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Workbench

13K views 34 replies 15 participants last post by  PurpLev 
#1 ·
Forraging for building materials

So I've decided it is time for me to build my first workbench. I've recently gotten into hand planes and have been needing a good workbench for some time. I currently have the old steel crating that my tablesaw came in with a 2" chunk of pine for a top. Not trying to be disrespectful, but I look like someone on drugs swimming the 300 meter freestyle medly when I try to plane something. One foot on the base, one on the plane and one trying to keep the piece from sliding around. Needless to say, it isn't working. So…I've decided that I will start blogging my progress on my table. Hopefully this will be fun.
Later
Kelly
 
#3 ·
The visual in my mind of your description is priceless. Good start. Just 'deciding' you need one is the best first step. Making furniture is great but making the stuff that makes the craft go more smoothly is just a real pleasure. Enjoy
 
#6 ·
More Forraging

Score BABY! I am always forraging for scrap lumber at work. We manufacture really big Air conditioning units, so we have crates, skids, big pallets, little pallets, lumber of all types, sizes, but most of the good stuff is around 48"long. I've recently stumbled upon some rough sawn 4×3s that our sheet metal is shipped on. Most of it is Poplar, I've found plenty of oak too, maybe enough to make the base out of…..I wonder if that will be wise to mix oak and poplar. I even found 1 piece of curly maple and 2 pieces of walnut…odd. I'll find a use for that or give it to by "Bowl turning" buddy. Anyways, I've cherry picked through the poplar and I think I have enough for the top. I shooting for around 24" wide x 60"long with the top 3" thick made by laminating 2" wide poplar pieces together. I would rather have maple, but all I have is rough sawn 1" stuff that will square up to about 3/4" after it is all cleaned up. I just think it will take forever and a day to do it that way, and I'm afraid that it will turn into a big mess trying to laminate it all together..you know, 1/64" error here, then 1/32", then the error begins to accumulate until the joints aren't tight, and it's a big gom of glue. I'm thinking that by using the poplar, I'll have less joints with less chance of cumulative error.

I've bought Chris Schwarz's book on workbenches and have been studying on it quite a bit. I really like the Roubo benches. If I'm going to build one, I'm going to try to build the one I like… If I mess up, then I have nothing but time in my lumber, lot of sweat, but ahh, I'm overweight, so the excercise is good for me…No matter how it turns out, I'll be the better for trying!

More to come later.. Jointing and planing coming up next.
 
#11 ·
Pictures from the hunt - spoils of battle

Here's where I go lumber shopping…The coolest thing is that it is all free! Just some extra time to sift and sort. Sorry for the blurriness, a combination of glare and good old muggy Georgia weather after a thunderstorm.

Photobucket

Here's a couple pictures of the wood I've found. An oddball piece of Curly maple and a piece of Walnut. Not perfect, but I think I'll be able to come up with some idea for them.

Wood

Ok, So I've found these nice pieces of poplar and jointed them on 2 sides square….UHHH Now what? I hate to say it, but I don't know the best way to proceed. Should I use the planer and try to square them up that way and plane them all to the same width and thickness, or should I spring for one of those Freud Glue line ripping blades and saw them all to the same width and thickness? I want to do this the right way the first time….Any suggestions? I've checked most of these with a cheap moisture meter from Harbor freight and it doesn't register at all. I checked it on some wetter wood from a rain yesterday just to be sure, and it showed about 22%, so I know it's working, but don't know how accurate it is.

Ok, more to come later.
Kelly

Photobucket
 
#12 ·
good find!

are you working by a plan? or putting things together as you go? (the latter would make things a bit harder).

if you have a planer- then plane a parallel face to one that you jointed already, then you could plane the remaining face parallel to the 2nd jointed face, and have a perfect square.

if you plan on gluing them all together in a lamination to make a top for the workbench - then they don't all have to be the same width, but they should all be at the same thickness (so, not necessarily square, but rectangular is good enough). then just stack them together to form a large panel for the top, make the glueup as aligned as possible to minimize the planing you'd have to do later to flatten the workbench top.
 
#17 ·
New found respect

Since I posted last, I've been busy working on my bench. I power planed all my reclaimed Poplar and while my wife was out of town this week, I starting laminating my bench top. Good thing she was out of town. The weather was bad and I don't have enough room in the shop, so I glued everything up in our living room floor….l was careful to put down paper to keep from getting glue all over the carpet. Glad to have her back though, she helped me this morning with the final glue up., plenty of clamps, a lot of glue and 3 or 4 hours later, Shazaam! I've got a bench top and it looks pretty decent! Not at good as what you could buy, but plenty good for me and I'm definitely proud of what I've accomplished so far.
I started later this afternoon trying to flatten it a little before I do anything else. I must say, after an hour or so of pushing a No. 7 Jointer plane across this thing I have new found respect for anyone who could do that all day. I'd say it takes much of a man…or woman to push one of those things for any amount of time. I think when I'm done with this; I'm going to look like Popeye. At least it's Poplar, so it's shaving pretty easy. I'm done for the day, I think the top won this round; I'll go in and pop my blisters lick my wounds and have a cold drink. I'll add a band-aid to my pinky finger tomorrow where the jointer rubbed a blister and go back for round two.
After I'm done with the preliminary flattening I need to get down to some serious planning and sketching. So far I've been flying by the seat of my pants on making my top. I'm too far into this to screw it up, so I think I'll slow down and do a little planning.
More to come later.

