New Year, new workbench -- mucho pics!

[Wilbur Pan]

I hope this won't be one too many workbench threads, since Zahid and Dennis are going to be having workbench thread of their own, but I thought I'd post some shots of my workbench that I finally started on because I finally got off my butt to get going on it.

In a burst of energy with the new year, I finally made some movement towards building my "real" workbench. The temporary poplar-beam-on-sawhorses workbench (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=85596) that I had been using since May still works great. I've been able to plane, chop mortises, do chisel work, and saw using it without issues. I think that the reason it's taken me so long to get around to building my "real" workbench is that the poplar beam has worked out so much better than I thought it would. And actually, the main benefit that I think I will get from this bench is extra counter space. I think this benchtop will wind up being about 7' x 22". Over the past several months, I've needed the extra counter space much more than I've needed a leg vise.

Anyway, here's where I started:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SWthCivjLKI/AAAAAAAAAVg/nHdZj-lOMPs/s800/IMG_4620.JPG

I've been collecting kiln dried Douglas fir 4x4s from the borg for this project. I'd go there every few weeks from work, pick through their pile and leave with three that were clear, and knot free. I picked the best looking ones for the top. When I'm done gluing this up, I expect to have a benchtop that's essentially clear quartersawn Douglas fir with pretty tight grain (21-38 rings per inch, if I counted correctly).

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SWtc1Ce5AfI/AAAAAAAAAUw/fYXQUJubXBo/s800/IMG_7641.JPG

[Wilbur Pan]

I thought I'd share the method I came up with to make a workbench top without a workbench. I've come up with a little system for my bench top glue up I thought might be of interest.

The first step is to get two sawhorses where the tops are jointed and level. Then I laid several of the boards for my bench top on the sawhorses, and used a clamp at either end to clamp them together.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SWy0XaB6eMI/AAAAAAAAAWI/jU_ZJhBHLlE/s800/IMG_7648.JPG

This essentially gives me a temporary bench top. It's not completely level, but it will be good enough for me to square up my boards and to start gluing them up.

At one end, I placed the bar of the clamp above the boards. This is a great plane stop.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SWy0WH1ernI/AAAAAAAAAV8/gwPzcSBWTKc/s800/IMG_7646.JPG

To square up the boards, I worked on them a section at a time. Besides my clamp bar planing stop, clamping the board to the temporary benchtop works really well too, for planing in the opposite direction.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SWy0W4jVFJI/AAAAAAAAAWA/p7ZhACbKla0/s800/IMG_7647.JPG

After getting one beam squared up, I'll switch it with the beam that I'll be gluing it to and repeat the process. For the glue up, I took the end clamps off and pushed the beams over to give me space on the sawhorses to do the glue up.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SWtc31bBewI/AAAAAAAAAVE/2bPb5swgTIg/s800/IMG_7645.JPG

Keep repeating until done. This went surprisingly well.

[Wilbur Pan]

And I got the last glue up for the top done tonight. Whew!

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SXU4EcOJJnI/AAAAAAAAAXM/a83wyXeWR-0/s800/IMG_7676.JPG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SXU4FLp-SsI/AAAAAAAAAXQ/ZGeHq1MQmpI/s800/IMG_7677.JPG

[John Dykes]

Certainly looks heavy as lead!

The "fun" part is right around the corner!

[gary Zimmel]

Great start on one big, heavy top..

Keep us posted Wilbur

[Zahid Naqvi]

considering the history of my previous projects, you might be done with your bench by the time get the drawings done;). Mine is more like a seasonal project, some of my projects have been annual affairs :eek:
I think you are off to a good start.

[Dewey Torres]

Wilbur,
Haven't seen you post much of late and now I see why.

Yep every clamp in the shop and lots of expletives I am sure but you are getting there nicely. Keep on chuggin!

[John Keeton]

Dang Wilbur, I hope you have help getting that thing moved! If I were your wife, this is a good time to visit relatives!

Looks like you are well on your way, but as others have said - the hard part lies ahead of you! In the end, it will all be worth it!

[willie sobat]

Lookin' good Wilbur. Please keep us updated.

[harry strasil]

Way to go Wilbur, The hard part is over, Deciding to get Started, that is. Once the Brain is engaged the body has no alternative but to comply with its requests.

Jr.

[Joe Cunningham]

Looking great. I do see an unused clamp in the corner (by the level), must be too short. :D

Doug fir is easy to get here at the BORG and I made a basic bench top frame out of it with baltic birch ply on top. I hope to make a solid wood bench this year (likely out of fir as well), so let us know how the fir holds up to typical neander work.

