I had plans to finish the Small Benchtop Bench this weekend, but I must have angered the woodworking gods somehow.  Because the last couple of times I’ve worked on it, things haven’t gone well.

When I last worked on the bench I was attaching the face vise.  I cut a couple garters out of some 16 gauge steel I picked up at a local “big box” stores.  They are good for somethings, but not much these days.  I recessed the garters into the main chop using my router plane.

I first screwed the garters to the vise and scribed the outline of the garters with a marking knife.  Then I just went to town with the router plane.  It worked really well, and it didn’t take that much time.

After attaching both screws and hand wheels it was time to give it test run.

The action was anything but smooth.  The screws were rubbing on the garters, even though I made the holes oversized.  Also when I attach the hand wheels, I wasn’t very careful.  The wheels weren’t square to the surface of the chop, so they rubbed in places as you turned them.  I kicked myself for not being more careful.

Knowing I would have to reattach the hand wheels, I started to rethink what I made the garters out of.  I was concerned about metal on metal contact with the screws, garters and possibly the wheels.  I then thought I could use some Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWP).  So, I went by my local Woodcraft store and picked some up.

I made some new garters out of UHMWP and set out to reattach the hand wheels (square this time).  This is where things really started to go wrong.  I was drilling the first new hole and about halfway through, the bit snapped off!  I was drilling through the hand wheel and the screw at the sometime.  Now my wheel was essentially pinned to the screw, and for the life of me I couldn’t get the bit out.

I decided to drill through the bored hole in the hand wheel.  My plan was to drill down through the top of the screw until I met up with the snapped off bit.  I thought from there I could work it loose.  That didn’t happen.  I knew I would have issues try to drill through the snapped off bit, because they are made of very hard steel.  As a last resort, I tried to drill through the bit.  That sucker wasn’t going to give up!  Then I went just a little too long.  The metal sleeve inside the plastic wheel heated up and the plastic wheel came loose!

I eventually got the wheel off, but it was toast.  Luckily it wasn’t that expensive.
Knowing I would have to buy a new one, I decided to go with all steel this time.  I also went just a little bigger, about 5” in diameter.  When I was using the 4” wheels, they seemed a little small to get the rotation I thought was needed.  I still want the wheels to be below the surface of the bench, and 5″ is as big as I can go.

Because I had drilled down through one of the screws, I needed to mill the screw down again.  Last time I went over to my brothers to do this, because he has a small milling machine.  I didn’t want to run over there again, so I rigged up a simple jig on my grinder.

It worked pretty well.  I drilled a ¾” hole through a piece of oak I had lying around.  The screw fit snugly through the hole.  I just slowly move the screw in and out, while turning it, and kept lowing the tool rest.  Once I got to about a ½” I was done.  Lots of sparks were flying during the grinding.  Not something you see very often in a woodworking shop!

After that I just need to fit the new garters to the chop.  I had to recess them a little deeper, because the UHMWP was thicker than the steel I was using.

I do have a new plan for attaching the new hand wheels when they come in.  I think I can avoid snapping off another bit halfway through again.  I hope they come in before next weekend, I really want to put this project to rest!