Vise liners, wellboard beading & wedge retainers

I bought a couple lengths of triangular quad beading to install on the top of my wellboard, to make it easier to keep the wellboard clean. I just attached these to the rear apron and benchtop with some tacking nails.

Then I moved on to installing the vise liners. I used 19x91mm Tasmanian Oak for this. First I cut two 25mm pieces to go on either side of the vise, and screwed those into the front apron. Then I cut another piece precisely to length to span across the vise and both the side pieces, bored out a couple of recesses to accomodate the screw heads inside the vise, and screwed the piece through the side pieces to the apron.

Finally I cut another piece to the same length to go on the outside jaw of the vise, attached some leather using double-sided tape and screwed it to the outer jaw.

The whole thing is planed flush with the top of the bench. It’s very neat and crisp, I love how this turned out. The vise and the bench are absolutely a pleasure to use.

Finally I created the wedge retainers. This was nothing fancy, I just cut out four pieces of pine with an angle on one end and a semicircular curve on the other. These retainers prevent the leg frame wedges from working free of their recesses, but can easily be pivoted out of the way for disassembly.

This is now a completely functional workbench! Anything else I do to it from here on out is just icing.

What’s next

• Applying a finish.
• Tearing down the old workbench and organising tools.