brad point drill bit in lieu as a transfer punch to mark the hole locations on the tenon.

I shifted my centerpoints on the tenon 1/8" back towards the shoulder. [Edited to add: per exchange below with @fcschoenthal, also shorten the tenon by this amount to avoid it bottoming.]

I had a hard time getting a photo that shows the offset holes well, but the offset looked huge to me at this point. I thought for sure it was too much.

A few things I did to prepare: I reamed the top of the hole on the tenon, "sharpened" my peg/dowel using my sander, and I gave the point a quick coat with some paraffin wax.

At some point I found this... not sure what it is.. and got it to use as a pin. It worked well to pull the joint together using one hole and taking a little tension off the other.

Got out my biggest mallet again. I wish I had a heavy wooden one, but for the now, this heavy rubber one serves. As with making dowels, not the time to be timid.

And success! I definitely could feel the resistance as the peg hit the offset, but it went through easier than I expected.

Here you can see both pegs driven all the way through. The first has already been cut flush on the bottom and second is still full length.

Flush cut and planed. As you can see, I have some blow out from the drilling and my dowels weren't perfectly circular. So room for improvement in my process in terms of aesthetics, but even without glue, this joint seems rocks solid. (Ignore the small holes, they are left over from some previous use of the wood.)

\

For my second joint, I figured I would try making some cherry dowels to see what the contrast looked like. Mistake, the cherry was too soft. The first sign of problems was that I broke it trying to make dowels.

And sure enough, one cherry dowel broke as I drove it into the joint. Glad this wasn't my bench. I may try to drive this out at some point to see if it's possible, but if I have to bet, it's there to stay.

And 

Finally, I cut open one of the joints I made to see what happened inside and to make sure I wasn't just destroying the tenon. The dowel fell out when I cut the joint open, but setting it back into place, you can still see it's bent and the tenon intact, so everything worked as it should.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Looks like it drawed it in nice and tight!

[fcschoenthal]

On 11/8/2025 at 3:49 PM, Von said:

At some point I found this... not sure what it is.. and got it to use as a pin

Looks like a drawbore pin for timber framing.

Also, how much of a gap is there between the bottom of the mortice and the tenon? I always left a little bit more than that, you don't want to have it bottom out when it's being pulled tight.

[wtnhighlander]

Looks like 1/8" is a good offset for oak. I did a drawbore in walnut infe, and couldn't drive the walnut dowels through with more than a strong 1/32" offset. Kept breakung them, liké your cherry experiment.

[Von]

On 11/8/2025 at 7:41 PM, fcschoenthal said:

Looks like a drawbore pin for timber framing.

Makes sense.

On 11/8/2025 at 7:41 PM, fcschoenthal said:

Also, how much of a gap is there between the bottom of the mortice and the tenon? I always left a little bit more than that, you don't want to have it bottom out when it's being pulled tight.

Good question! Mine were about 1/16". I made them the same length and then trimmed the tenon slightly when I found it bottomed out test fitting but I wasn't thinking about the draw bore pulling it in even more. I don't know that was an issue (my joint relaxed too much when I cut it apart to draw any conclusions), but it definitely seems worth making the tenon shorter by at least the amount of the draw bore offset just to avoid any bottoming out issues. Thanks!

[Mark J]

16 hours ago, Von said:

decided to try two pegs, 5/8" from the shoulder

I have zero expertise with this joint, but my eyeball engineer ponders whether your pin holes are too close to the tenon shoulder, and hence the rim of the mortise.   It just looks like the pin could break out with wracking forces.  But that is not even an educated guess.

[Von]

On 11/9/2025 at 9:35 AM, Mark J said:

I have zero expertise with this joint, but my eyeball engineer ponders whether your pin holes are too close to the tenon shoulder, and hence the rim of the mortise.   It just looks like the pin could break out with wracking forces.  But that is not even an educated guess.

Hmmm. There is definitely a trade-off between the the distance to the shoulder/edge of the mortise and distance to the end the tenon. Most of the concern I've read is getting too close to the end of the tenon and breaking out a section of the tenon rather than pulling the whole tenon in. One-third the length of the tenon from the shoulder seems to be the general guidance for the offset, but looking back now at Anarchist's Workbench (p 238), Schwarz echos your concern and says to keep the pegs an inch from the edge ("All the centers should be 1” away from the long edge of the leg – any closer and you risk splintering the leg.") I note he has 3 1/8" deep mortises so he has plenty of meat still between the peg and the end of the tenon and is still meeting the 1/3 guidance.

