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Got a tip, send me an email (and get credited)! → The holdfast is a steal hook that quickly holds down your work with the swing of a mallet. This tool is more than 300 years old and can be found in Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick exercise book written in 1692. It’s best selling features are its speed, durability and simplicity. Instead of wrestling with clamps to keep things from moving, it only takes a single blow to keep things in place. The only requirements you’ll need for this is a hole and a mallet. As far as bench thickness requirements, this tool actually does better with thinner bench tops and does fine with softwood like my pine bench top. You might be tempted to clamp your work in a vise, but any downward pressure you put on it, like swinging a mallet against a chisel, means possible movement. With a holdfast, you can hold work down and don’t have to worry about it moving with blunt force. The downfall to these simple tools is that there is a chance of
