Southern Yellow Pine Work Surface (workbench)

Drilling holes for bolts and all-threads



Using some 3-1/2" bolts to glue up two boards at a time. It is easier to keep everything square and straight this way. Also there's no rush just gluing two boards together.



The holes are 5/8" so that when I get ready to glue up the 6 sets of paired laminations, I can use the 3/8' threaded rod - hopefully the holes line up well enough.

Glueing up pairs of boards and then glueing up quads



This is the first two boards glued together the night before this picture. I have taken the bolts out and everything looks solid. Time will tell. This first one was probably the worst for glue coverage as I was in a hurry - it has been too long since I glued boards together. I keep thinking that if I didn't hurry, the glue would set up and I'd have to do everything over again. But I think it will still be OK. I used plenty of glue on both sides and the only part I'm really only slightly concerned about is the end corners - I don't remember if I spread the glue all the way out.



This Yellow Pine is beautiful!



Here is my glue up area. I had some old closet doors to use as a flat work area - they are hollow and light, but fairly flat and easy to clean up the glue because they are painted. I got wise and started using a cheap plastic putty knife to spread the glue out more evenly.



Glue is running out, so that's a good sign!



Now all five pairs have been glued up.



So the first pair from the day before and the second pair from early morning get glued together at the very last of the day before going into the house.



And here is a quad glued up- the camera amplifies the difference in height of the laminations - this end curled a bit on one side before the glue-up.

More later.

ruddhess said:

Glueing up pairs of boards and then glueing up quads

This is the first two boards glued together the night before this picture. I have taken the bolts out and everything looks solid. Time will tell. This first one was probably the worst for glue coverage as I was in a hurry - it has been too long since I glued boards together. I keep thinking that if I didn't hurry, the glue would set up and I'd have to do everything over again. But I think it will still be OK. I used plenty of glue on both sides and the only part I'm really only slightly concerned about is the end corners - I don't remember if I spread the glue all the way out.

This Yellow Pine is beautiful!

Here is my glue up area. I had some old closet doors to use as a flat work area - they are hollow and light, but fairly flat and easy to clean up the glue because they are painted. I got wise and started using a cheap plastic putty knife to spread the glue out more evenly.

Glue is running out, so that's a good sign!

Now all five pairs have been glued up.

So the first pair from the day before and the second pair from early morning get glued together at the very last of the day before going into the house.

And here is a quad glued up- the camera amplifies the difference in height of the laminations - this end curled a bit on one side before the glue-up.

More later.

Click to expand...

Thank you benchbuilder. I just saw your comment today. I am getting more at ease with the gluing now. I have 14 boards glued together now and it is 21" wide. I still need to get someone to help me bring it down from my 2nd story apartment into the garage. It got so cold recently that I brought the pairs of boards up inside where it's warm to glue them together. I didn't do anything to the surfaces of these when I glued them up. The glue seems like it will hold very well even though each board wasn't "perfect" - some had a few mill marks, some had a few voids where knots were, etc. I have read that the wood glue works best when the two surfaces being joined are nearly perfectly flat against one another and a lot of pressure is applied. Some technical advice includes XX lbs per sq in for different species of wood. I don't get that technical with anything I do. I haven't conducted any tests on the strength of the glued joints that I have done either. I have made one "coffee" table that was just wood and glue - it's about 10 years or more old and holds together just fine - I didn't prep any edges with that one either - it's white pine. I did use some dowels though on the top - three 2 X 6's at 48" long. I am going to use glue and dowels on the rest of my bench too (I usually use bolts and other hardware in addition to glue when putting things together, but I now know that glue will hold it together alone if designed a certain way.) I had thought about gluing up beams and slabs and then chopping out a bunch of dovetails and mortise/tenons, but that seemed less efficient than just designing it to fit together like a puzzle - after all the boards start out as 2 bys and if you cut them right and fit them together right, they make their own mortise & tenons. I'll post more pictures as I go along. It's still too cold out to do very much gluing.

Glue Curing Box

Here is what I did yesterday: made a long box to keep the wood and glue warm while curing.



Everything I needed was laying close at hand - literally! I had four old closet doors that I used as shelves a long time ago that were standing in the corner. I had used a couple of them as a flat work place to start gluing up the boards for my slab. I found 8 little metal angle braces with screws that I had bought a while back and never used. It is 78" long (my 72" boards fit just right) and 12" X 15" otherwise.



