We recently received a very nice hand written letter from a reader in the midwestern United States. Among the many things he mentioned was a Stanley bench jig. You can see his sketch of it above. Basically, it uses a hardwood wedge to trap a board (on edge) in a steel channel that’s tapered on one side. I’ve seen shop made jigs that perform the same function, but never the Stanley one. Google searches have been unproductive so far. I know that if I knew the name of the jig I could easily find more information about it. I’m sure that one of you has seen this gizmo before and knows the name, so I’m asking for some help. Please post a comment below and share the wealth.

Personally, I’ve never seen one of these jigs for sale anywhere. I’m sure they do pop up every know and then, but you could easily make one. We showed a very similar jig called a bird’s-mouth stop in an article by Norman Parillo (“4 Bench Jigs for Handplanes,” FWW #202).