Mini Review
I purchased one of the wedge lock versions of the Veritas Bench Blades this afternoon and tested it out in my woodworking shed.
The good news is that the Bench Blade is of good quality and that it works as advertised.
The bad news, for me anyway, is that I am not at all sure that I will be able to make much use of it.
Here it is right out of the box:
And, here it is placed into a hole in My Festool MFT
(multi-function table) with the blade slightly above the surface then tightened into position:
The following two pictures show the blade fully loosened, then fully tightened:
The difference is about 7mm (or 1/4 inch).
Here, I have used the bench blade to clamp a small piece of walnut on my MFT:
The other side is being held in place by a Festool clamp that is higher than the surface of the walnut -thus the small plywood shim. This setup works but demonstrates that, because there is only a small amount of movement in the bench blade, some other adjustable dog or clamp will also be needed to hold an object in position.
Another place that I can make use of a Bench Blade is in the holes in the end-vise on my my woodworking bench. Because the holes are only 45mm deep, often my regular bench dogs project up higher than I would like:
That is not the case with a bench blade:
Of course, I could have accomplished the same thing by making some hardwood dogs that did not extend up as far as the metal ones.
I will keep this one Veritas Bench Blade but, at least for now, will not purchase any more. I hope that I will find other places where it comes in handy and I do expect to hear from others of some good applications.