Paletized bench tools

[Tom Gardner]

I have a beautiful workbench top in my garage. I face glued 20 2x4s and
sent the slab through the planer then sanded and gave it 5 coats of
urathane. I mounted my 6" bench grinder, my 4" Colombia vice and my
Craftsman hobby swivel vice to 5/4"x8" Beech. Then I C-clamp the tools
to the top whithout drilling mounting holes in the unblemished top and
have a big, flat work surface. Is there some mounting system
off-the-shelf? I still have a few tools to mount.

[Jim Wilkins]

"Tom Gardner" <ma...@tacks.com> wrote in message
news:pb7prf$j44$1...@gioia.aioe.org...

You could make small tool mounting tables that temporarily attach to
the sides of the main bench with loose pin hinges.

[whit3rd]

On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 8:56:36 AM UTC-7, Tom Gardner wrote:
> I have a beautiful workbench top in my garage. I face glued 20 2x4s...Is there some mounting system

> off-the-shelf? I still have a few tools to mount.

Anvils commonly had a through square hole (the Hardy), and a shanked tool could be
dropped in there and (depending on design) held by a wedge through a slotted tang.

An inset hard spot on top of the table, and another hard spot on the underside, and you
can shank-mount any fitted item.

Another scheme I've liked, is to put a magnetic base (one of those machinist dial indicator
bases) upside down, and a variety of tooling can be positioned on it, and locked by
flipping the lever. Not gonna work for heavy vises, though.

A third approach is a few rows of holes with tee nuts on the bottom; then you can take a
gizmo-on-a-plate to the bench, position it between two rows of holes, and use
ell sections as holddowns to clamp the plate. Or buy commercial holddowns:

<https://www.carbideanddiamondtooling.com/Heavy.Duty.Hold.Down.Clamp.Set.Pair.625.750875.T-Slot>

I've found that painting the wood with white glue (or cementing some fine sandpaper to it)
makes the friction of wood-on-wood quite satisfactory for clamped items.

[Rex]

I have seen a system using trailer hitch mounts. You mount several receiver tubes under the edge of the bench. Mount Grinder, vise, arbor press etc to male mounts with a suitable mounting plate. When you need that tool, grab it from under the bench, slide it in the mount, insert pin.

I am goin* to do something similar using some telespar tubing

[Bob Engelhardt]

I have a couple of seldom-used power tools that are palletized. My
system is to mount the tool on a steel plate and weld a piece of angle
to the bottom of the plate. To use the tool, the vertical leg of the
angle is held in the bench vise. It helps that I have my bench vise
mounted to the side of the bench, so that its top is even with the bench
top.

Oh, wait ... a more careful reading of your post reveals that your bench
vise itself is palletized. Pallet on pallet is probably not a good idea.

[whit3rd]

On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 8:56:36 AM UTC-7, Tom Gardner wrote:

> I mounted my 6" bench grinder, my 4" Colombia vice and my
> Craftsman hobby swivel vice to 5/4"x8" Beech. Then I C-clamp the tools
> to the top whithout drilling

For my bench grinder, I did that same sort of thing, but added a lip
to the pallet, that hangs over the bench edge. This makes it a kind of
half-bench-hook, so pressure on the grinding wheels doesn't walk the
grinder back from the edge. It still takes a C-clamp or two, and looks ugly,
but my workspace isn't a candidate for Shop Beautiful cover art.