I will cover the ends with some old blankets.



And I had a single bulb and bare fixture hanging right beside my shop light. It was 40°F in the shop when I put the thermometer inside and closed the ends up with blankets.



Everything hooked up and ready to go.



I found that with an extra blanket on the top, it will stay 60°F inside all night. Even with outside temps as low as 7°F like last night.

ruddhess said:

Glue Curing Box

Here is what I did yesterday: made a long box to keep the wood and glue warm while curing.

Everything I needed was laying close at hand - literally! I had four old closet doors that I used as shelves a long time ago that were standing in the corner. I had used a couple of them as a flat work place to start gluing up the boards for my slab. I found 8 little metal angle braces with screws that I had bought a while back and never used. It is 78" long (my 72" boards fit just right) and 12" X 15" otherwise.

I will cover the ends with some old blankets.

And I had a single bulb and bare fixture hanging right beside my shop light. It was 40°F in the shop when I put the thermometer inside and closed the ends up with blankets.

Everything hooked up and ready to go.

I found that with an extra blanket on the top, it will stay 60°F inside all night. Even with outside temps as low as 7°F like last night.

Click to expand...

benchbuilder,

I didn't think of styrofoam until I saw a picture of someone else's glue cabinet/closet here on LJ. I think a lot of people line them with the aluminum backed stuff too. If I used that stuff it would get much hotter in there I think. There were some fairly big cracks in it because I didn't put but one screw in the middle and a couple of the doors were bowed a bit. But the extra blanket over the top took care of any heat that was escaping out the top. It is kind of amazing how much heat a bulb puts out. Sounds like your dog has some of the comforts of home in his house. That's cool.

ruddhess said:

Glue Curing Box

Here is what I did yesterday: made a long box to keep the wood and glue warm while curing.

Everything I needed was laying close at hand - literally! I had four old closet doors that I used as shelves a long time ago that were standing in the corner. I had used a couple of them as a flat work place to start gluing up the boards for my slab. I found 8 little metal angle braces with screws that I had bought a while back and never used. It is 78" long (my 72" boards fit just right) and 12" X 15" otherwise.

I will cover the ends with some old blankets.

And I had a single bulb and bare fixture hanging right beside my shop light. It was 40°F in the shop when I put the thermometer inside and closed the ends up with blankets.

Everything hooked up and ready to go.

I found that with an extra blanket on the top, it will stay 60°F inside all night. Even with outside temps as low as 7°F like last night.

Click to expand...

siavosh,

If the ambient temperature falls below around 45°F (most glue labels say 60°), then it doesn't cure properly. You can tell when the glue is going to fail (or is quite likely to fail) if the glue gets "chalky" - there appears a light colored powdery surface on the glue - that is a bad sign. I built the box to put long pieces of laminated lumber in to let the glue cure when the shop temps fell below around 47° or so - I didn't experience any trouble at all when the temp was between 47° and 52°. Like 'daddywoofdawg' says, it's important to keep the glue from freezing when it's in the bottle. I've been bringing the glue bottles (and construction adhesive - AKA Liquid Nails) inside when the temps were falling to below 40°. And that worked out well enough.

Getting Close to Full Width

I ended up gluing inside my apartment where it was warmer. Ice and snowoutside. It is wide enough now that it won't fit inside the glue box anyway.





All 12 boards glued up. I think that I will add 2 more to make it 21" wide.



Finally got a decent picture of all 14 boards glued up. Now to find help carrying it down to the garage when the weather turns nicer. It weighs over a hundred pounds. Not bad.

Reinforcing my old sawhorses

I'm adding some reinforcement to my old sawhorses. I want to set my workbench top on these for a while and I don't want them to wobble or collapse. I'm just using some old 3/8" T1-11 siding that I had from a long time ago.


Some small "A" frame gussets attached with drywall screws.



And with what was left of the siding, some 6-5/8" wide stretchers/stringers.



Line it up flush on the right, and whack the left side off. I'm using my "three drill system" - the old orange B&D for drilling the pilot hole/my grandma's old silver metal bodied drill with the countersink bit/old green and putty gray B&D with the side chunk missing and the phillips bit driver embedded in the chuck (seriously, no amount of force in the universe will loosen the chuck, I even broke the chuck key for this drill trying to loosen it). Works good, except for all the cords going everywhere, but I'm used to it by now.



