Best bench dog for your MFT

hey welcome to the wolf graft it's day the shot we're going to talk about bench dogs I've got some of the leading ones on the market we're gonna put through the paces that sounds interesting stick around [Music] to the wood rafter my name's Andy guile and if you're new here welcome our mission of the world crafter is to inspire educate and support you in your journey to becoming a better woodworker here on the youtube channel we do that through a whole series of videos we do two reviews with you tool tips set up reviews simple project so you can complete in a weekend and generally come together for a jolly ole chat we've also got a companion website www.africanelements.org the dropper commenting I always reply to each and every one and if you're not on the website get over there now and grab yourself a free membership with that said let's talk about dogs I think bench dogs are one of the most versatile tools you can have in your workshop especially like me and many of us if you use an MFT style table anything that's got the grid of 20 millimeter holes in they will rely for speed repeatability and accuracy in our woodworking now in this video I'm going to look at a few different type of dogs and going to look at the very very cheap and cheerful generic dogs such as these black ones here this type of dog with the flat face inside it these are made by festial but Veritas do a very very similar version a slightly higher end version of these such as these Veritas path docks more modern creation sort sees these paths super dogs and the quad dogs from bench dogs co dot u K now bench dogs aren't a new thing they seem to be coming back into vogue as more and more people use this style of workbench but they've been around for a long time and that purpose hasn't really changed over the years you can still get the free hand tool workbench and this one has been knocking around in fact one of four that muck around on my hand tool bench and I've had these for years and you can see they're the same sort of idea the modern-day interpretation the round they fit into a 20 millimeter hole they will a gripper that and they've got a friction spring at the side now these are designed to go into a four inch thick workshop which exactly what I've got in my workbench and they do the same sort of job if you're not familiar with what dogs do in their simplest form they like you to push a piece of wood against them why you may ask let's have a look on any material on any project you're gonna find times where you need to work on the face of your material the edge of your material and the end of your material and bench dogs make that incredibly easy throw a couple of bench dogs in here and that's it and I can now push against those and I've I wanted to play across the grain I can do that quite easily and those bench dogs make a very very nice planing stop a simple clamp at this side and push against those dogs and that is now nice and firm a line these are quickly coming with a hand tool and start doing some chiseling work so all in all nice and easy so why therefore have we now got such a big variety if these super cheap ones will do the job well it all comes down to accuracy in your work and if all you want to do is to use them as a brace to push a piece of wood against these cheap plastic ones that you can find in different sizes in many many woodworking shops are ideal for it but they all have a slight flaw in their design that they move you see those moving inside the slots now that movement becomes a problem when you're looking for more accuracy in your work and like many people if you want to use the accurate 20 millimeter grid in your workbench to make sure that you're going to get accurate cuts by using some sort of system like that and that potential movement in these dogs can knock your accuracy out taking you away from 90 degrees now love that movement most dogs have a thread in the bottom of standard m8 right and that takes one of the many knobs that you can buy in the market place now where that adds advantage is you can clamp that down from underneath the workbench now that makes a super secure position and there's no way that that's going to move now although that works and makes a super secure foundation the problem that is you're always interrupting your workflow to get down to undo the knob to tighten the knob to readjust these so what you really want is something that is super super quick to readjust it doesn't move around in the halls so you get that accuracy and don't interrupt your workflow now that's where these more modern types of dogs come in and I have two here that do a similar sort of job I've got the quad dog from bench dogs that code at UK and I have the pass super dog from my friends over at Axminster and you can see that a similar sort of idea they both have stainless steel bodies and they both have these two rubber rings and what happens is you loosen that off insert that into your 20 millimeter hole so both rings and inside your bench and then simply tighten up and without going underneath your bench that says now give you a nice firm foundation to work from and this one works in exactly the same way into the bench it's heightened its up it gives you a nice firm foundation and they both do the job readily well and I can't pull those out now the path dog sits in the middle somewhere between the cheap plastic ones and these more modern ones and these are really really good when you're using track saws they slot into a 20 millimeter hole the car stops and going to the bench the wood can sit against those collars and then the track saw rests against those things there now these dogs will have that same problem in this movement inside the doctor can knock off your accuracy so even with this new design you still need some sort of knob to tighten it up so let's look at these two more modern devices