Sliding Deadman be Damned
Researching work benches will often show many examples of the sliding deadman. I opted not to put one on my bench because I valued drawer space more.
On the rare occasion when I need to support a piece from the bottom I'll just use a clamp in expansion mode.
Well I'm glad someone uses clamps in expansion mode. I never have.
Is your benchtop a benchtop on top of a benchtop?
Also, excellent job on the seat carve. How did you do it? I've gone at mine with a grinder and a palm sander and... it's difficult to get good results.
I find those squeeze clamps are such that when turned around in spread mode, the minimum clearance is like 6 or 8 inches because the jaws are so bulky, and they nearly never fit in where I need to, say, force a very tight mortise and tenoned frame apart.
I use an inshave (aka scorp), compass plane, curved scrapers, and sandpaper for my seats. It's laborious! Just started on another tonight and of course it has a few stubborn spots.
Good question about the bench. It's a 5" pine top but it dried funny, curving inward at the top. So I inlaid a maple strip to get the front back to square.
my wife always laughs at my clamps... but its things like this that make me yell
Good for you I guess, but I value the space under my bench and so I would never put drawers there. The bench is for clamping things to, and often that means taking the clamp apart and reassembling with half on each side.
For sure, clamps are important! There's a gap between the top of the cabinet and the underside of the bench.
I will admit though that's it's sometimes necessary to position the clamp with the bar extending below the surface - in that case not having drawers would be best 👍