 
#23 ·
Planning for the Big Day

I have my top glued up and still in the middle of the living room floor. My wife has been pretty patient about this, but I think it is wearing thin. She keeps telling me I'm going to way up to a bunch of smaller cutting boards if I don't move it soon. Gotta get going!

I've got my legs sized and glued up and I'm ready to start cutting mortises. I took the day off from work so I could play a little tomorrow. Not had much time off here lately. All work makes Kelly stir crazy.

I've read Chris' book on the workbench and I've developed my own drawing to go by, but I must say, I've not really had much practice at mortise and tenon joints, I have a couple of night stands that I made earlier on in my woodworking career that turned out so so. I noticed that Chris shows both the motise and the tenon at the same length/depth. I thought you needed to leave a little space in there, like maybe 1/16"? I bet its unspoken and I should know that!

I've wondered about the best way to attack the mortises. HMM what to do. SHould I make a template and use a bushing on my router and route them out, but I won't be able to achieve the depth I need. I think I might be better off using a fostner bit and cleaning them up with a good sharp chisel….I could put them on my 3-in-1 milling machine…I think I'll take fostner bits for $300 Alex.

Sorry to ramble guys, Just trying to think it through before I screw it up and see what kind of comments I get.

I'll have more pictures later.
 
#24 ·
sounds like good progress, but the thought of many smaller cutting boards sure sounds disturbing…lol

for my bench I used the forstner bit method, and squaring it off with a chisel. and yes - you should live a little gap behind the tenon for glue leftovers… not sure why Chris's drawing shows a perfect match - worth contacting him and asking this.
 
#27 ·
Dry fit time

So, I took Friday off to work on my bench some and to get away from work. I ended up having a great day and being actually productive too. I got up early just like I was going to work, early in the morning I laid all my mortises and tenons out while everyone was sleeping trying to make the most of the day. I was plenty apprehensive about cutting these mortises because this was all the scrap poplar I had left and all the other mortises I cut in the past had been abominations. I set everything up on the drill press carefully and clamped a fence to keep all my cuts along the same axis. Got out my fostner bits, chucked up and went to town making chips. Everything turned out great! I'm ecstatic; I've never cut a good mortise before now! Time to clean them up and I'll be good.



Once upon a time, I thought chisels were ready to go right off the shelf….Boy was I wrong! What a difference a good sharp chisel makes in chopping out a mortise. I'm even using these 10.00/set plastic handled things that pose as chisels from some Harbor freight like store and they're still cutting so much better than anything I've ever used. It didn't take long to clean them all up and I was off to cut the tenons to match. Several years ago, I bought a tenon cutter jig for my saw, but I've not had a chance to use it much till now. I cut all the cheeks first on the Miter express so everything was nice and crisp and square, then I finished them all on the tenon jig. Every thing fits nice and snug like I hoped, very little adjusting needed for a good fit. Wow, how did I get that lucky? Well, here I have a stack of parts, the sun has set and its time to spend a little quality time with the spouse.

Saturday we went up to Cartersville, GA. for "Pioneer Days" to support our friends who had a booth there. I glued up a bunch of small scrap poplar butcher block for their leather stamping booth for the kids. Where's all the "Pioneer" stuff??? What a bust, and a waste of a day other than spending it with the misses. Sunday we took the day off for a family reunion. I was starting to get ancy about my tenons, I still don't have everything put together, and I was beginning to worry that they would curl up if I didn't go ahead and finish. We got home Sunday night and I drilled all my dowel holes and finished fitting everything together to keep it from warping.


Monday morning early, time to Labor on Labor day! I brought my top out to the porch to work on it some more and so I could chop out the mortises in it. Rescued it just in time from our living room floor, my wife was looking for a saw and mumbling incoherently about cutting boards and "one for her and one for her mom and one for the neighbor". It was close guys…close!

I'm a little overweight, which most of the time really stinks. (I know, only I can change that.) but I tell you, a big beer belly makes a dang good fulcrum some times, and in a pinch makes a pretty good transmission jack. Who needs 8 minute abs when you have a top like this?


More pictures to come tonight.
Thanks
Kelly
 
#28 ·
looks great. a good writeout!

