If you’ve ever asked me about my LVL bench, you’ve heard me praise the top – still dead flat, after 10 years! – and curse the base, because the LVL in the legs compressed from the pressure of the leg vise, which moved the top about 1/8″ off the leg.

This happened within a year of regular use, so it’s been a pain in my posterior for nine years. We’ve tried a few fixes in the past – a larger bolt to connect the top and legs at the front left position and a “bullet” inserted in the top of the leg and into the bottom of the top. Both of those “fixes” worked for a few weeks, but then it was back to the shim.

Today, Christopher Schwarz and I tried another fix. I planed and scraped the old, falling-apart suede off the chop face, then epoxied crubber (a composite of cork and rubber) on its face. We epoxied little bits of wood to the top of the legs to fill the void, then epoxied crubber over those, too.

I’m just glad we had 5-minute epoxy…because we didn’t have clamps with a deep enough reach to provide pressure at the bottom 3″ of crubber. So I checked my email while I stood there.

Now everything is back together, and I’ve a piece of walnut clamped tight in the vise to provide pressure while the epoxy fully sets. And it is clamped tight – neither Chris or I could pull it out.

Here’s hoping this “fix” lasts longer than a few weeks.