[Michael L. Martin]

Great start Wilbur! Luv those Wetzlers ...........:)

[Wilbur Pan]

Yep every clamp in the shop and lots of expletives I am sure....

Given that I wound up using hand planes to square up the corners, you might think that lots of expletives were incorporated into this project, but it is easier than you might think. Here's how I did it. This isn't my technique -- I learned this from Chris Schwarz's "Coarse, Medium, and Fine" DVD, and I'm sure he learned it from somewhere else. ;)

Anyway, here's how it went.

Here's a picture of how out of square one of the beams I was working on was.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SXH_GQH1tFI/AAAAAAAAAWk/a7nVsInbNNc/s800/IMG_7666.JPG

That's out 1/16" over the 3 1/2" width of the beam. Boy do I suck!

Now, when most people think of hand planes, the image of a finely tuned plane making those 0.001", wispy, see-through shavings that just float in the air immediately comes to mind for most people. We don't need no girly-man plane like that for this job.

I have a jack plane set up with a decent amount of camber and set for an aggressive shaving. This is the shaving that I get with this plane.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SXH_G8Ga3uI/AAAAAAAAAWo/o-xAzTrqLko/s800/IMG_7668.JPG

Just under 1/100" thick, and it falls straight to the ground. Japanese plane aficionados like myself would be horrified at such a thing. ;) But this is important for this purpose.

Remember, I need to knock down 1/16" to get the faces square. 1/16" = 0.0625". If my plane takes a shaving 0.009" thick, it should take me only 7 swipes of the plane to take off 1/16" of material.

This is what I got after 9 swipes. (I got excited.)

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SXH_HSwFQ3I/AAAAAAAAAWs/GFtX0NBpKsc/s800/IMG_7669.JPG

Not too bad! And easier than trying to put an eight foot long 4x4 back on my jointer to try to resquare that corner. Not to mention the lack of dust and noise. ;)

My beam is eight feet long, as I said. I can work on a 2 foot section at a time, so 4 rounds of this and I have the whole beam squared up.

I'm going to take the same approach to flattening the benchtop, especially on the bottom. When I glued up the 4x4s, I tried to align the tops as much as possible, which leaves me with a really uneven bottom side.

[Hank Knight]

Lookin' great. Muscling that thing around is going to be fun!

[Carlos Cabrera]

I applaud your ingenuity and your hard work. I hope you turn out with a workbench that fulfills your desires. I am currently in the process of adding a scandinavian style shoulder vise to my workbench top and I will post pictures as well. Thanks for showing us how you did it !!

Carlos

[Dave Anderson NH]

Hi Wilbur,

You're going to find out that flattening the two main surfaces of the top is a lot easier than straightening and flattening each single stick of the doug fir. Both surfaces will end up nicely flat time in no time at all. this next step is something you are just going to fly through. You've already got the hard part done. Congratulations.

[John Schreiber]

Looking good.

When I finished gluing up my top and set it on top of saw horses, I decided to reinforce the horses by screwing panels to all four sides. Before that, they just had the metal jaws like yours and I was afraid the weight of the bench and the stress of planing would collapse them.

[Wilbur Pan]

Hi Wilbur,

You're going to find out that flattening the two main surfaces of the top is a lot easier than straightening and flattening each single stick of the doug fir. Both surfaces will end up nicely flat time in no time at all. this next step is something you are just going to fly through. You've already got the hard part done. Congratulations.

Hi Dave,

You were so right.

Last night I got a leg up on flattening the bottom of my benchtop. When I was gluing up the beams, I tried to align the tops of the beams as best as I could. The top side looks pretty good, but what this means is that all the misalignments show up on the bottom side of the bench. Since I'm using a Roubo design, the legs are going to be mortised directly into the bottom, so if the bottom surface isn't flat, the shoulders of the leg tenons won't be in the same plane, and the legs and lower stretchers won't be square.

I forgot to take a better "before" picture, but you can get an idea of how much unevenness there is between the bottom surfaces of the beams here. In many places, there were 1/8" discrepancies between the beams.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SXU4EcOJJnI/AAAAAAAAAXM/a83wyXeWR-0/s800/IMG_7676.JPG

I put an even more aggressive camber on my jack plane than I had been using -- about equivalent to a 10" radius. This allowed me to take off really thick shavings, close to 1/64". This meant that theoretically, 8 swipes of the plane would level a 1/8" discrepancy. Being able to take down this much wood at a time, the majority of the unevenness was gone after only 30 minutes.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SXadYNq0BuI/AAAAAAAAAX0/xOvsB9mqUlY/s800/IMG_7679.JPG

Look at the mess I made! Not bad for just 30 minutes of planing, I think. I was pretty surprised as to how quickly this went. You can get an idea of how thick the shavings from the jack plane were at the front by the jointer plane. The jointer plane is just there to give a sense of scale for the size of the benchtop. I didn't use it last night, but I'm sure it will be put to use pretty soon.

