Kreg recently introduced a base for mounting their Bench Clamps in dog holes on your bench top. The bases are attached with a 1/2" bolt through the top, but the instructions say not to tighten the locking knob so that the base/clamp assembly could swivel. This makes sense except I wasn't too happy with the idea that the bolt was loose, particularly since it appears that there needs to be a fair amount of clearance or the friction against the bottom of the bench top tends to tighten the knob as the assembly swivels. I bought some 3/4" OD x 1/2" ID nylon bushings and fitted them over the bolt and that seems to solve the looseness problem - the holes in my top are 20 mm so there's about 1/32" clearance - but the knob still tends to tighten on the surface when you swivel so you have to reach under and loosen it. The bushings are 3/8" long, and the two are just slightly thinner than the top, I'm going to try adding a thin flat washer (thinking maybe I can punch a couple out of some scrap coil stock) right under the base so that the bushing just sticks out past the surface - hopefully this will let the assembly swivel easily without self-tightening.
So far, I like the bases - nice solid aluminum castings - and they give me a way to hold down to the top using my existing Bench Clamps.
So far, I like the bases - nice solid aluminum castings - and they give me a way to hold down to the top using my existing Bench Clamps.
Attachments
-
446.6 KB Views: 566
-
413 KB Views: 511