I want to think about it more, but my initial reaction is if I increase my offset from the shoulder to 1", I'd want to also lengthen my tenon and then I bet I'm getting into the tenons colliding for the bottom rails (I'm using the TWW plans and I'm betting Marc chose 1 3/4" as the longest he could for the bottom rails).

Good question though. Thanks.

[wtnhighlander]

You might also consider a smaller peg diameter as another way to reduce the risk of breaking the tenon.

[Mark J]

Is the purpose of a draw bore to apply clamping pressure for an otherwise glued M&T joint?  Or is it meant to strengthen a glued joint?  Or is it used instead of glue?

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 11/9/2025 at 10:24 AM, Mark J said:

Is the purpose of a draw bore to apply clamping pressure for an otherwise glued M&T joint?  Or is it meant to strengthen a glued joint?  Or is it used instead of glue?

It was used instead of glue way back when glues  weren't as common. At least, that's my understanding. 

[Von]

On 11/9/2025 at 11:24 AM, Mark J said:

Is the purpose of a draw bore to apply clamping pressure for an otherwise glued M&T joint?  Or is it meant to strengthen a glued joint?  Or is it used instead of glue?

I agree @Ron Swanson Jr., the technique predates good modern glues. I will use it in addition to glue to strengthen the joints. I expect it simplify my clamping, but that's not my primary goal.

[wtnhighlander]

5 hours ago, Mark J said:

Is the purpose of a draw bore to apply clamping pressure for an otherwise glued M&T joint?  Or is it meant to strengthen a glued joint?  Or is it used instead of glue?

So the answer is, "Yes".

[Sergio Escudero]

On 11/9/2025 at 5:36 PM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

It was used instead of glue way back when glues  weren't as common. At least, that's my understanding. 

I believe that until a century ago, carpenters tried to avoid using glue, not so much because of its scarcity or unreliability, but because of the extra work involved in preparing joints or flatting surfaces. Modern glue is wonderful, but casein and bone or hide glues are cheap, easy to make, and their materials are not particularly scarce or difficult to obtain, but a glued joint is weaker than a solid piece. Archaeologically speaking, the use of glue in the manufacture of shields (my field) is essential and has been used extensively. In carpentry, the situation is a little different, because you can rely on physical rather than chemical joining solutions, and in the case of a physical joint (tenon and mortise with wooden peg), glue is not essential.

[Von]

On 11/8/2025 at 4:49 PM, Von said:

And sure enough, one cherry dowel broke as I drove it into the joint. Glad this wasn't my bench. I may try to drive this out at some point to see if it's possible, but if I have to bet, it's there to stay.

Turns out this isn't too hard. I drilled the center of the dowel out with a 1/4" bit and then drove it out with a piece of dowel. It came out in pieces. However, I wouldn't want to do this with glue involved and the clock running.

On 11/9/2025 at 9:35 AM, Mark J said:

I have zero expertise with this joint, but my eyeball engineer ponders whether your pin holes are too close to the tenon shoulder, and hence the rim of the mortise.   It just looks like the pin could break out with wracking forces.  But that is not even an educated guess.

I confirmed this issue. As I was replacing the cherry dowel with an oak one, I split out the wall of my mortise. So I'm back to the drawing board as it appears my tenons, at 1 3/4" deep, just aren't big enough, at least for 1/2" dowels. To make my tenons longer, I'd have to shift one set of rails up or down, which I'm not excited about. My best thought right now is to try doing it with 1/4" dowels. It's also possible that this wouldn't be an issues with a mortise in the middle of a leg instead of near the end, but not sure I want to roll those dice.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

FWIW, on my bench i used 3/8" dowels, and the draw bore hole was 1" in from the mortise, on center.  I don't recall exactly how long the tenons were, except they must've been longer than 1" .

Probably 1-1/2"  or in that neighborhood. 

 

 

 

[Von]

On 11/17/2025 at 8:36 AM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

FWIW, on my bench i used 3/8" dowels, and the draw bore hole was 1" in from the mortise, on center.  I don't recall exactly how long the tenons were, except they must've been longer than 1" .

Probably 1-1/2"  or in that neighborhood. 