At this point I realized that I hadn't made winding sticks yet to check for twist, so I called it a night.

P.S. This was just 30 minutes of hand planing! Who needs a belt sander? ;)

[Wilbur Pan]

every clamp in the shop

One last thing: in preparation for making my benchtop I knew that I didn't have the ideal number of clamps, so I ordered a few more Wetzlers. They seemed to be a little slow in coming, and I wanted to get going on my bench, so I wound up borrowing some clamps from my neighbor to complete the glue up. Now that I'm done, guess what arrived in the mail? ;)

[Hank Knight]

One last thing: in preparation for making my benchtop I knew that I didn't have the ideal number of clamps, so I ordered a few more Wetzlers. They seemed to be a little slow in coming, and I wanted to get going on my bench, so I wound up borrowing some clamps from my neighbor to complete the glue up. Now that I'm done, guess what arrived in the mail? ;)

Great! You'll have them for your next bench. :D

How's the flattening going? I actually enjoyed flattening my bench top.

Hank

[Douglas Brummett]

At this point I realized that I hadn't made winding sticks yet to check for twist, so I called it a night.

P.S. This was just 30 minutes of hand planing! Who needs a belt sander? ;)

Yep, get those sticks going. It is really easy to run off course with a hand plane. Fortunately it is also relatively easy to fix such deviations, but it does require constant monitoring of progress.

Also right on the sander comment. No sander I have ever used is as quick, quiet, and efficient at removing wood.

And what a mess :eek:
Actually it looks disturbingly similar to my shop, right down to the boxes and wooden screw clamps on the floor :rolleyes:

[Travis Teichmann]

Hey Wilbur,
I'm working on my bench doing similar work. I don't own a jointer or planer, so I get to use the hand planes. I thought it would be a lot of work, but mostly I like it...it's quiet and it provides some exercise while in the shop. There have been those nights though...:mad: I look forward to more photos, and maybe I'll get a picture up soon with my progress.
Travis

[Wilbur Pan]

Great! You'll have them for your next bench. :D

How's the flattening going? I actually enjoyed flattening my bench top.

Well you can never have too many clamps, right? ;)

I spent another 30 minutes on the bottom of the benchtop with a jointer plane, until it was flat enough for my purposes, and checked the table with winding sticks. (Actually, a four foot ruler and a yardstick.) No wind or twist. Yay!

[Michael Sobik]

Thanks for sharing all the info and pics, Wilbur. I'm about to start my benchtop glue up this weekend, so this is really helpful. Please keep us updated.

[Wilbur Pan]

I finished flattening the bottom to the degree that I wanted to. Again, it went much more quickly than I expected. Only 30 minutes with a jointer plane, and the bottom of the benchtop was flattened to the point that I couldn't identify any twist or wind with winding sticks. (Actually, I used a four foot level at one end, and held up a yardstick at the other.)

So here's what it looks like relative to the rest of my workshop:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SXlC9PWcT0I/AAAAAAAAAYY/6f7XRhvQuCk/s800/IMG_7698.JPG

And a better view of the surface. Remember, this will be the bottom side of my bench:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SXlC-DH3atI/AAAAAAAAAYc/md_x7aYqWc8/s800/IMG_7699.JPG

I'm going to let this top sit like this for a little bit, while I figure out what to do about the final size and location. Originally, I wanted to have this bench up against the far wall in the first picture, but I would have to shorten it a fair amount. In its present position in the middle of the room, I lose space, but I could keep most of the length. I might trim about 6" off to make it easier to get around the bandsaw. Or I could reconfigure the base of the bandsaw to move it a little closer to the wall, which will give me more room around the bench. Another thing in favor of the bench's current position is that the lighting is really good here.

This will also give me a chance to see how much this top is going to move, left to its own devices. In the meantime, I can use this surface to make the legs and stretchers.

Thanks for reading along so far! I'll post more when I really get going on the base.

