Very cool, Mos. Good luck, and I look forward to following along!~

 

Should be interesting, and a nice upgrade. Looking forward to seeing all transpire.

 

I really have to admire the creative methods you incorporated to clamp boards for planing without a bench. I have a workmate style table that would slide across the floor. Your use of the items around you is very commendable.

David

 

I shall follow your post.
I built a bench several year ago.

 

Looking forward to following along.I have been wanting to build a real bench also.

Are you planning on oak for the entire thing?

 

Best wishes on your build! Mauricio will be very proud of that design.

 

Sweet Mos.

Just so you know, Roy Underhill did a show on this exact bench. However, I think he uses rising dovetails to attach the top to the base.

 

Mos, you certainly deserve this bench! I look forward to following you work…

 

Right on. This will be great; thanks for bringing us along Mos.

 

Thanks everyone. I very much look forward to having a "real" bench to work on.
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BHog, Not entirely oak, but mostly. I have an 8' piece of 1.5"x3.5" hard maple I picked up for $20 a few months ago, that I intend to use for the end caps, and back piece for the tool tray. I'm not sure what I'll do about the tool tray bottom yet, either. I was thinking about 1/4" plywood to keep the cost/thickness down, but I may T&G 1/2" boards instead…
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Scott, I have watched that show several times (it's actually two episodes), and that's where I first saw this bench style. He did use rising dovetails, but I'm not sure if I'm confident enough to try that yet… I don't have a good tenon saw, so I'm going to try to keep things a little more simplistic. I do, however, intend to do "rising tenons" so to speak. So as to have the grain running full length of the tenon on the bench top, but again, I guess we'll see… I don't have a drill press, so it's not like drilling perfect 90 degree angles will be any easier than not

 

Mos, How big is that slab? I am guessing 3 1/2" x 18" by 5'.

 

I like it a lot! Big shocker there. The splayed leg club is growing!

What is your reasoning for not having the End Caps extend all the way to the front? Also, if you stay with that idea there is an opportunity to dovetail the front too, just a thought.

I would go with wither poplar or pine for the well bottom, one wide board. Plywood will work well too but not as easy to work with hand tools.

This bench is going to be Great! I'll be watching eagerly.

 

It's 2 3/4" x 9" and 4' long. It was a hair over 9" wide when I got it, but there was a ding one one of the corners. I cut off of that edge to get it down to the 9" wide. I intend to add an additional 3/4" thick board to the bottom, to use for the tool tray support on the back, and help with the end caps.

 

Mauricio, what would you know? Geez!

 

I meant 18"/2 BTW :^)

 

Thanks Mauricio. I think I've said it before, but I was quite excited when I saw your bench build blog, after having watched the Woodwright episodes a few times

The reasoning for that was primarily because I don't know lol I haven't completely decided on that part yet, I'm pretty sure I'll have enough hard maple to do it, so I might, but I guess part of the reason was because I was originally going to try to leave the tool tray removable, but I'm not sure I'm going to stick with that, since a wagon and/or end vise would be an issue that way.

 

Glad to be of inspiration.
You can make it removable you just need to bolt on the end caps. And its a pain because I usually strip a bolt whenever I put it on or take it off.

Since your bench is on the short side it might make sense for you to use a face vise on the end, that will give you more clamping capacity.

 

Sweet! Another bench build for me to watch! P.S - how do I "subscribe" to a blog series so I'm notified when a new blog is posted? I did it once for RG's hand tool table class, but can't seem to figure it out again…

 

I am fairly sure I'm going to go with a leg vise, eventually (might depend on the available cash when it comes to that) but as for the other end, I hadn't completely committed yet. I had been throwing the idea around of using a shoulder vise screw for a wagon, as that would be less space, but be a little more complicated to install. I'd also looked at those inset vises from LV too, really simple to install, but also not very cheap. That's something I'm going to have to figure out before I get too far… been reading Schwarz's workbench book, and studying up on all the different vises. What I want is a wagon, but I need to figure out if that's feasible from a practicality stand point.

