Originally Posted by
Mogens
If you’re going to be doing woodworking on that bench, don’t permanently mount the vice to the corner. There are a lot of woodworking tasks that involve having an uninterrupted top surface. Planing boards, cleaning doors, gluing up bookshelves, etc. I have mine clamped to the corner so I can take it off when I need to.
See, this idea has been plaguing me, it is important to be able to convert to an uninterrupted work surface when needed. This guy who goes by "The Metalist" has made an interesting work table with a grid of threaded holes that he can use to affix all sorts of things to his table. I'm a metal worker too, so this idea makes sense for me. Here's his table
BUT
I have just under 180sq freet to work with in my shop, so while pedestal mounts for my vise and bench grinder are also appealing, I can't afford to dedicate floor space to each one of these items and still have room for my larger metalworking tools/storage.
HOWEVER
an interesting idea I have recently started to play with is "drop in masonry anchors". In short you drill a hole in your concrete floor, drop in this smooth anchor with threads on the inside, hit it with a hammer and pin tool to expand the base of the anchor within the concrete hole, and now you have a threaded hole in your floor.
My thought is to put a square pattern of 4 of these in my floor, make a matching pedestal base, and then I could bolt my pedestal to the floor whenever I need to, then unbolt it when I'm not using it.
The next thing I have to figure out is how to cleanly countersink the holes in the concrete so I could have some hex head bolts screwed into these anchors when they are not in use to keep debris out, while sitting flush with the floor so I'm not tripping on them.
This is concept is still in it's infancy for me. Anyone with masonry experience that has any input on this idea?