[Wilbur Pan]

I ran into a snag with my bench. My plan was to use the same 4x4's that I used for my top to make the legs. However, after thinking about working on the legs for my workbench, I realized that I had made a tactical error. This bench is going to be a Roubo, and making 4x4s for the legs would give me legs that are slightly less than 3-1/2" square. Problem is, the plans I'm working from call for legs that are 5" square. At first I thought, "Who cares if the leg is 5" or 3-1/2 inches square?" and so I would just use the 4x4s as they were.

Except that I then realized last night that for this bench design, in addition to providing support, the legs also make up clamping surfaces, and I'd go from a leg vice that's 5 inches in width to a leg vice that's 3 1/2" or less in width. I don't think that the leg thickness matters that much for the sturdiness of the bench, but I can see how clamping would benefit from a wider surface.

I thought about laminating wood to the 4x4s to build them up to a 5" square leg, but after some pondering, that probably won't be a good idea over the long run.

So I have some green Douglas fir 2x12's from the borg that will eventually make my 5" square legs stickered in my workshop. It looks like progress on my bench is going to be on hiatus while I wait for this stuff to stabilize.

I know that the rule for drying is supposed to be 1 year per inch, but I probably won't wait that long. I plan to use drawbored mortise and tenon joints for joining the legs to the top and the stretchers to the legs, so if there is some shrinkage over the long haul, the pinned joints should help keep the joints tight.

Of course, if I run across a good source for some cheap 8/4 dry hardwood, I'll get going on this more quickly. I priced out some 8/4 ash to make the legs at one of the local places. It turned out to be $225 for the amount of wood I need, or 2.5 times the cost of the wood in my benchtop.

[Wilbur Pan]

My Roubo workbench project went on hiatus due to some unexpected complications.

First, I made a miscalculation regarding the size of the legs.

Then I bought some more wood for the legs, and had to give the wood some time to acclimate.

Then I got a bad cold/sinusitis that knocked me on my butt.

Then I got some free wood from a friend who had a tree in their yard blown over, and made a bunch of roughed out bowls on my lathe.

But over the past few days, I got the legs for my Roubo bench glued up.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sa3wfttlkII/AAAAAAAAAbM/sO9zA3MkP_Q/s800/IMG_8135.JPG

Boy -- I thought my workbench top was substantial, until I got these legs glued up. Now my benchtop looks puny. Right now the legs are 5-1/2" square, and I plan to mill them down to about 5". I also have to cut mortises in the bench top, tenons on the top of the legs, and mortises in the legs for the stretchers.

[Justin Green]

That's going to be one sturdy bench! I have 3.5" cedar legs with stretchers running lengthwise and widthwise between them and the bench doesn't move. I cut a 1/4" deep square mortise the size of the legs and just set the top onto the legs. It doesn't budge.

[Walter Lay]

That's going to be one sturdy bench! I have 3.5" cedar legs with stretchers running lengthwise and widthwise between them and the bench doesn't move. I cut a 1/4" deep square mortise the size of the legs and just set the top onto the legs. It doesn't budge.

I like that. I think that's what I'll do on the bench I will soon be building.
Walter
PS What is the BORG?

[Justin Green]

borg = Lowes or Home Depot...

[Berl Mendenhall]

Five inches square, that's some beef. You won't have to worry about it moving around. Sorry to here of all your interruptions. I thought you forgot us. Keep us posted.

[Ryan Stagg]

Hey - is that a Walker-Turner DP I spy in the tail-end view of your bench? I believe I own the same model. They're about as heavy as your bench will be, aren't they? :cool:

[Wilbur Pan]

Yup -- that's a Walker-Turner 900 series drill press. I also have a Walker-Turner 16" bandsaw. They are just great.

[Robert Rozaieski]

PS What is the BORG?

B.O.R.G. - Big Orange Retail Giant

[Christopher Dowie]

I can see I need to build a better woodworking bench and I like what your doing here.
I have a question. Wouldn't it be easier to cut peg holes in the timbers before they are glued together? I'm not even sure that's the right name for them. Peg holes, as inn square holes you slip a peg into on the bench and then put pegs in holes on the moving part of the vice in order to hold large and odd shaped parts.

I also do some black smith work and on the anvil, it's called a "hardy hole". Used to hold jigs and gimmicks commonly called hardies.

Christopher

[harry strasil]

they called Mortices and Auxilary Anvil Tools.

[harry strasil]

The little round hole is a Pritchell Hole, A Pritchell is the tool used to make or refine the oblong nail holes in a Horse Shoe. Auxiliary tools that go in the Hardy Hole are referred to as Bottom Tools, and their other half with handles held by the Smith are called Top Tools. JSUWK

[Wilbur Pan]

I have a question. Wouldn't it be easier to cut peg holes in the timbers before they are glued together? I'm not even sure that's the right name for them. Peg holes, as in square holes you slip a peg into on the bench and then put pegs in holes on the moving part of the vice in order to hold large and odd shaped parts.