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Jason, I think if we're "buddies" then you will get notified, but as far as subscribing to a specific blog, I have no idea.

 

Good looking and a lot of work! A labor of love!
Are you going to post the plans in our plan posts so that other can use it?

I like the clamping method mainly because I used to do it that way too in my basement back in Illinois. My dad saw me do this and bought me a Zyliss vise.
Vise
But that was back in 1972 and they didn't cost that much!

A lot of people laugh at this vise, as I did at first, but it is very useful! You can make a vise as long in length as needed!

 

Thanks, I was intending to add more pictures of the plans I came up with in my next update, so I can get a few better images, and maybe solicit some feedback from the community.

Where's the plan posts? I'd be happy to add it, I just don't know where that is.

 

More Plans, Top Slab, and Starting Legs

So, as promised (though maybe a bit later than I had hoped)...

Here's another image of the plans I've got set forth. This still isn't 100% set in stone yet, and probably won't be, until I cut the joinery in the top for the legs. Thumb is a link to the larger version


Right, with that out of the way, two things were certain. The size of the slab/top, and the length/geometry of the legs. So I have at least started that much.

Cleaning up the face edge of the slab with my #4 1/2. It was a 12/4 slab of red oak that was 4' long and a little over 9" wide. It was planed to 2.75" thick when I got it.

Then, I took to cutting the top to width. When I got it, it was around 9.5" wide on one side, and 9.75" on the other. So I used a straight edge guide and made 3 passes with the circular saw, lowering it more each time.

The problem I ran into, however, was that with the straight edge guide, the motor bottomed out on it before it was able to cut all the way through. Even with out the straight edge guide, I would have been a little shy of making it all the way through. With the guide, I was about 1" shallow.

So… I gave myself a bit of a work out…

Cleaned that up with the #7 followed by the #5 1/2 as the smoother. I must say, I really liked the #5 1/2 for this…

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I also started on the legs as well. The legs were cut from oak 2×4's and a 2×6 for front left leg, which I wanted wider for the leg vise.

I had taped over the joints to protect my clamps from the squeeze out, but that left a mess on the leg…

So with a combination of #75 for cleaning off most of the thick glue, a #7 to make it flat, and the #5 1/2 again to smooth it out, I took care of that problem…

These are the two front legs

Now, this is where the picture taking takes a bit of a bad turn… Here I also have glued up the back two legs, cut the end caps, tool well back piece, and the front apron, and cut the legs to size. I skipped a few steps as far as pictures are concerned, but I'm sure we've all seen a miter saw in action

The Maple is for the end caps, and tool tray back, and the oak on the left is the front section, that will go in the notch of the legs.

This fuzzy cellphone picture shows about what the top will look like (though it will obviously all be flush.

The back legs are cut to 75 degrees. After I cut one end, I decided it didn't look quite large enough, so I had to second guess myself, and re-measure. Good thing I did. Both the back legs were about 1" too short. You can see some of the lines that I didn't cut (thankfully) in this picture as well.

--

That is all I've got for now, thanks for checking it out!

 

More Plans, Top Slab, and Starting Legs

So, as promised (though maybe a bit later than I had hoped)...

Here's another image of the plans I've got set forth. This still isn't 100% set in stone yet, and probably won't be, until I cut the joinery in the top for the legs. Thumb is a link to the larger version


Right, with that out of the way, two things were certain. The size of the slab/top, and the length/geometry of the legs. So I have at least started that much.

Cleaning up the face edge of the slab with my #4 1/2. It was a 12/4 slab of red oak that was 4' long and a little over 9" wide. It was planed to 2.75" thick when I got it.

Then, I took to cutting the top to width. When I got it, it was around 9.5" wide on one side, and 9.75" on the other. So I used a straight edge guide and made 3 passes with the circular saw, lowering it more each time.

