Lefty vs. Righty

[Eric.]

Okay, so I'm a bit of a weirdo. Not exactly ambidextrous, just...weird. I throw left and bat right. Write left, swing a tennis racquet left, shoot a rifle or bow right. Cast a fly rod left. I saw left, but handplane right (right hand on the tote)...except with a block plane...left hand for that. When I chisel with a mallet, the chisel is in the right hand and the mallet is in the left. But for paring I use the left hand.

My gut instinct tells me to go with the traditional bench configuration with leg vise on left and tail vise on right, but I couldn't give an explanation of why that seems right. I'd hate to build this thing and later realize I wish it were flipped around. What are the main reasons to have the vises where they are, dictated by right- or left-handedness?

[Torch02]

Others may want to chime in, but my gut instinct is to say make a "right-handed" bench. My reasoning is that the biggest "handedness" part of the configuration is that you want to plane into the leg vise when working on edges, as it will have the greatest holding strength on your bench. Using a block plane (detail work), chiseling, sawing - none of those tasks really matter which "handed" your bench is. Since you use your bench planes right-handed, you should have your leg vise right handed and everything follows that.

[Eric.]

Others may want to chime in, but my gut instinct is to say make a "right-handed" bench. My reasoning is that the biggest "handedness" part of the configuration is that you want to plane into the leg vise when working on edges, as it will have the greatest holding strength on your bench. Using a block plane (detail work), chiseling, sawing - none of those tasks really matter which "handed" your bench is. Since you use your bench planes right-handed, you should have your leg vise right handed and everything follows that.

Makes sense! T'was what I was thinking also.

[Cynthia in BC]

So are you saying that right handed people usually have their right hand or left hand on the tote?

[Eric.]

So are you saying that right handed people usually have their right hand or left hand on the tote?

I don't know. I've always used my right hand on the tote, which I guess I thought was backwards for a lefty.

[mlingenfelter]

Right handed people do have their right hand on the tote. For me bench vises are set up by how you you plane, when using bench planes. So if you are a righty when using bench planes, I would put your leg vise on the left. When using the leg vise, you want plane into it. So if you are lefty you should have the leg vise on the right.

Mike

[chas]

I'm a "leftie" and my latest bench (2 years old, cheap torsion box construction)) has the leg vise on

the right and end vise on the left.

Previously I had always used the traditional "righty" configuration, but it just felt all wrong.

When I built my blench to match my lefties, mostly as an experiment it just felt so sweet and natural, and in my experience made a huge difference in both my enjoyment of using a plane and quality of output even though the bench itself was of lesser quality than those I had previously used.

Chas

[Onboard]

Eric, Bob Rozaieski (Logan Cabinet Shoppe) mounted his twin screw vise on the right end of his bench. He has a crochet on the left end. Bob is right handed. If you want to email Bob about his choice you can use this link. Or, maybe Bob will drop by WTO and comment here(?).

[kaiser]

So are you saying that right handed people usually have their right hand or left hand on the tote?

right hand on the tote for righties