I'm always amazed in this world of high technology and all it's whizz bangs, that someone ... somewhere never forgets about the simple things in life. The small things that often frustrate us to death but that we never seem to overcome. Enter the new "Bench Cookies from Rockler. These are simple little discs with non skid material applied that not only allows them to stand off the workbench, thus giving the worker some room underneath the project ... these little things stick like crazy, even when grit and sawdust tries to confound them.

At first I wondered how many times I would really need to lift my work piece off the workbech top, but I soon discovered that was not the real issue, the real issue was all the stuff that always seemed to accumulate under my work piece, like nails, screws, bits of wood, tools, pencils ... the list goes on and and on. The real problem with thes is that in some cases I don't want the back to get scratched and marred, I want it to be clean, which doesn happen when a screw rolls under and all of a sudden your piece now has a dint or scratch in it.

I also like the fact that I can use them for painting and staining, simply by moving them in from the side of the piece. To me, the that is the best part of these accessories, when you want to paint, stain or varnish all sides of a piece, when it is small it often moves around on you.
      

Bench cookies are one item you can purchase to make your woodkworking safer while making it easier and more predictable and now there are some varibles to make them even more useful for different applications.

Below is the standard (original) Bench Cookie.

The NEW Bench Cookies are now availalbe for use with optional "grippers". These grippers are essentially like a threaded riser which means there are hundreds of new applications for the new Bench Cookie version. All you need is a hole in your work area to hold the gripper and now you have a whole new work suface.