The problem I ran into, however, was that with the straight edge guide, the motor bottomed out on it before it was able to cut all the way through. Even with out the straight edge guide, I would have been a little shy of making it all the way through. With the guide, I was about 1" shallow.

So… I gave myself a bit of a work out…

Cleaned that up with the #7 followed by the #5 1/2 as the smoother. I must say, I really liked the #5 1/2 for this…

-----

I also started on the legs as well. The legs were cut from oak 2×4's and a 2×6 for front left leg, which I wanted wider for the leg vise.

I had taped over the joints to protect my clamps from the squeeze out, but that left a mess on the leg…

So with a combination of #75 for cleaning off most of the thick glue, a #7 to make it flat, and the #5 1/2 again to smooth it out, I took care of that problem…

These are the two front legs

Now, this is where the picture taking takes a bit of a bad turn… Here I also have glued up the back two legs, cut the end caps, tool well back piece, and the front apron, and cut the legs to size. I skipped a few steps as far as pictures are concerned, but I'm sure we've all seen a miter saw in action

The Maple is for the end caps, and tool tray back, and the oak on the left is the front section, that will go in the notch of the legs.

This fuzzy cellphone picture shows about what the top will look like (though it will obviously all be flush.

The back legs are cut to 75 degrees. After I cut one end, I decided it didn't look quite large enough, so I had to second guess myself, and re-measure. Good thing I did. Both the back legs were about 1" too short. You can see some of the lines that I didn't cut (thankfully) in this picture as well.

--

That is all I've got for now, thanks for checking it out!

Looks like fun Mos.

 

Tenons on Legs, Mortises in Slab, and bottom board cut out

I was reviewing the number of hours of PTO that I had built up, and realized that I had quite a bit to use up before the end of the year… So I took 2 days off earlier this week, and more or less dedicated them to working on my bench.

I decided to go with angled tenons on the back legs, because the mortises would be easier to cut, and there's still quite a bit of straight grain left in them anyway. The first one, I started by trying to use the bandsaw that my parents have in their basement. It did not work very well. It just didn't seem powerful enough, and I had to go really quite slow. I grew tired of that and so abandoned that idea pretty quickly. I resorted to cutting them by hand, which worked significantly better.

-

For the second angled tenon, I hadn't started trying to cut that one on the band saw, so I didn't have an existing kerf to put the tenon saw in. So… I improvised. I clamped a cut off from the other tenon onto the other leg, so I'd have something to bear against while starting the cut. This was useful because otherwise I'd have to start a cut on the corner of the leg. Not very much fun.

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Then I turned my attention to the front legs. These were pretty standard tenons.

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And here they are all standing in a row (bum bum bum.. big ones small ones SOME AS BIG AS YOUR HEAD!)

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Again, this is where I get more into what I'm doing than taking pictures… I used my corded drill with a forstner bit to remove most of the waste in the mortise on the back mortise, and cut to depth on the ends then chiseled out the waste on the front mortise.

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Here we have one side done

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Then I did the same treatment on the other side, doing marginally better with pictures.

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For this one, I switched to the bit and brace. I liked that way a lot more… I felt I had better control, though it left more waste to chop out. That's alright though, as I remembered to bring my mortise chisels this time…

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Then I did the front notch like before. Again foregoing the picture taking. But I was proud of this fit. Keep in mind this is a notch in the top, and not a through tenon. So all the weight is supported on a 2.75" thick section, and is held in place by the fit from the sides alone.

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So with all 4 mortises done, it was time to clamp it all up and see what we had.

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Starting to take shape nicely.

In my design, I have a 3.5" front apron (2×4 of Red Oak) and the top slab is only 2.75" thick. So I am going to be adding a 3/4" piece of red oak to the bottom to get the thickness the same as the apron. The other reason for this was to gain a little more depth for the tool tray bottom.