I think you mean bench dog holes? Anyway, yes, it would have been easier to cut them in the edge of one of the timbers before gluing them up. However, I'm building a Roubo style bench, which doesn't have a tail vice. It uses holdfasts and plane stops for work holding instead, so I don't need the bench dogs.

If I decide to retrofit a tail vice, I could always just drill 3/4" holes and use round bench dogs instead of the square ones.

[Christopher Dowie]

Thanks, Harry. Yeah, the Pritchell Hole. I couldn't think of that word. I only been workin' the anvil for just a few years. Tuning up to make me some slicks and gouges.

Wilbur, Now you say it, bench dog holes is exactly what I meant. I've heard the term bench dogs before. Thanks for making the penny drop. ;)

I'll be interested to see how you use your bench.

Christopher

[Wilbur Pan]

I got the legs cut down to size last night. I took some photos showing how I did this, because it shows why I like using Japanese saws so much.

These legs are about 5-1/4" square, and I'm using a 270 mm single edged Japanese saw with a disposable blade. This saw is probably a bit too small for this type of cut, but it was the biggest one I had. ;)

First, mark the lines for the cut.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__g-wBC2I/AAAAAAAAAbs/wHwtdnScmoE/s400/IMG_8281.JPG

There are two ways that I've made this cut. The first way is to make a cut, going around the leg as you go. I start the cut on the near corner of the leg, and saw, trying to hit both lines at once.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__kEklcvI/AAAAAAAAAcM/GG_ngqKTHOA/s400/IMG_8288.JPG

When I get about halfway down, I rotate the leg so that the part I was cutting is away from me. Then I saw along the top line, using the kerf as a guide.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__kYDiNPI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/R1VuQkAHDoY/s400/IMG_8289.JPG

Sawing straight across is very easy, as the pull cut action automatically tenses the blade. Some people complain that the pull cut also throws sawdust on the line, obscuring it. This is true, but once the cut is started, I am no longer looking at where the saw is cutting. Instead, I'm looking at where I want to end up. Remember, the pull action will keep the saw straight.

Then, I angle down the front of the leg. Again, I am looking at where I want the cut to end.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__khGKCnI/AAAAAAAAAcU/59HgEnGU9bw/s400/IMG_8290.JPG

I continue this around the leg, and eventually you finish cutting through the middle.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__lDObOdI/AAAAAAAAAcY/sz09TSGS3O8/s400/IMG_8291.JPG

The advantage of this method is that you can completely support the piece on the table, since you aren't cutting straight through the piece. Instead, you're going around the perimeter, eventually cutting through the middle. The downside is that if you look closely at the cut surface, you can see that you came at different angles, and it's hard to leave a perfectly smooth cut surface. Since this will eventually be tenons, I don't really care. ;)

I have to split this post into two parts, due to the number of pictures.

[Wilbur Pan]

The second way is the one that I use more often. Here I start at the far side of the line, and saw across the top.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__hBQMEEI/AAAAAAAAAbw/aXCeUgrAoy8/s400/IMG_8282.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__hlcBsmI/AAAAAAAAAb0/wOJyLc_VvuU/s400/IMG_8283.JPG

Then, I continue down the side, eventually cutting all the way through.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__iJws4XI/AAAAAAAAAb4/4Nk0UWwDI08/s400/IMG_8284.JPG

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__ikHvF3I/AAAAAAAAAb8/QRVA_7pqILU/s400/IMG_8285.JPG

Again, I'm just looking at where the cut will end, not where the saw is actually cutting. Since the saw is under tension while cutting, it's easy to follow a straight line. Here's the back side of this cut. I didn't look at this side at all until I took this picture.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__i_P0owI/AAAAAAAAAcA/BxNZbsRfgKg/s400/IMG_8286.JPG

Not bad, if I do say so myself. Eventually you'll cut all the way through.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/Sb__jRyTAoI/AAAAAAAAAcI/piHQ-9Y_xIA/s400/IMG_8287.JPG

The advantage with this technique is that the sawn surface is smoother, since you're coming at it from one direction. The downside is that it takes a little practice to get the technique down. Also, since you're going straight through, the cutoff needs to be supported as you get to the end of the cut, which was a little difficult due to the size of the cutoff. But once you have the technique down, it's like riding a bike. And just to be clear, I don't think I have any particular talent at sawing. I do think using a Japanese saw is this easy.

