How to Make Round Benchdogs – A Pictorial

I have spent some time thinking about how to make the benchdogs for my workbench. There are loads of sources online about how to do this and I’ve looked at many, many of them.  I hate to sound egotistical (when anyone says this, you know they are about to), but I think I can do it better.  There… I said it… Sorry.  I apologize.  Forgive me.

Benchdogs should be made of a strong straight-grained wood like oak or ash.  The grain should run the full length of the dog from top to bottom with no run out.  I recognize all of this, and yet I’m going to deviate from it.  I normally wouldn’t stray from such well-reasoned and logically sound advice, but I’m going to use some leftover wood that I have on hand.  If they break, they will have cost me nothing but time, and I can always make some more following the conventional wisdom.

I have some scraps of sapele left over from the workbench build and I’m turning these on the lathe to make the dogs.  The on-hand availability of this wood is not the only reason I want to use it.  My workbench is made of both douglas fir and sapele and I think it will look great if I continue along that same theme.

One last warning… I usually try to self impose a limit of 20-25 pictures in each of my posts and if the posts get longer than that, I break them into multiple parts.  This post is 51 images, so I apologize if it takes a little longer to load.  I just didn’t want to do a two-part exposé on how to make something as simple as a benchdog.

I will not write a lot of extra text in between the images during this post, but will rather let the picture captions tell the story (mostly).

So to get started, I gathered up my sapele scraps and ripped them down to 7/8″ strips.  I then laid those strips on edge and ripped them again to make them 7/8″ square.

Ripping scrap sapele down to size for turning.

I ripped them down to about 7/8″ in thickness.

I ripped them to about 7/8″ square and cut them to about 6-7″ long.

I marked the centers and poked the intersection with an awl.

I mounted the blank in the lathe.

With a roughing gouge, I turned it round.

I set a caliper to ¾”.

I am very, very new to turning and only have this benchtop mini lathe.  I still find it a little tricky turning a consistent cylinder.

I used a parting tool to dimension the bench dog.

I made a series of thicknessing marks.

As smooth as I could get it with lathe tools.

I removed the dog from the lathe every so often and checked the fit in a sample dog hole.

I periodically checked the fit in a sample dog hole that I had made in a piece of scrap.

I did the final dimensioning with 80 grit sandpaper, and then worked through the grits to 320.

I rounded off one end and cut it off from the lathe.

I’m using a bad photo above, but found I didn’t have a good one.  I realize the the above photo is not the right way to round an end.  For most of the dogs, I turned the round piece a little further down the stock of the cylinder and left some wood near the live center on the tail stock.  I smoothed the round section with sandpaper while the dog was turning, and then cut the dog free from this small piece on the end.

I smoothed the end of the dog with 220 and 320 grit paper.

I cut off the other end using my cross-cut sled at the table saw.

I found some oak in my off-cut scrap pile and cut a V-notch in it.  I did this by tilting my table saw blade to 45° and running the piece through, turning it around and running it through again.  These two pieces of oak will hold the dogs during the next steps.

I put the dog in the “jig” and added a C-clamp to hold it in place.  Note the grain direction in the dog.  This should increase the strength an hopefully prevent the dog splitting along the grain in use.

I cut a V-notch in two pieces of oak scrap and used them as a sort of jig to hold the bench dogs for the next steps.

I clamped the dog in between the two pieces of oak.

I screwed my trim router to a piece of plywood and made a makeshift router table.

I clamped a board to the bench to act as a fence.

I experimented with the height of the 5/8″ bit and then made the cut.

I installed the outer two blades of my stacked dado head in my table saw.

I tilted the table saw blade to 3°.

With the dog still clamped in the “jig”, I cut the 3° angled face.

I set up the fence and a stop block to drill a 5/16″ hole in the center of the flat spot that was made by the router in the earlier step.

This is how it looked after it came out of the clamp.

Small bullet catch, purchased from Lee Valley.

Here you can find the Small Bullet Catches from Lee Valley.

This is a very tight fit and needs to be pressed in mechanically.

I used my bench vise (and some scrap hardboard) to press in the bullet catch.

The brass part of the catch is recessed below the wood of the dog, but the sprung ball sticks out.

My test dog worked well.

I checked that the bullet catch was holding the dog in place.

Here’s all the dogs that I made. I’ll apply finish before pressing in the rest of the bullet catches.

Two coats of hot danish oil.

I found the scrap piece of fir that I had used as a backer when I drilled all the holes in the sliding deadmen.  I banged in a few nails and made a quick drying rack for the dogs.

I left them to dry for a couple of days.

I’d only bought 10 bullet catches, so had to order some more from Lee Valley.

I pressed in all of my remaining bullet catches.

Trewax Mahogany Paste Wax.

I applied two coats of mahogany paste wax and then buffed them.

I want to give these benchdogs a little bit more grip, so I am going to line the face of the dogs with leather.  Last year, I purchased a half hide of book binders leather from www.brettunsvillage.com. Brettun’s usually has a deal of the week and you can find quite good prices.  This half hide was one of their weekly specials and was $50 shipped.  I purchased it for lining the faces of the vise chops.  More to come on that in a later post. In any case, I used a scalpel and a straight edge to cut some small squares from the areas of the hide that would otherwise not be of much use.  I made sure that these squares were bigger than the face of the dogs.

A half hide of bookbinder’s leather.

I applied contact adhesive to the face of the dog and the back of the leather.

Leather glued on to the first 10 benchdogs.

I trimmed the excess leather with a scalpel.

I thought that the freshly cut edges of the leather looked a little bright, so added a little of the mahogany paste wax to them.  They blended in with the wood nicely after that.

I applied a little of the mahogany paste wax to the edges of the leather to darken it.

That looks better.

I know that these are supposed to be function over looks, but wow, they came out looking great.

The leather has a nice grippy texture.

Four of the longer dogs installed in the tail vises.

They push down flush with the benchtop to stay out of the way when not needed.

The bottom of the benchdog sits flush with the bottom of the tail vise chop when pushed down.

Other dogs get installed elsewhere in the bench.

The benchdogs protrude from the underside of the benchtop when pushed flush above.

So there we have it.  What do you think?

My remaining bullet catches arrived from Lee Valley yesterday. Immediately after which they announced free shipping! @#$%@#!   I’ll go and press in the rest of the bullet catches.  Someone gave me an idea to use the quill of the drill press to push in the catches while the dog rests in one of the V-notched pieces of oak, so I think I’ll try that.

I think all that remains now is to line the vise chops with leather.

More soon.

– Jonathan White