Thank you for reminding me you did something similar. I'm wondering how to handle the lower rails. Looking back at your build - yes, I have it bookmarked :-) - it looks like you have asymmetric legs, very thick legs in one direction (4x6"?), your tenons are close to what I'm doing, and then you did blind draw bores - at least I don't think I see them on the inside of the legs.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 11/17/2025 at 7:53 AM, Von said:

Thank you for reminding me you did something similar. I'm wondering how to handle the lower rails. Looking back at your build - yes, I have it bookmarked :-) - it looks like you have asymmetric legs, very thick legs in one direction (4x6"?), your tenons are close to what I'm doing, and then you did blind draw bores - at least I don't think I see them on the inside of the legs.

Yes you are correct in the legs are not square, if memory serves they were around 4x5-1/2"

The draw bore pegs don't go all the way through the leg, they are only long enough to pass through the tenon. I don't recall exactly, but i think each peg was around 2" in length.

[Von]

Made a 3/8" dowel-maker (using 3/8" and 7/16" ID washers) to try shifting to 3/8" draw bores.

I tried converting my 1/2" dowels to 3/8" but they all broke when I tried to drive them. Freshly milled oak worked fine. I suspect the 1/2" dowels have gotten dried out and brittle.

[Von]

My lumber continues to dry and I'm on course to use it this Spring. All my readings are at 10% or less and more meaningfully, they are getting very close to my baseline: the light blue line at the bottom in the graph below is a cherry slab in my storage unit that was dry to begin with at about 8%. The dark blue line at the top is the ambient humidity which I tracked since I had the theory the humidity was effecting the surface moisture content of the lumber I was reading with my pin meter. This correlation seemed true early on (especially in my April and June readings), but less and less so as the lumber dies, which I find counterintuitive. (p.s. while this may look formal, it is far from scientific data recording.)

[Von]

Back to draw boring experimentation today. Single 3/8" peg, 1" from the shoulder, centered on the tenon. I goofed and used a regular drill bit instead of a brad point bit so my holes were more out of alignment that I intended but the peg still drove through. I plan to go with this approach on my bench.

 

[Coop]

Wow. I’m impressed that the peg will give and go around that much. Thanks for taking the time to demonstrate this. 

[Von]

On 12/28/2025 at 10:00 PM, Coop said:

Wow. I’m impressed that the peg will give and go around that much. Thanks for taking the time to demonstrate this. 

Looking at it again, the peg went right-to-left in my photo and you can see how the mortise actually made a shoulder on the top of the peg - the side of the mortise basically acted like a dowel plate. I think I can see where some shavings ended up trapped on the bottom side of the peg where it came out of the tenon. The peg was red oak and the mortise was white oak, so I'm assuming some difference in hardness helped with this process.

[Von]

Long post ahead...

A while ago I picked up some of Andy Klein's Bench Dogs on sale and intend to install them in my new bench. For those not familiar these are 1 5/8" diameter wooden heads, with a flat, on 6" posts with a magnet ones embeds below the head that holds the posts in any position you put them in. The heads have a wooden "stealth" (my term) that sounds the head and fills in the hole when the dog is not in use so stuff doesn't fall in. I did a test install of a couple dogs into a new vise face on my existing bench to make sure I knew how to install them and what tools/knowledge I may be lacking, and if they could be installed into a 2" wide piece of material since that is my intended face width.

This post is going to read somewhat like a review but I've had limited experience at this point, so please don't take it as a final opinion. I expect after I install a few more (and perhaps get a drill guide as I explain later), I'll post something in the Product Review section of the forum. Please consider this initial impressions from a step on the journey.

I'll start by saying the dogs function as described. They have a wooden top that can be planed or sanded to sit flush and the posts do indeed hold any position you put them in due to the magnet. They can rotate 360 degrees and hold odd shapes. I had no issues using them to clamp stuff in my quick tests.

I got the dogs with maple tops. Maple will contrast with my oak bench and I consider that a feature. FYI, the vise face in these photos is cherry since that is what I had lying around in 8/4. At one point Andy was also selling dogs with a darker wood head, but I'm not seeing those on his website now (I believe he's transitioning his fulfillment at the moment so that may be temporary). Andy makes the tops with a CNC now I believe, but in some early video I've seen him make tops with a hole saw and a 9/16-12 bottoming tap, so if one wanted to make tops that matched their bench, one could.

Some photos of the final installation follow and then discussion of my installation observations.