Stretchers bow in on this one. The sawhorse lumber is from an old chicken barn 2X4s and has twisted or was twisted to begin with maybe.



And a little bow to the outside on this one.

Remainder of yellow pine lumber for workbench

Here is the remainder of the yellow pine that I need for my workbench. I had decided to give this thing legs and a skirt (hmm, sounds bad I know - hey maybe it's a Scottish bench? LOL). The 2 X 12 was for the skirts on the front and the back, and the 2 X 8's were for leg stretchers. I had 6 pieces of center ripped 2 X 10's left over from making the top that I could use to make the legs. Still deciding whether to make a regular workbench or stay with my original plan of making some very sturdy Japanese trestle style horses to put the benchtop slab on. What to do, what to do?



This 2 X 12 is beautiful. The winter growth rings are wide and it is a heavy board. It has part of the pith of the tree running down the middle and after cutting the 12 footer in half has begun to cup a bit at one end. I will monitor the cupping and decide whether to cut a little bit of the pith out and re-glue it together. That's probably what I'll do.



I am leaning toward this style of "horse" to set the slab on and keep to the original plan of a Japanese style slab on horses work surface. (Watching Stumpy Nubs video on making a saw bench is what gave me the inspiration for this particular design - I'm not sure where the original style came from.)



Beginning on the Saw Bench/Saw Horse stands shown above.

Beginning Cuts on Saw Bench/Saw Horses

Cheap tools (except for the Starrett combination square - left over from my metal fabrication days) are getting the job done for now.



My saw cuts are getting better. Fairly square - they need to be since I haven't dug out my jack plane and my block plane needs sharpening, and I don't have a solid place to hold anything down yet.



I'm using my Swiss Army knife to mark my cut-lines and putting a shallow kerf line on three (or sometimes four) sides before making my thru-cut. Much better accuracy this way.



These four braces came out relatively equal in length with saw cut only (no planing - just a bit of sanding of burrs off the ends).

Cutting more boards for the saw bench style saw horses

All the boards are cut now and lined up.


A couple of the uprights and the top boards standing up on the work area.


Marked them to keep track.


Beautiful end grain!

Dovetail Saga - Dovetail Number One

Beginning dove tail number one.


This is how I clamp it up to work on the end cuts.


More saw cuts to remove waste between the pins.








It doesn't want to fit yet.




Got start whittling it down - just now wants to fit together.


About 1/3 of the way.


Almost there!


Finally! Not too bad for first dovetail ever.

ruddhess said:

Dovetail Saga - Dovetail Number One

Beginning dove tail number one.

This is how I clamp it up to work on the end cuts.

More saw cuts to remove waste between the pins.

It doesn't want to fit yet.

Got start whittling it down - just now wants to fit together.

About 1/3 of the way.

Almost there!

Finally! Not too bad for first dovetail ever.

Click to expand...

Thank you waho6o9,

Now that I have caught up on my blog posts and pictures, I can tell you that I have abandoned the dovetails for rabbet joints on this project. My very first dovetail was the best one. Admittedly I was a bit impatient. I have not abandoned making dovetails - I am just going to practice some more before trying to incorporate them into a project. Your encouragement is appreciated though! Lots of great people here on LJ! I am really enjoying this!!!

Dovetail Saga - Dovetail Number Two

Went a little past the mark on the tails on this one.


Yikes! Looks a little bit jagged on the back side - that's the side it's more difficult to keep an eye on.


Uh oh! Big mistake - back to the lumber yard to fetch more wood to fix this mistake. Just a teeny bit discouraging.

ruddhess said:

Dovetail Saga - Dovetail Number Two

Went a little past the mark on the tails on this one.

Yikes! Looks a little bit jagged on the back side - that's the side it's more difficult to keep an eye on.

Uh oh! Big mistake - back to the lumber yard to fetch more wood to fix this mistake. Just a teeny bit discouraging.

Click to expand...

