The Yoke Bench

Clamping a small yoke to a bench for shaping and carving is awkward, but not difficult. A traditional holdfast does the job without fuss.

Gramercy holdfasts.  I made my own. They're ugly.

For carving a big yoke, the increased mass keeps it in place for some light carving, but not for heavy shaping, such as when planing with a fore plane.  Here, the increased size makes clamping more difficult.

Sawbench- from lostartpress.com

I'm not sure what the traditional method would have been for holding a yoke beam in Colonial times, but most cabinet shops of that period would have used a traditional workbench, along with a pair of "sawbenches," low, flat platforms of about knee height used for handsawing boards.


Ok, check that.  I do strongly suspect how they would have held the beam.  At least since Medieval times, low benches have been the way to hold big chunks of wood.  (see photo from Burgundy, where they're building a castle. . . while I complain non-stop about carving a yoke.  A castle.)

Since my shop has a pair of sawbenches, I decided to try them to make a "Yokebench."  The yoke sits atop, and spans, the sawbenches.  The yokemaker straddles the beam, with bodyweight providing clamping force.

If I was going into production yoke making, I'd saw two inches off the legs of my sawbenches for easier mounting and dismounting and a little more leverage from the floor, but as it is, the height works well enough.