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Oh and another option I haven't explored but would very much tempt me if I hadn't already bought a commercial CAD application: apparently if you join the EAA (the American Experimental Aircraft Association) for $40 a year (assuming they allow British people to join), it includes a personal-use...

If you're looking at qcad, have a look at LibreCAD as well. QCAD used to be an open-source project but they changed it to closed-source and started charging for it. LibreCAD is based on the last open-source version but has continued to be developed. I don't do much 2D CAD, so I can't offer...

I'm not sure that you do, it was just the first example I could think of having seen them in the catalogue.

The main disadvantage that I can see of using 100 mm will be the inability to use any accessories that use two or more holes, for example the UJK assembly square.

Not exactly a woodwork project this, but I finally brought my website up to date (after more than a year with no updates) with details of all the woodworking I've been doing since starting about a year ago. Link is here in case anyone is interested: CGTK - Dr Al's Woodworking Pages (and please...

A massively over-engineered portable workbench with two fully home-made quick-release vices: More details (and LOTS more photos) in this thread for those who haven't been following along: Portable (bench-top) Workbench

Not much more to say really, just time for a photo-shoot. The walnut insert on the standard vice moving jaw: Detail shot of the dovetail guide & clamp: This is where the portable workbench will spend most of its time: It's surprisingly robust just sitting on the cross-cut sled and...

With that done, there was nothing left to do but assemble everything. First the moving jaws, screws and mechanisms were fitted (this was much, much easier with the lids removed): The lids could then be fitted, using a pair of tweezers to push the hidden screws into the right place: I then...

The dovetail guide clamp could then be fitted into its hole and tightened. I used an engineer's square to mark a line that is away from the dovetail guide in the fully-tightened position: I then put the clamp back into its collet (with the rear spacer piece again) and into a collet block on...

I started the morning thinking the only thing left to do on the bench was to fit the leather pieces to the moving jaws and then assemble everything. However, during the course of the day I had a bit of brain wave and decided to use a different method for retaining the dovetail guide. You may...

Next up was the dual-screw jaw. For this one, I didn't punch the holes first, so laying everything out was relatively simple. The only challenge was that the leather piece I was using for this was only a little wider than the jaw, so stretching and clamping it was much more difficult. I used...

The first job of the day was to take a deep breath and have a go at fitting the leather. I had no spare leather and have never worked with this material (apart from for the test jaws) before, so I was a bit nervous about this. I started by getting a bit of 9 mm plywood (that came as part of...

I started this morning by sanding the areas where there was evidence of glue squeeze-out and then giving everything a once over with some grey Scotchbrite before doing another coat of Danish Oil (including the dovetail guide this time). Once that was done, there wasn't much more that could be...

With the knot filled there was nothing for it but to get on with applying Danish Oil to all the beech parts. I sanded everything again to 120 grit, masked the inside faces of the moving jaws with masking tape (along with some masking tape on the outside of the holes that go through to the...

This afternoon I got on with the last few jobs before oiling. I thought it best to take everything apart (that will come apart) before oiling and to make re-assembly easier, I decided to drill two more small (6 mm to suit the head of an M3 cap screw) holes in the body: These were carefully...

The images in this are from a piece of software called ZW3D Lite. In general I use a mixture of things depending on what I'm doing, but mainly Onshape, ZW3D Lite and CADQuery. I bought ZW3D Lite as it allows me to do stuff that isn't public, which I occasionally need to, although it's not...

Before sanding and oiling, I remembered that I needed to drill some more holes, so I (very carefully) added the dog holes to both moving jaws and chamfered them. I did a lot of test chamfers in bits of scrap to be sure I was getting the chamfer depth just right to match the existing ones...

Next up was the buttons to attach the top. I flipped the whole thing over and spread some buttons around the rim. I went with twelve buttons in the end, which is almost certainly excessive, but I intend to clamp things to the top and I wanted to be sure it was very firmly attached. With the...

Yesterday the postman delivered a 22 mm Forstner bit, so I started today by drilling the clearance holes for the dogs. I clamped a bit of scrap (cut to length using the vice in this bench!) in the vice mechanism "pocket" and used the Forstner bit in my cordless drill to drill to a depth of...

Final job of the day was to do some tests on the vice jaws I made. I fitted each configuration in turn and used the same bit of oak as a test bar: With the test bar mounted at the top of the vice, I turned the vice screw until it just held the bar in place, then tried 1/8 turn, 1/4 turn and...