now both of these working the same way you can see there's a threaded portion inside the dog and that basically is putting pressure on these two rubber grommets when you tighten it up and obviously as you put pressure on those rubber grommets they expand in this direction so that sits inside the hole a couple of twists and that's now locked into your bench the more you twist the tighter that lock becomes excellent and the core dog this is one solid piece of stainless steel and you just twist that entire thing together on the super dogs did a bit more complicated I look inside here you get a central screw you get an outside sleeve you get a small collet you've then got the portion that's got your little grommets on it and then an end cap and this Center ring here you can change depending on what you want to do so the configuration that I initially had it in is to give me a smooth barrel smooth 20 millimeter barrel all the way down like so now the kit comes with two or the rings that fits into this central location there's a wider ring that starts to give it exactly the same configuration as this path dog and what's narrower ring that rests inside the 20 millimeter hole giving us a little bit more stability and also stopping the dog falling through the bench when you're on fastening it and to change that it's simply a matter of taking off the bottom assembly taking off your ring putting on the new reins and tighten up again now that's quite a useful little feature so even with this all loose that doesn't forth with a bench and as you can see with the quad dock with that loose that will quite happily forth with a bench and in my case normally falls out into the wood bin that sits underneath this bench now the problem with that of course is it's it's slightly proud of the surface so when you bring your material in if you're not careful you can rest on the outside of this ring or it can slip over and rest on the dog itself and that's going give you inaccuracies in your work but there's a solution for that I'm not sure if you can see or not but this has got a slight chamfer in this direction and you can buy a small tool that will show up at the top of the 20 millimeter hole so when that's inserted that will now sit flush to your bench and it will remove that in accuracy so that's quite a neat little solution if you can be bothered to go around and sham for the tops of all your holes now the slightly larger color gives us the same functionality as the path dock but we've one key advantage and I'm sure you can already see what that advantage is just put that together okay so now that slots into the hole doesn't go through the bench because that call is stopping it I can now tighten that down as I would normally now what all the advantages are of a path dog in that my stock and reference against these base collars my rail can reference against the dog itself I can still use Eclipse to hold that into place but this doesn't have the movement in that this does so very very accurate very very quick to use and I don't have to mess about underneath the table clamping this one in and out so I think that's really really cool as a feature now whether you need all these I think really depends on your situation for me I just tend to use this in this 20 millimeter smooth configuration because I find there's enough resistance on those orange washers anyway for that not to slip through the bench as I tighten it up so in the path Superdawg system you get the path Superdog you get three collars the 20 millimeter one the recessed one and the slightly wider one as well now these come in two lengths the wall that you can see here is a 19 millimeter Superdog this bottom portion is 30 millimeters that goes into the bench so it gives you 60 millimeters usable height on that dog they do a second dog the Siham doing 20 millimeters long exactly the same design fad exactly the same base now that will obviously give you 90 millimeters of work of all height on top and they all come with the various parts we see here now the court dogs are called quad dogs because they have four components the actual long body itself they have the top assembly with the black washer on it a small a small Bush and a bottom piece this is known as the base assembly and you can buy this base assembly separates and then you can buy multiple lengths of these and in fact I think Ralph will do you a custom service where you can buy this whichever length you want to just check out his website so this is actually ultimately variable depending on your situation which is cool now the standard length this comes in is a 12 millimeter one a 20 millimeter one a 30 millimeter one and this one here there's a 60 millimeter one now this is a much simpler design and there's none of those additional bits on it and actually find that to my uses slightly better and I put it in there and I find I can get much more grip on this then I can on the Superdog and I find this gives me a much more secure fit in the workbench now I find these easier to take in and easy to take out of the bench the rubber here is slightly softer on the SuperDogs are obvious black rubber is slightly harder and I find that that can catch a little bit on the bench and I'm already beginning to see where on this top rubber here as I take that in and out of the bench and it tends to catch in deform with this being harder I'm not seeing that same amount of wear and I've used this one much more than I've used this one so I think I'm going to get more longevity out of this harder rubber washer than this softer rubber washer now this must be a common problem because both of these dogs come with additional rubber grommets so I imagine that these do wear over time and you can actually buy these from Axminster and you can buy these directly from bench dogs cold out UK so they are a disposable replaceable item now in terms of manufacturing very very