Besides, my understanding that the real way to do this is to start at the top near corner and cut straight through. I'm not that good. ;)

Next is cutting the tenons.

[Doug Hobkirk]

I will bet you are glad you didn't have 8 legs to cut! Your posts on this project are interesting - keep them coming. And good luck in your progress.

[Wilbur Pan]

To paraphrase the Thing, it's mortising time!

So my modifications to Chris Schwarz's Roubo bench plans included making a bunch of 1" wide mortises for the stretchers, and to set the legs into the top. After trying a few different methods, I thought I'd show how I wound up making these things.

The mortises for the leg stretchers are going to be 1" wide by 3-1/4" long by 2-1/8" deep. To make a mortise 1" wide, you need a 1" mortise chisel. Here it is, next to my normal sized 1/4" mortise chisel.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSODNbndI/AAAAAAAAAdU/d1jqTFC7CYU/s800/IMG_8399.JPG

Now that's a mortise chisel! ;)

Now, I've been chopping 1/4" mortises by hand without much problem, and I thought it was pretty quick work. To my surprise, after making some practice runs, it seemed that my 1" mortise chisel was cutting much more slowly. I couldn't figure out why that would be so -- after all, bigger is better, right? It took me a while, but I finally realized that since this chisel is 4 times as wide, the force from the hammer is going to be spread out over a wider area, leading to less penetration. Here's a little experiment I did to prove this to myself. I took a piece of wood, and made a mortise chop with each chisel, with the same number of hammer blows. Then I sawed the cuts in half to get a look at the cross section. You can clearly see that the wide chisel won't penetrate to the same depth as the narrower chisel.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddUdpBDHoI/AAAAAAAAAeY/erAKXoh74OE/s800/IMG_8412.JPG

So now I had some perspective on how my big mortise chisel was going to perform, and learned to have some patience. Here's the layout.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSMlAi95I/AAAAAAAAAdM/WsNIrcgUVSA/s800/IMG_8397.JPG

And here's my secret weapon for making mortises.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSO2z0JyI/AAAAAAAAAdc/gNJyZImpFKQ/s800/IMG_8400.JPG

This is a pair of low horses. By putting the workpiece on these, I can sit and chop the mortises. Since I'm sitting on the workpiece, I can straddle it, which means that I don't have to twist my body and strain my lower back leaning over a workbench, and making sure that the chisel is straight is easy. Also, sitting on the workpiece makes the ergonomics of pounding with a hammer much better.

(Splitting this post in two because of the silly 10 image limit.)

[Wilbur Pan]

The first thing I do is drill a hole towards one end of the mortise. The line in the middle of the mortise is centered, to help me with locating the drill bit. I made a mark on the drill bit so that I knew when I had drilled a hole 2-1/8" deep or so.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSP8oEmZI/AAAAAAAAAdg/JvyEFSG1NfA/s800/IMG_8401.JPG

Then I start chopping. As I mentioned above, sitting on the workpiece with the mortise between my legs makes holding the chisel straight very easy.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSQeFQ1AI/AAAAAAAAAeQ/DC2Sm_Dk2-k/s800/IMG_8402.JPG

The hole I drilled gives the chopped waste a place to go. The first few chops are mainly to get the walls of the mortise straight. Here's what it looks like after the first few chops.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSSNyPzOI/AAAAAAAAAds/W8U3EvMi2Tg/s800/IMG_8404.JPG

Note the fancy mortising hammer! ;)

The bevel of the chisel is facing the drill hole. I tend to do 8-10 hammer blows, and then wiggle the mortise chisel to break the chips free, then hit the chisel again 8-10 times. I'm not really pounding away with the hammer. My guess is that I'm hitting the chisel with about 75% of the force that I would use if I was hammering a nail. You don't need the hammer blow to be forceful -- if there is an issue with penetration, sharpening the chisel is better. What you want is the hammer blow to be controlled, because at this point it's more important to make sure that the walls of the mortise are straight.

