# Bench Dog Puller/Extractor



## trentwilson43056 (Nov 10, 2015)

You know folks I don’t know about but it’s taken me a long time to get my bench right with much trial and I’m sure the process may be ongoing at least until I take my last breath. Well one issue I believe is settled. The bench dog and their fit issue. A very frustrating issue is that of the dog dropping back in it’s hole randomly during use. So here is my fix and I believe it’s final. By using finish I tightened their fit,drilled a small hole in them and came up with this nifty little extraction tool made of a painted piece of Maple(to make it easier to find when it hits a shaving covered floor)and a countersunk drywall screw. It worked wonderfully.










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## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

If the holes weren’t drilled completely through the top the dowels couldn’t fall through. 
Metal bench dogs are made in the shape of a T, with a flat piece of steel welded to a metal dowel or piece of pipe. This T keeps the piece from dropping below the table surface. 
A 3rd way is to turn wooden bench dogs on a lathe, leaving the top 3/8” larger in diameter than your holes by 1/2”.


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## allpurpose (Mar 24, 2016)

There's always the good old fashioned floor below the bench unless you have a hole dug all the way to the other side of the earth below your bench.. In lieu of that I think Toolman makes a good point..


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*put plywood right under the bottom.*

Just screw some 1/4" plywood right on the bottom of the top to close off the through holes. Stuff will fill up the holes, like loose nuts and screws and sawdust, so that could be "unintended consequences" .....

Probably better to fix the bench dogs so they can't drop down as you have done. :wink:


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## Jig_saw (May 17, 2015)

You can make a stop out of a paper clip or thick wire. Bend it into roughly an 'R' shape slightly larger than the hole, drill a small hole through the top of the dog, and fit the wire in an inverted 'R' position as a spring clip. The dog will stay in position. If you have to remove it, just push the clip and lift it out.


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## WesTex (Jan 5, 2014)

Here’s a simple bench dog solution: 









Made from 3/4” dowel & a piece of wire. 


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## trentwilson43056 (Nov 10, 2015)

WesTex said:


> Here’s a simple bench dog solution:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




How do you get it out?


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## trentwilson43056 (Nov 10, 2015)

Toolman50 said:


> If the holes weren’t drilled completely through the top the dowels couldn’t fall through.
> 
> Metal bench dogs are made in the shape of a T, with a flat piece of steel welded to a metal dowel or piece of pipe. This T keeps the piece from dropping below the table surface.
> 
> A 3rd way is to turn wooden bench dogs on a lathe, leaving the top 3/8” larger in diameter than your holes by 1/2”.




They don’t drop through. The hole is not drilled through. It was just a simple problem of keeping them above the benchtop height during use. With what I have done here solves that problem but also let’s me control the height of protrusion and maintain it during use. I guess I wasn’t real clear about the original problem. The dogs are three inches long and have been planed to bench height.


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## trentwilson43056 (Nov 10, 2015)

Toolman50 said:


> If the holes weren’t drilled completely through the top the dowels couldn’t fall through.
> 
> Metal bench dogs are made in the shape of a T, with a flat piece of steel welded to a metal dowel or piece of pipe. This T keeps the piece from dropping below the table surface.
> 
> A 3rd way is to turn wooden bench dogs on a lathe, leaving the top 3/8” larger in diameter than your holes by 1/2”.




The underside of my bench is inaccessible which added another issue.










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## WesTex (Jan 5, 2014)

The holes on my bench go through, & I do have underside access. I now see your dilemma. With stopped holes I’d spend as much time cleaning them out as working wood. 


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## trentwilson43056 (Nov 10, 2015)

trentwilson43056 said:


> They don’t drop through. The hole is not drilled through. It was just a simple problem of keeping them above the benchtop height during use. With what I have done here solves that problem but also let’s me control the height of protrusion and maintain it during use. I guess I wasn’t real clear about the original problem. The dogs are three inches long and have been planed to bench height.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk




Well here’s the thing,I like to keep my dogs in their hole’s to avoid sawdust from filling or even partially filling the hole. I guess to solve that matter I could maybe drill a 3/4 hole in the bottom of my 1 inch hole. I do have about 2 inches of space to work with between the bottom side of my bench top and the topside of the bench cabinet. 


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## trentwilson43056 (Nov 10, 2015)

allpurpose said:


> There's always the good old fashioned floor below the bench unless you have a hole dug all the way to the other side of the earth below your bench.. In lieu of that I think Toolman makes a good point..




If I could make a connection in China to send them back to me that would just solve everything. Thank you brother Nough said.


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## trentwilson43056 (Nov 10, 2015)

Jig_saw said:


> You can make a stop out of a paper clip or thick wire. Bend it into roughly an 'R' shape slightly larger than the hole, drill a small hole through the top of the dog, and fit the wire in an inverted 'R' position as a spring clip. The dog will stay in position. If you have to remove it, just push the clip and lift it out.




I still got the problem of how to get hold of them to pull them out.










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## Tool Agnostic (Aug 13, 2017)

My spouse has always wanted one of those Harbor Freight workbenches, so we bought one recently. It has 5/8 inch through dog holes on top, and comes with 8 "mushroom style" pegs that are inserted from the top: 4 long wood pegs and 4 short steel ones. Both peg types are square on top, so they present a square edge to boards laid on top of the workbench. 