Hi TheFridge - yep! I ended up abandoning the dovetail joints on this project (see next few posts - I just added them - finally got caught up on posting progress on this project, whew!) I am going to do rabbet joints and put some 5/16" oak dowels in the joints for appearance and added strength (sheer strength too). I made some arrows a long time ago with the oak dowels - but never got to fletching them because they warped so much, so I am going to use them to make dowels for my joints on this project. They should look nice after putting a bit of finish on the wood.

ruddhess said:

Dovetail Saga - Dovetail Number Two

Went a little past the mark on the tails on this one.

Yikes! Looks a little bit jagged on the back side - that's the side it's more difficult to keep an eye on.

Uh oh! Big mistake - back to the lumber yard to fetch more wood to fix this mistake. Just a teeny bit discouraging.

Click to expand...

Thanks Buckethead! Thank you for the encouragement. Dovetails are immensely fascinating. I really like the big ones like these. And I really love this southern yellow pine! What a great wood. For some reason I like the resinous parts the best. I guess I like the smell of turpentine, LOL! I am really happy with the outcome of the first two upright assemblies that constitute the first saw bench/saw horse (the ones that I did the rabbet joints on instead of these dovetails). I am getting ready to attach the feet to the first one and then on to the second one. Then I'll solicit the help of a friend and move the 4-1/2" slab down to the garage and begin to plane the top flat (then I will even up the bottom boards) - or perhaps do the bottom of the slab first and then the top? I feel confident that if I take my time and cut the tails and pins proud, then trim them to fit that I can make a decent dovetail more like the very first one that I did. Thanks again for your kind words.

Dovetail Saga - Dovetail Number Three

Tails of dovetail number three. Middle is humped up, but at least it's not cut past the mark like the ends are.


Starting to look sloppy. I'm not sure if I was getting tired or what here. Good picture though - the camera decided to focus on the boxes and stuff in the background.


Dovetail number three I think - Whoa! Little bit of a gap there dude!


And the view from the end - Wow, too much space in between the parts. I know what happened though. The first dovetail, I was very cautious (because I had never done one before) and I ended up trimming and paring a lot to make it fit (apparently that is what you are supposed to do - but it seemed like a LOT of work - but probably because I hadn't sharpened my chisels and I wasn't using them on these dovetails - not good.)

ruddhess said:

Dovetail Saga - Dovetail Number Three

Tails of dovetail number three. Middle is humped up, but at least it's not cut past the mark like the ends are.

Starting to look sloppy. I'm not sure if I was getting tired or what here. Good picture though - the camera decided to focus on the boxes and stuff in the background.

Dovetail number three I think - Whoa! Little bit of a gap there dude!

And the view from the end - Wow, too much space in between the parts. I know what happened though. The first dovetail, I was very cautious (because I had never done one before) and I ended up trimming and paring a lot to make it fit (apparently that is what you are supposed to do - but it seemed like a LOT of work - but probably because I hadn't sharpened my chisels and I wasn't using them on these dovetails - not good.)

Click to expand...

TheFridge - you are so right. I was SO being lazy and not using a chisel. I did eventually buy a 5/8" Kobalt chisel a couple nights ago. Sharpened that baby up tonight after I got off work (I am actually working on making some dado cuts on my uprights for my stretchers - and I am taking my time with my saw cuts and then knocking out small chunks of waste at a time with the chisel. It is sharp enough to easily clean up the bottom of the dado too). I had thought about making a galvanized metal template for my dovetails, and next time I will do that. It makes marking the tails quicker and easier. At least they are the same that way.

Dovetail Saga - Dovetail Number Four

Pic of the tails (I've miss designated some of the other pictures in DT 2 & 3 I think - calling them tails when they were actually pins - doh!) on the second top piece.


More tails - this piece really has a lot of resin in the knots - smells good, but gums up my saw a lot.


The resin makes the wood almost translucent.


Had to trim a shave off the pins to make it fit right.


That's a sliver for sure - all done with an old Stanley back saw - the kind with a solid plastic handle - I don't remember how old it is, but it sure beats the one I have with a thinner blade and hollow plastic handle. Cut so much better.


I'll use it for a shim sometime.


Again as with the other dovetails (no. 2 and no. 3) there is WAY too much space in between the parts. The only thing to do is to use 2 part epoxy I guess. Not sure about this.


View from another angle of dovetail number 4.


Standing up on their own. Entirely too much daylight coming in through the cracks!


The 2 X 12 they are sitting on is crowned in the middle - not enough to topple them over though.