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So I’ve stared at the image above enough to go cross-eyed. And I’m out of ideas.
Earlier this week, Mike Wenzloff asked me if I knew what these round-looking things were beneath nearly all the benches shown in the La Forge Royale woodworking catalog from the early 20th century.
They show up on all the large benches in this French catalog. The things are drawn to suggest that they are round. And they extend quite a ways below the benchtop. All of them appear to pierce the stretchers below the benchtop.
Wenzloff wondered if they were perhaps a wooden screw that would secure the benchtop to the base. That’s the best explanation I could come up with, too. But I wanted to tap the collective wisdom and weirdness of the Internet.
Got any ideas? Post them in the comments below.
To make things easier for you, I’ve uploaded a high-resolution scan of this particular bench that you can download by clicking on the link below.
LaForgeBench222-223.jpg (1.43 MB)
– Christopher Schwarz
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Wenzloff is right, it is a wooden screw to hold the top.
I know a teacher at Boulle school in Paris, and
he confirmed that.
-Rondo
I would suggest that as a locating/holding peg the extra length is necessary to avoid accidentally lifting and separating the top from the base. The sheer mass of the top would hold it in place and no further mechanical connection would be required?
I agree with some of the comments already made here. I would speculate that they are pegs that not only affix the bench-top to the base, but allow for height adjustment and/or top-swapping. In fact, if you ask Rob Cosman, he will tell you that this center-placed dowel approach is exactly how his bench is built – enabling any expansion or contraction of the top to occur from the middle outward – keeping the top centred over the base and avoiding the need for more elaborate expansion relief strategies (elongated holes)where connection is made to the base.
Judging from the relocated handle for the tail vise, I think they’re planing stops that have been relocated for the sake of drawing clarity.
Whatever shape it is, it appears to be right in line with where the vice hardware would be. Could it be part of that mechanism…?
I think the "floating" handle for the wagon vise is an important clue, showing that this is NOT a literal visual representation of the object being depicted (the bench) but that some parts are shown in an "exploded" view.
Other benches from this catalog – as depicted on pg 36 of Chris’ "Workbenches" book (What? You don’t have the book? Head over to LostArtPress.com immediately and order it!) – have similar pins, but appear slightly rounded rather than pointed and seem to float in space below, rather than piercing, the stretchers.
My guess is that the mystery (round? square?) objects are probably alignment pins connecting the top to the base – but that in an actual physical example, they would not necessarily appear exactly as they do in the etching. In fact, they might not even be visible, not actually protruding at all. My own bench uses 1 1/4" dia. dowels between stretcher and top to keep them aligned.
Do I see another one just inside the right rear leg??
The shading shows both flat and round surfaces. Modern jig locator pins are both round and diamond shape. The diamond shape is round with flats machined to allow slight clearance so a jig fixture can be assembled on to a base plate where a round pin gives positive location at one point and the diamond pin gives radial location when the round surfaces are aligned to the direction of rotation. My thought is that these are locator posts with length to allow the top to be raised with a shim inserted between the top and the base. The bench drawing shows a shelf incorporated in the base and raising the top only with shim blocks inserted between rather than blocking the base (with a load of who knows what on the shelf) would be a more positive solution. In this raised configuration it is not at a height that would be desirable for planning work or lateral work where higher force is exerted. I have a tall bench (21Wx55Lx42½H) which I built purposely for standing and carving but after setting it up I have found many uses as for detail work that can be done more comfortably than leaning over my regular height bench. So my thought are that there are two pins located in the midpoint of the stretchers for location, round with flats in cross section, large for strength (larger than the thickness of the long stretchers), and long to provide for spacers.
I think they are to aid in moving the bench. What does one of those suckers weigh? If you needed a workbench at the job site how would you get enough strapping young lads lifting at the same time while going through door ways and such? Take a long beam and run it under the bench with holes that line up with the "round looking things". The lads can now lift from directly in front and back, and the bench would stay centered from left to right and also stay secure while going up and down stairs or hills.
It’s clearly a fenotny rod, which you adjust using a Langstrom 7-inch Gangley wrench.
My first impression when I saw the picture was that they would be used to adjust the height of the top (either by some screwing mechanism we can’t see or by (as someone suggested above), adding stretchers
They appear square to me, but is it of importance? The ends are pointed. I would want them pointed if I was using them to align two pieces (say a top to base) or to allow it to be easier to slide a fixed knot on a piece of rope (for use as a clamping system, or for other means). If I was using them to align the top, I can see no reason to make them so long, except to adjust the height. Are there 2 visible posts, and 2 unseen ones behind the front legs?
If it is a male bench, how would it mate with a female bench? and where do I go online to see something like that?
If I was constructing a bench for many different buyers who did not want to build their own, I would certainly think it probable to create an adjustable height system (although I would just make the legs long). If I was building the bench from this catalog, I might want some type of post in order to draw the legs together to the stretchers, if I did not have the clamps long enough or knowledge of rope clamps. If I was using the bench, I would probably cut them off and use them for bench dogs.
I think it is entirely possible that it has something to do with the little nibs on the other side of old saws.
My best guess is the "pintle-alignment-idear-thingy".
However I wanted to proffer an idea as to length. Sometimes in woodworking you use a spanish windlass as a clamp. These "pegs" might act as anchor points for the ropes.
Enjoy!
Spencer
Is there a higher resolution image of this:
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/wp-content/uploads/WBchapterpage.jpg
One of these benches also has this feature w/ more text…
My guess: It looks to be an adjustable height bench. There are probably four of these posts – perhaps threaded.