One problem with the through holes on the Harbor Freight workbench is that many of them are above the top two drawers. The felt-lined drawers fill with sawdust and other small bits that fall through the holes. 

I covered the undersides of the dog holes above the drawers with blue tape, and periodically vacuum them out from the top.


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## allpurpose (Mar 24, 2016)

Introducing the little Veritas doohickies that I just spent 20 minutes looking for after putting them away for safe keeping and forgetting where safe keeping was located..
















They do come in handy though unless you're me and put things away for...uhhh..safe keeping..


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## allpurpose (Mar 24, 2016)

Tool Agnostic said:


> My spouse has always wanted one of those Harbor Freight workbenches, so we bought one recently. It has 5/8 inch through dog holes on top, and comes with 8 "mushroom style" pegs that are inserted from the top: 4 long wood pegs and 4 short steel ones. Both peg types are square on top, so they present a square edge to boards laid on top of the workbench.
> 
> One problem with the through holes on the Harbor Freight workbench is that many of them are above the top two drawers. The felt-lined drawers fill with sawdust and other small bits that fall through the holes.
> 
> I covered the undersides of the dog holes above the drawers with blue tape, and periodically vacuum them out from the top.


Which is exactly why no man should ever take a woman to Harbor Freight.. and people wonder how Nazi Germany got off the ground.. Well duh.
Ok, bad joke. I've taken my gf to Harbor Freight too and have never regretted it.


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## Tool Agnostic (Aug 13, 2017)

allpurpose said:


> Which is exactly why no man should ever take a woman to Harbor Freight.. and people wonder how Nazi Germany got off the ground.. Well duh.
> Ok, bad joke. I've taken my gf to Harbor Freight too and have never regretted it.


Yeah, bad joke, but no insult taken. My spouse is handy with tools herself, but she doesn't enjoy Harbor Freight as much as I do. Still, she finds hand tools for me when she explores thrift and consignment stores. We work together on projects around the house ... and she is very huggable. Who could ask for more? 

It is her workbench and it is EXACTLY what she wanted for her crafts. I don't have to understand it. She knows that it is not the best workbench for my woodworking. We will build or buy another workbench for my woodworking once we have made sufficient progress on setting up the garage as a workshop. In the meantime, she has the workbench she wanted, and she is nice enough to share it with me. We may or may not keep the cheap Harbor Freight workbench after we build my workbench.


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## Jig_saw (May 17, 2015)

trentwilson43056 said:


> I still got the problem of how to get hold of them to pull them out./QUOTE]
> 
> You can pull them out from the top. I now see Paul Sellers has a similar idea (although he is using 'S' shaped wire instead of my inverted 'R'):
> 
> https://paulsellers.com/2013/03/poor-man-s-dog-for-dog-loving-woodworkers/


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## trentwilson43056 (Nov 10, 2015)

WesTex said:


> The holes on my bench go through, & I do have underside access. I now see your dilemma. With stopped holes I’d spend as much time cleaning them out as working wood.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk




You need to pick up a trash day curbside Shop Vac,take it home,fix it and plumb a whole shop light clean up system. Notice the hose hanging on the left side of my bench there is another one hanging in another area plugged with pull out stopper. I also have two separate three way on off light switches placed strategically to power it. The vac is tucked away in the bottom of my table saw cabinet.


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## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

trentwilson43056 said:


> They don’t drop through. The hole is not drilled through. It was just a simple problem of keeping them above the benchtop height during use. With what I have done here solves that problem but also let’s me control the height of protrusion and maintain it during use. I guess I wasn’t real clear about the original problem. The dogs are three inches long and have been planed to bench height.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


If your holes aren’t drilled all the way through and your bench dog falls flush with the table top, you cut your dowels too short.


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## WesTex (Jan 5, 2014)

trentwilson43056 said:


> You need to pick up a trash day curbside Shop Vac,take it home,fix it and plumb a whole shop light clean up system. Notice the hose hanging on the left side of my bench there is another one hanging in another area plugged with pull out stopper. I also have two separate three way on off light switches placed strategically to power it. The vac is tucked away in the bottom of my table saw cabinet.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk




Nope, don’t need any junk vacs. I have a vac for my sander & general cleanup, & a dust collector for the rest. That’s enough. 


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## AlWood (Apr 18, 2010)

One-nail solution. Two options:
(1) take a sufficiently long nail (say 2'' or 2.5'' long), cut off its head and file it down to make a second sharp end; using hammer, make a "pi"-gate-like shape (both sharp ends, 1/2' each, sticking away from the long part under right angle), and then slam those ends all the way into the wood at the points next to your dog-hole UNDER the table surface. Your bench-dog would stop at that nail's longer part. No accumulated wood-shaves in your dog-hole. If you need to remove that nail-stop, simply use a screwdriver as a lever to pull that nail-stop out. 

(2) even simpler: take a nail (no head-cutting) and slam it down into the bottom of your bench next to your dog-hole until about 1/2" is left. Then hammer it side-wise to have its head positioned at about the center of the hole. That's it. Again, no accumulated wood-shaves, no problems whatsoever....


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