At some point it will get difficult, since even though I have a drill hole that the waste can go into, it's not completely the width of the chisel, so then I stop. As I work back along the mortise, I start the next set of chops about 1/8" back.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSSzPZN4I/AAAAAAAAAec/iXPfNCscEhQ/s800/IMG_8405.JPG

And this is where I'm at after 4 minutes of chopping. It may not be completely clear from the photo, but I'm already 1" down.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSTntguHI/AAAAAAAAAd0/V4rIThmca58/s800/IMG_8406.JPG

Now, I'll go back over the section I've worked on, and chop down until I'm at the depth that I want. This takes about 4 minutes as well.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSVBh2vzI/AAAAAAAAAeA/_UPGHclNsno/s800/IMG_8408.JPG

At this point, I have a decently sized section of mortise cut down to full depth. This makes chopping the rest of the mortise really easy. I move back about 1/8" at a time. Again, I do 8-10 hammer blows, then wiggle the chisel to break the chips, chopping all the way down. I used a Sharpie to mark on the side of the chisel so that I know when I've hit bottom. Here you can really whale away on the hammering, since the walls of the mortise are already established. I keep going until I hit the end of the mortise. This takes me about 5 minutes.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSV_M_0vI/AAAAAAAAAeE/6QzQsCIozY8/s800/IMG_8409.JPG

Then it's just a matter of cleaning up the other end. Here I'll reverse the chisel so that the bevel is facing me. A little more work, and I'm done.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/SddSXOEuSBI/AAAAAAAAAeM/jrq0ctv7XnQ/s800/IMG_8411.JPG

Total time, about 15 minutes. Not bad, I'd say. My first mortise took me about half an hour. I'm definitely getting faster with practice.

Now, I'm sure that using a mortising machine would be faster, but there isn't a 1" wide mortising bit that I know of. So with a mortising machine I'd have to make one run along one side of the mortise, and another along the other side, and then waste out the middle. Over the several mortises that I need to make for this workbench, I'm sure some amount of error will creep up. This way I know all my mortises are the same width as my chisel. In addition, I have to make mortises in the underside of my workbench top, and there's no way I'm getting the benchtop in a mortising machine.

One thing is for sure -- next time I make some more normal sized 1/4" wide mortises, it's going to go a lot faster.

Hope that was entertaining! ;)

[Jacob Mac]

Wilbur:

Thank you for the thread, I am getting ready to start my own adaptation of the Roubo, and I learn a lot from these types of threads. I do have a question:

I know Schwarz recomends SYP for a bench, but neither the Lowes nor the HD in my area carries any. But my HD does have Douglas Fir. I have read conflicting opinions on using Douglas Fir for a top. What persuaded you to use Douglas Fir?

I know Scwarz seems to think it will work fine, so maybe that should be enough. He has spent a lot more time thinking about this subject than I have,

[Wilbur Pan]

Hi Jacob,

I'm using Douglas fir for probably the same reason you're considering: the borgs around here don't carry SYP 2x construction material. All the 2x material here in NJ is douglas fir. Actually, there is pressure treated SYP available around here, but I didn't want to deal with that stuff.

I think that SYP has been elevated as a workbench material for the wrong reasons. Chris Schwarz seems to like it for the following reasons:

1. It's cheap, and available where he lives.
2. It's stiff.
3. It's pretty dense.
4. It's cheap, and available where he lives.

He has an interesting take on the use of beech in traditional European benches. Beech is stiff (not as stiff as SYP or Douglas fir), dense, and cheap -- in Europe. It's expensive here, and hard to get, so for those reasons it's not a good workbench wood on this continent. Maple is stiff and dense, but it's expensive, so SYP wins out here. (Actually, maple is slightly less stiff and less dense as SYP, much to my surprise.)

As far as stiffness goes, Douglas fir is a hair stiffer than SYP. It's not quite as dense, but there are other ways to make sure your bench doesn't move (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=85596) besides mass. But most importantly, around here it's cheap, and available.

[Charles Bodner]

Wilbur
I was planning to build a Roubo-esque bench from HD 4x4 Doug Fir since they had it and price was reasonable. (I have been using a trestle arrangement of 2 4x4 DF glued together braced against the basement wall. In one direction it does not move at all.) I would use a 4x4 for easch leg. I was planning a leg vise. Any downside to just adding a couple of 2x4 DF to the leg vise leg as a lamination or just using 2 4x4 for that leg so it is wide enough for the leg vise?

[Bill Stoffels]

Nice job on the bench , I should have loaned you my LN #8 plane that would he helped you square her up a little quicker
Great job
Bill

[Wilbur Pan]

Any downside to just adding a couple of 2x4 DF to the leg vise leg as a lamination or just using 2 4x4 for that leg so it is wide enough for the leg vise?

Hi Charles,

If you are talking about taking the 4x4, which is going to be about 3-1/4" square after jointing and planing, and adding 2x4s to the side so that you have a leg about 5" wide and 3-1/4" deep, probably not.