I too sometimes have the fear that the parts that I milled and are standing in the shop will miraculously curl up and twist if I don't get to them quickly… lol… so far it has never happened (except for some scrap 3/8" material that was WET before milling)

sharp chisels are a wonderful thing. enjoy the rest of the adventure!
 
#32 ·
Finish line is in sight!...Maybe. Are they ever completely finished?

I began working on the mortises in the top and had a complete relapse in talent. The first one was horrible. I used a drill guide I bought from Sears in hopes of everything being perpendicular and cleaner. Boy was I partially wrong. The first one came out horrible, but cleaned up so,so. I'm so glad this wasn't one of the mortises in the base. I started trying to use a 1-1/2" fostner bit but eventually downsized to a 1-3/8" and chose to clean them up with a chisel. I was having a hard time staying between the lines for some reason. The next 3 went a little better and came out a lot cleaner. I still wonder if I could have used a small tabletop drill press and elevated the top and just slid the drill press around to each mortise, or put the table on these moving skates…AH well, what's done is done.

Next I started fitting the legs to the mortises and adjusting with a block plane. Ah, bad choice, I wish I had a rabbet plane, my tenons aren't completely square now. I trimmed and trimmed and …trimmed some more. Our neighbor's son was at the house visiting and watching me work. He helped a little, but I think he was mostly in wonder about the amount of fitting I was doing. While pressing one of the tenons in I heard a crack and noticed that one of my mortises was too close to one of the butt joints in my top. DANG! DANG! DANG! I didn't catch that. Upon further inspection I had two like that, each on opposite corners. What to do? I decided that I would "skin" the sides with a full length poplar board, glued and screwed (eventually screwed) to reinforce the joints. This would also mean that I would have to "skin" the outside of my base as I want the exterior of the legs flush with the top, which will make the bench look a little nicer. With all the nail holes and crowbar marks it's not very pretty.



Drawboring:
Man what a trick! This is like clenching the nails on a horse shoe; it really pulls those joints tight! On the first dry fit, I marked the center of each dowel hole, disassembled, and marked the tenons 1/8" higher up the tenon for a good snug draw fit. Oh! I made sure to number all my joints to before I took it apart so I could get it all back the way I drilled everything and mated up as snug as possible. I looked around for my pencil sharpener to sharpen the dowel ends and couldn't find it, so I settled for sharpening them on the belt sander. Man this was great, I was stoked at how it was turning out. I used extended open time Tite-bond, fitted everything together and drove the dowels home clamped it up and let it dry. This is by far the most massive wood structure I've really made (Other than plywood type projects). I checked the next day and was completely amazed at how rigid the base is with everything drawbored together.

My wife and I made a trip to the local big box to buy some poplar to skin the sides of the table and legs. She even let me glue it all up on the kitchen table since the weather was bad. I don't think I ruined the fifty cent table cloth. I think she let me do this so that she could hold it over my head later.


The top is really proving to be a pain to get it all fitted down on the frame right. It's just not lining up at all, and the base is so rigid that it doesn't really give much. I spent much of last night trimming on the tenons and finally got it snugged down tight. I think it will be ok. I still need to take it off and cut a rabbet for the deadman. I'm thinking about using a T-track instead of the traditional Rabbet way. I think I'll go ahead and cut a rabbet on both sides of the table just in case I want to add another one for some reason.

More progress made this weekend. We went to a neighbor's funeral this weekend. Sad day, 46 and healthy and passed away from a massive heart attack. I tell you, let your friends know you love them, let your family know you love them, and make all the sawdust you can between those times because tomorrow is a day promised to no one! When we got home I made progress working on "skinning" the legs and cross braces so that everything is flush with the table top. I cut the ½" notch in the one leg for the parallel guide for the leg vise. I may end up using a piece of aluminum instead of oak or poplar, we'll see. Sunday I put the top on the base and doweled it together. I didn't use the drawbore method, I just doweled it and figured that would be good enough.

I spent the next hour or two leveling and smoothing the top. I am plenty pleased with how smooth it is. I drilled out some of the nail holes and filled them with dowels. Sort of looks like the top has the measles.



It's not the prettiest bench you've ever seen. If it were a car, I think it would be a Primer Grey Chevy Nova with a punched out small block 350 and a sold lifter cam. Not much to look at, but it's got it where it counts! I took a few minutes to chop up some of the pine scrap wood I've had in my shop for a while and run them through the router to make a ship lap joint ( I think that's what they're called) and made a shelf.





Before the day was through I gave everything a good coating with Boiled Linseed oil. Everything! Top, bottom, and all the nooks and crannies. I remember reading something about some guys top bowing because he only finished one side of it, I just didn't want that to happen to mine.





I must say, I'm really pleased with what I have made out of something that would have been thrown away. No need to celebrate yet. There's still a lot left to do, but so far, so good. Next to add the leg and tail vises and put the finishing touches on it.
More to come later. Thanks for looking.
Kelly
 
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