Holding their position....

Clamping some random shop jig...

Some installation notes...

I was disappointed that there are no written installation notes. The website points you to a video for installation and nothing came with the dogs. That said, the video is sufficient and probably better than just written instructions, but this made me realize how much I like written instructions. I like reading and checking this off as I go. I ended up watching the video and writing my own notes.

My jaw ended up 1 7/8" wide after some flattening and I had no problems at that width. I think one could go all the way down to 1 5/8" wide material without a functional issue. Any narrower and one would have to modify the heads. At some point, not much less than 1 5/8" I suspect, the thinness of the material would have a problem dealing with forces on the posts during clamping.

One can put rubber on the dog face flats. I have not as initial tests didn't seem to indicate it was needed. I think I've heard Andy say this as well.

I did contact customer support with a question (not relevant to this install). The initial response was disappointing and just told me to follow the installation instructions. I responded that I was disappointed in their response since the instructions didn't answer my question and they responded with an appropriate answer. I suspect I got an AI-generated response and then human-assisted guidance.

The magnet in the 3/8" whole is a snug fit and I don't see it going anywhere even without glue. I used a brass punch and gentle taps to get them into place. Since I may want to recycle these dogs when I build my new bench, I'm going to leave the magnets unglued and see if I run into an issue. I suppose if the wood shrinks and the hole expands the magnetic force could cause the magnet to follow the post up and out.

The magnets have one side labeled "T.C." (towards center?) which I noticed Andy pointed towards the post so I did the same. I used a 3/8" brad point bit to drill the holes for the magnets and eyeballed and free-hand drilled it without issue - I don't believe the magnet's alignment is critical and there is so little room between the post hole and the edge of the head's hole I don't think one can go wrong. (The 1/8" hole you see was from my attempt to put a guide hole into my green guide, but it wasn't well enough centered.)

The magnets are strong enough you don't want to leave them lying around loose on your bench as you work as they will seek out your tools at every opportunity. And don't try to measure them with calipers.

The sheaths have a washer on their bottom glued in place, I think to allow them to spin freely and so the magnet holds them down. The glue on one washer failed during my installation. Since I had spare dogs, I set it aside to re-glue later (I don't anticipate an issue). When making this switch I noticed slight differences between the dog heads I had to adjust for - i.e. I had to do a little additional rasp work to allow the new head to align with the post. This indicates there are minor differences between the dogs, I think from wood being wood. It's too early for me to judge how interchangeable the dogs will be.

To be honest I missed Andy suggested sanding the dogs flush in his video and I planed them. One of my installs was flat enough with the top of my vise such I didn't bother with it. The other was a little prouder than I intended. I didn't notice this until after I installed the magnet or I would have drilled the hole a little deeper. It was a pain to plane because the head kept spinning. I suggest holding off installing the magnet until you are happy the head is flush and I will definitely sand next time instead of planing. In retrospect, for installation in a vise face I don't see any harm in the dogs being a little below the surface and I'd install them shooting for flush or a even a little low.

I eased the edges of the bottom end of the post holes since one reached down and around the holes to pop the dogs up by pressing on the posts. I used rifflers. If I were doing a bunch, I'd break out a router and some sort of chamfer or round over bit.

My biggest challenge was getting the 1" deep hole for the dog head and the ~6" deep hole for the post co-axial. For both of my installations, despite me attempting to be much more careful on the second, I ended up with heads that didn't fit into the surrounding sheath because the holes I drilled for the head and post didn't align precisely enough. My drill press doesn't have the capacity a 6" deep hole and I don't have a portable drill guide (e.g.) so I used a handheld drill. I expect I introduced the misalignment, especially since both misalignments were in the same direction. I 3-D printed a guide (green thing in first photo) that sat in the hole drilled from the head to help and I think it did help to start my holes, but a 6" deep hole is a long way for a drill bit to stay straight, especially since I had to add an extender for the last 1". Fortunately the fix was straight forward, which was a little work with the rasp to enlarge the hole in the appropriate direction. The posts are 23/32", so the 3/4" hole is already a little oversized and one can't make it much larger without running into the space for the magnet. My conclusion is that a drill guide may very helpful for installing the dogs and one has moved up in priority on my wish list.

Misalignment of first head...

And second head, in the same direction...

My WoodOwl Overdrive bit wasn't long enough to go the whole 6" without help.