similar they're all made out of high quality stainless steel they both use compression of the Rings to tighten into the 20 millimeter holes the path superdog is heavier than the quad dog not sure that makes any difference but it's noticeably heavier that's about 50% the weight of of the quad dog and in use and in this configuration they do the same thing slightly different to insert you put this one into the bench slide down that rubber hold the middle piece and then you just turn this knob at the top and that's now compressed those rings this one bang into the table and just turn the dog and that compresses the rings I find I can get much more torque on the quad dog that I can't on a super duck and what that means although it's very mine used there is less movement if you do push hard on the quad dog than there is on the super dog and you've got to make sure you are clamping this thing down to stop that movement where this it's a no-brainer it just sits in turn it and it's locked in every time and there's very little movement inside that dog well on this one I still have movements now I'm not sure that's gonna fit my worm and ship mutt but I could see a situation where referencing against the dogs that one there could move ever so slightly and that could not my work off by a small fraction which in my shop would not be acceptable now these are a variation on the theme they're both dogs these are made by festival but Veritas do a very very similar set up much less money and these are made of aluminium and again they've got the m8 hole in the bottom the difference is that they have a flat face machined on it ideas flat faces reference very well a flat surface personally I don't find that any difference than referencing a flat face against two round surfaces there's no difference in its clamping ability that I have ever ever found so what are these are of value to you I guess is really up to up to you I could see your situation if I clamp that down on the knee that it's going to give me a better single reference point than a round one but I don't tend to work in that way anyway so although I have these they came in a set from Festool I'm not sure that's something I would rush out and buy a set of four of these plastic ones if you can find them it seems to be harder to find these than it used to be but you can still get them a pack of four of this size is probably going to cost you somewhere around about ten pounds so very very cheap the slightly longer ones same material the hard plastic are probably going to rush you somewhere around about fourteen pounds for a set of four the flat base ones veritas not these Festool ones they're 50-pound for a pair now buying the path dogs these are about 18 pound for this size which is a 17 millimeter size but they do a smaller one that's 10 millimeters high that's about 12 pound now that's a 12 pound four set of two the super dogs come in two lengths this is the 90 millimeter one and that one is going to cost you 25 pound the longer 120 millimeter one is going to cost you twenty nine pound 95 so nearly thirty pound for the long Superdog the quad dogs are slightly different when you buy them you buy the base separately and the base is going to cost you 10 pound 20 but that base will then work on the full range of quad dogs and they come in at 12 millimeters for seven pound 80 20 millimeters a pound 40 30 millimeters a pound 70 and this 160 millimeters nine pound 30 and again that's for one so to buy the set up I've got here at the 60 millimeters with the base will be 19 pound 50 and when you contrast that to the super dark at 24 pow 95 then this one actually represents a better value assuming that like me you don't have a use for those two rings it's not surprises in my shop I've gone for the quad dogs I also have a lot of these black plastic ones just nothing around the shop that are quick and easy to grab and if they get damaged by a tool that I don't really care but for precision work I use the court dogs every single time that a relatively good price point their wealth machined they've got no frills on that I don't need so I'm not paying for anything that's not important to me and they do the job now you can also buy them in a set in one of these nice mini sustainers Ralph's over the bench dogs call this the fully loaded set that's sold this is what you get in the fully loaded sustainer to the 60 millimeters two of the thirty millimeters two of the twenty millimeters and to the 12 millimeters and two bases buying that set in that configuration will cost you about ninety nine pound include sustainer and the insert and I also went ahead and I bought additional basis because eventually I'll have all these lined up in a dog kennel I'm going to build in a future episode and therefore there'll always be ready to go and always close at hand so if you fully load up the fully loaded sustain yet with additional basis this is going to rush you about 160 pounds and that sounds a lot but the precision and the value that I'm going to get out of that speed of use accuracy of use in my workflow it was well worth the investment now just for information all the dogs that you've seen on this video I bought myself so there's no sponsorship in this video nobody sent me anything free of charge therefore I'm free to make my own decision and my decision has got clearly with the bench dogs cold UK fully loaded quad dog sets what you do is up to you but of hope it's been abused and with that I'll see you next time

Channel: The Woodgrafter

Views: 28,940

Keywords: the woodgrafter, Woodgrafter, Andy guile, woodworking, woodworking projects, how to build furniture, Benchdogs.co.uk, bench dogs, parf dogs, parf super dog, parf super dogs, parf dog, MFT, Best bench dog for your MFT, what bench dog should you buy

Id: -7TlNR_T10Y

Length: 20min 14sec (1214 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 11 2020