I cut notches for where the legs were going to be

-

And that's where I left it after 2 days of working on it.

The only other thing I've got is I had my music box set up for some tunes, and some time lapse.

Images are on 1-minute intervals. First part is Monday, and when the camera angle changes is when Tuesday starts.

As always, thanks for following along

 

Looks like a good couple of days progress. You are looking at a big upgrade from the old workmate. Good work, nice pics.

 

Leg stretchers, Tool well frame, Top glued, and Wagon vise made

Was looking back and realized I am way behind in the blog vs actual progress…

So, I guess I'll just jump right in with the pictures.

First, I bored, chiseled, and cut the mortise and tenon joints for the stretchers from front leg to back leg.

Not sure why my camera was having such issues with color.

Then I bored and pegged them. Pegs are left long so I can still remove them more easily until I glue them in place.

Then I cut dovetails for the tool well frame, endcaps, and front apron piece.

After that, I marked out the area that I'd be removing for the wagon vise in the top slab.

And cut out a good chunk of the waste by saw.

Pictures got a little sparse at this point, as I forgot my camera at my apartment when I went to the parents' place for a day. But I used the router and some straight edge guides with a bearing guided bit to hog out a lot of the waste.

And a little bit of #78 action and some chiseling to get rid of the rest that the router bit couldn't reach

Then it was to the basement to glue the front apron on

That concluded Saturday. So on Sunday I glued the bottom piece on to the benchtop

I had also routed out a groove for one side of the wagon vise block

Then glued together some scraps to make the wagon block

Clamped the post drill to the back side of the bench to drill the hole in the wagon block to be threaded

And then tapped it with the wood tap and die set I bought

And with the "test" screw

Now we're up to date. Tonight I made the actual screw for the wagon vise. Used the threader, and now cutting it to length

And then putting the groove in it for the garter plate

And cutting the end square

And cutting a square hole in a 2" piece of maple dowel I got from Mauricio for the hub

Glued and pegged the screw threads and hub together

And test fit it with the wagon block. Fits perfect

That's all I've got for now. I'm all caught up again

Thanks for checking it out

 

Lookin good Mos. The wood threads are sweet. I love how dedicated to the hand tools your are.

 

Wagon Vise completed, endcaps bolted on, and top flattened.

Relatively quick turn around. This weekend was a busy one.

First thing I worked on after getting the screw and hub assembled for the wagon vise, was getting the endcaps drilled and bolted on the bench

1/2" bolts, counterbored into the endcaps

with a nut and washer on the underside.

Single 4" bolt on the wagon vise end due to width restrictions, and and double bolt on the leg vise end. Double bolt because I couldn't get the 4 1/2" bolt back too far due to the leg tenon being there, so I ended up using a 3" bolt on the back. I decided on this because I didn't like the pivot point being so far forward when I'm going to be having a tool well hanging off of it.

With that done, I decided I'd flatten the top a little bit. Jack, Jointer, and Smoother (using my #5 1/2)

With that done, I turned my attention back to the wagon vise. I had drilled the hole for the handle, and was going to wait until I could use my powered miter saw to cut the hub to length. Somewhere along the line I decided "What the heck, let's go for it". So I decided to give it a shot by hand first. I think it actually went better than I was expecting. I'm glad I did

Then I made the garter plate for it. I made it out of 1/2" oak. I used a 2 1/8" forstner bit about 1/4" deep to come up around the hub a bit, and a 1 1/4" to go the rest of the way through. Then I cut it in half with my handsaw. Drilled, and countersunk, and chamfered the edges.

I drilled 2 of the dog holes last night, which means the wagon is now functional

Tonight I drilled the rest of the dog holes. They're all 4" apart, and there's 5" of travel with the wagon vise.

I also took a video of the wagon vise in operation. I was actually relatively surprised at how well it worked. Most of the noise is the handle rattling in the hub.

 

I like it. Well done.