I have had trouble making my bench holdfasts “hold fast” since I built my Roubo bench a couple of years ago. They tend to slip and no longer grip tight.
After seeing the following blog post from Joel at Tools for Working Wood recently, I finally fixed the problem.
I get a fair number of emails about our holdfasts. People are worried that their bench is either too thick or too thin and they aren’t sure if they will work.
I have two benches. One is 1 7/8″ thick, the other is 3″ thick.The holdfasts work fine in both benches. With much thinner or much thicker benches you might have an issue but in the years selling holdfasts I think we have never had a case where they could not be made to work. Maybe once.
via Joel’s Blog at Tools for Working Wood.
I sanded the holdfast shafts as suggested, but what really fixed my holdfasts was counter-boring an oversize hole on the underside of my bench at a diameter wider than the 3/4″ dog holes and about 1″ deep. Turns out the my over-built Roubo bench with the near 4″ thick top was too thick for the holdfasts to grip. They work great again now.
Like this:
Like Loading...
About mattsanf
Matt Sanfilippo is the Chief Partnership Officer (CPO) for the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Co-Director of its Engineering Research Accelerator. In this role, Matt coordinates and enables strategic and sponsored research opportunities across the college, and stewards the development of proposals for major research opportunities along strategic themes. Additionally, he enables collaboration among the college's research institute/center executive directors, and industrial and government relations personnel in the pursuit of opportunities with industry, federal and state governments. Before becoming CPO for the College, Matt was the Senior Executive Director for Research Initiatives, the Executive Director of CMU's SII (Smart Infrastructure Institute) and ICES (Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), and Associate Director of PITA (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance) and RAMP (Research for Advanced Manufacturing in Pennsylvania).
Before CMU, Matt was Managing Director of Applied Technology for Michael Baker Corporation, an engineering and energy services firm. Matt managed Baker's technology division including Geographic Information System (GIS), software and web development, multimedia, virtual reality, visualization, Global Positioning System (GPS), mapping and surveying services. Before joining Baker, Matt was an Innovation Director for Redleaf Group, a Venture Capital/Operating Company focused on information security, supply chain and mobility solutions. While at Redleaf, Matt managed technical due diligence for seed-stage investments and coordinated relationships between Redleaf and their partner companies. Prior to Redleaf, Matt was CIO of GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies, an infrastructure engineering firm, and operations manager for their Internet start-up that focused on web-technologies for health and safety and manufacturing metrics.
Matt is on the board of Larson Design Group (LDG), past Chairman of the Board for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, current board member of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), current Vice President of the Sewickley Heights Gun Club (SHGC) and former member of the Information Sciences and Technology Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania State University Beaver. Matt is also former Vice President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association of Internet Professionals and former Vice President of the Board of Trustees for Baker Combined Charity of Pennsylvania.
A Learning Adventure in the Workshop 