The full image w/ text:
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/wp-content/uploads/Forge-Royale.jpg
Babelfish translation: "benches and beech go up with press has carriage and ideal press"
(Where’s our French speaker?)
A bending jig for the backs of chairs?
Chris – Perhaps a considerably better way to resolve this is to find a French tool collector through the MWTCA. If these benches were made and sold in the early 20th century, guaranteed there are plenty of surviving examples. It’s quite possible that the French have maintained their manual training system much better than we have in the US, and it’s quite possible, even probable, that one of these schools has a fleet of these benches.
A photograph would resolve the "shape" debate, and possibly shed a good deal of light as to their function.
Aligning a top certainly does not take 18-24" of pin or so. In fact, it could make it a fair bit of hassle.
Adjustable height seems kinda crazy, but is also one of the few explanations so far that make sense.
My best guess: Alignment and top-holding pins, to keep the top in place during hand planing.
My alternate guess: Two huge pins used to hold in place a clothes drying line… 😉
Now, you did want "…the collective weirdness of the Internet…"
Chris,
I vote for pins to align and secure the top. However the vise looks a lot like the pictures I sent you awhile ago.
Tom
The idea of using the pins for alignment has some appeal. I agree with the previous poster who mentioned the shading as a key to the shape. Look at the attention paid to the different levels of light on each part based on the angle of the light source – masterful. One compared the shape to the vise harware which presents a totally different profile to the light source than the pins in question. Another mentioned that the only reason for a point on the end would be for ease of entry into a mating hole, which appears to have merit.
Here is a theory for the length of the pin: The top may have blind mortises in it for the legs. The matching tenon would then be that much further above the final resting position of the top, requiring the extra length displayed for positive engagement with the stretcher. The alignment pins might be used to prevent damage to the top of the tenons allowing for a tight fit.
JMTC
Murphy
It’s a bench dog that goes in one of the front holes, which is evidence of the woodworking workbench discovery of the century:
This bench was designed by M.C. Escher.
:@)
Haika, the text reads:
Workbench in european beech with wagon vice and "ideal vice"
I don’t think they’re round. Compare the shading to the vise hardware–it’s totally different. They’re not square either, as can be seen by comparing them to the dogs.
I think the theory that they’re hexagonal has some merit, but I don’t see why they had pointed ends. In any case, I think they have something to do with aligning/fastening the top to the base.
On another note, ever since I saw the hardware for that vise, I’ve been wanting to try it out. It just looks cool, and with a name like "ideal vise" it’s just asking to be tested out.
I was almost afraid to read the comments….
Seems to me, the way it’s drawn, that it is a 6-sided piece of wood. The shading on the bench dog makes it clear that the dog is square, so we know that the, um, shaft, is not. The type of shading used on the mystery piece is not the type used for depicting a round item. This being an engraving, the horizontal marks would have a slight curve to them if that were the case. The shading here actually appears to be a bit concave.
That being said, I think it’s just a really big pencil.
What we see are hexagonal handles for wooden screws going into blind threaded holes in the benchtop, securing it to the base.
Not sure if it is the same thing, but my dad made a bench with device like this. He chiseled out a square hole through the maple bench top. Then closely fitted a square peg in the hole. When he needed a bench stop, he used a mallet to raise the stop. When he needed the bench flat he just pounded the stop, the square peg, back down to the leve of the bench.
Is there any description in the catalogue. If it is in french I can translate it and let you know what it says.
Francois
I really don’t know what they might be.
Going from how they are drawn/shaded I would agree that artist was trying to depict a round pointed thing.
However, do you have some scans of other images in that catalog that you can post? We are all looking at this one image (the same one you used in another older post). Maybe other views might give some ideas.
By the way, I think the bigger mystery in this etching is how the handle for the wagon/tail vise is able to hang there in the air at the rights side there. ???
"But why are they so long?"
So you can raise the height of the top?
(Why yes, that IS a straw I’m grasping. Why do you ask?)
My best guess is: pegs to extend through holes in the strechers to align and lock the top to the base.
But why are they so long?
(Stop it.)
Couple ideas (not mutually exclusive):
Maybe to allow for shim strechers to adjust the height of the top.
Maybe the pegs are partly tapered where they extend through the strechers so they can be twisted to act as draw bore pegs to firmly fix the top to the base. The peg fits unglued into a blind, snug round hole in the top. One grasps ans twists the pegs from below to draw them tight.
I assure you this is workbenches we’re talking about here.
Rob
Kind of long to be any kind of fastener.
I think they are square, not round. I also think they may be planing stops, for which the draftsman failed to draw – for whatever reason, the corresponding holes in the top. Such large stops might have been useful for work on things like full size doors and the like?
Perhaps these round extensions serve as a place to tie a rope. Someone using rope as a clamp could certainly exert more pressure on the workpiece if the rope was tied to the bench.
I’m stumped.
Upon further review (says the referee), what first appeared triangular shafts are probably pointy ends. I still don’t think they’re round, though. The sharp horizontal line at the break from vertical to pointy indicates that they may be square cross section.
So perhaps it is a way to align the top on the base. Just drop the shafts through the holes in the stretchers, and let the top’s weight hold it down.
I think it is fairly obvious that this is a male workbench.
Well first of all, those things are clearly triangular, not round. The engraver had no trouble depicting other objects as round in this image. These are triangular.
Other than that, and that I agree that they seem to pierce the stretchers, I got nothin’.
-T