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.

"Tom Gardner" wrote in message
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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.


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

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.

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

On 4/18/2018 11:54 AM, Tom Gardner wrote:
I have a beautiful workbench top in my garage.Â* I face glued 20 2x4s and
sent the slab through the planer then sanded and gave it 5 coats of
urathane.Â* I mounted my 6" bench grinder, my 4" Colombia vice and my
Craftsman hobby swivel vice to 5/4"x8" Beech.Â* Then I C-clamp the tools
to the top whithout drilling mounting holes in the unblemished top and
have a big, flat work surface.Â* Is there some mounting system
off-the-shelf?Â* I still have a few tools to mount.

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.

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.