DIY Bench Pin Stand

I bought a vintage roll top desk a few months ago to use as my work desk. It's made of solid wood and really heavy. I had a handmade bench pin clamped on the table lip. I didn't know better and it was apparently too low for comfort for piercing. I was ready to spend on a lower chair but then the idea hit me. I could just raise my bench pin instead.

So today I visited a hardware store looking for a couple of L-brackets. My idea was to attach two L-brackets to a pice of wood and screw in my bench pin on top of it. But at the store, I found something better that requires less work! In the roofing section, I found this C-bracket made of aluminum (i think), heck if I know what the actual use of it, but it was perfect for my need. It would give my bench pin a 5.5 inch raise to a more comfortable height for sawing. I paid only less than $5 for the bracket.

testing the positioning

What you need:

- wood screws

- a screwdriver

- a drill

- bench pin

- C-bracket

- scrap wood

- C-clamp

I ended up using only one of these small screws and used another two longer ones.

Step by step:

1. Bottom up, position where you want to bolt your bench pin and make a mark to drill. You screw should be smaller than the thickness of the pin so it doesn't shoot through the wood.

2. Place your bracket and screw it in. Please disregard the photo and only screw in the hole on the far back.

3. Cut a piece of scrap wood in the length of the bracket, in my case, it was 5.5 inch. The purpose of this is to give more stability to the stand. By its own, the stand is somewhat bouncing around as I saw.

4. I drilled the holes on both bench pin and wood stick and used a longer screw to bolt it down from top and bottom. Use flat top screw and make sure you have nothing sticking out so it won't be a nuisance when you're sawing a bigger piece.

5. Use a C-clamp to clamp this stand on the table.

All in all, I spent less than 5 minutes to build this stand.


Let me know if it works for you too. Have fun piercing!