My issue is that I wanted 5" square legs, and there was no good way to attach wood to the 4x4's I had originally planned on using to make a 5" square leg.

[Charles Bodner]

Wilbur- I was planning a Roubo-esque bench out of Doug Fir 4x4. For the leg vise leg I was thinking of just doubling the 4x4 on that leg, or adding 2x4 on each side, to make the width. Do you see a downside I do not see? Other than the loss of symmetry? Your way looks better, tand certainly far more stout, and the added weight is a plus, but I don't know that I want to spend that much more time and material.

[Wilbur Pan]

Your way looks better, and certainly far more stout, and the added weight is a plus, but I don't know that I want to spend that much more time and material.

Hi Charles,

FWIW, I had originally planned on using 4x4's for the legs on my bench, until I realized that doing so would give me a thinner clamping surface for the leg vise. I thought about gluing up wood around the 4x4 to build it up to a 5" square leg, which structurally would not have been good over the long haul. (I should point out that your glue up plan to make a 5" x 3 1/2" leg doesn't have this issue.) Then a friend of mine sent me an email pointing out some things I thought were really useful:


You're already saving an enormous amount of money by building (instead of buying) the bench....What is it, about 12' of wood - $24? I promise you, you will make mistakes much more costly that that as a woodworker. It's inevitable.

He also pointed out that since this is a workbench we're talking about, I would be using it every day I'm in the shop, and that I would always look at the legs and wonder if I had cut a corner in making it.

The next day I went back to the borg to get two 8 foot 2x12's, which is enough wood to make four 5" square legs.

As far as added time and material go in making up my 5" square legs, the additional cost of the 2x12's I purchased was less than $30. I really don't think that there was any additional time spent in milling and gluing up these 2x12's. With your plan, I still would have had to joint and plane the 4x4 and 2x4's and clamp and glue them.

The only real downside that I can see with making a 5" x 3-1/2" leg is that if you are going to join the legs to the top with M/T joints, you'll have to make adjustments to your plan, and you'll wind up with a "thinner" M/T joint. This might not make any difference structurally, since there are plenty of other workbenches out there with smaller legs. I do have the feeling, however, that if the guys making Roubo benches back in the day could have gotten away with smaller legs, they would have done so.

The only other question is whether you think there's a chance you'll be looking at the legs of your workbench a year from now wondering if you should have spent the extra $30. If so, I'd make the bigger legs. At that point in the future, you will have spent an extra $2.50 a month for those legs, and you'll probably be using your workbench for a lot longer than that. If you think you're going to be happy with your plan, then that's fine, too.

[John Keeton]

Wilbur, this bench is really coming along. I have checked in from time to time, and appreciate the pictorial.

One question - what are you doing up at 3 am????? Are you on shift work? Or, just get excited about your bench project and need to be working on it:D

[Wilbur Pan]

Hi John,

I wish I was working in the shop at that hour. ;)

I was on call last night, and was waiting for the ER to call me about one of our patients that I sent there. There's nothing like looking at woodworking forums to pass the time while waiting for a phone call. :rolleyes:

[matt braun]

Wilbur, this bench is really coming along. I have checked in from time to time, and appreciate the pictorial.

One question - what are you doing up at 3 am????? Are you on shift work? Or, just get excited about your bench project and need to be working on it:D

John,
As a fellow central-Kentuckian, I have some questions for you. What type of wood do we generally find at Home Depot and Lowes in this part of the country (Douglas Fir or pine, what type of pine)? I can't find untreated 4x4's at Home Depot. Are they there somewhere? (I'll be checking Lowes eventually, but haven't yet.)

I don't completely know forum protocal yet. If it would be more appropriate for me to ask these questions in a private message, let me know so there's not a next time.

[John Keeton]

Matt, a PM probably would work better in this case as this thread is not current, and the person to whom the question is posed (me) may not revisit the thread. Were it an active thread, then the chances would be better. Since I had viewed this thread previously, it did catch my eye.

If you are doing a bench, then buy southern yellow pine at the borg. Most framing wood beyond a 2x6 is available in SYP. The other stuff we have is usually spruce or white pine - neither of which I would use on a bench as it is too soft.

As to the 4x4, I doubt you will find anything that is not PT, but then, if I were doing a bench, I would get the 2x material and turn it edge up. That is what I did on mine. Take 2x8s, rip in half to get you a bit over 3.5 inches. After flattening, you should end up with 3.5 finished.

[Wilbur Pan]

To say that this thread isn't current is quite the understatement.

10 months later, I finally got around to finishing the joinery for one pair of legs. I had cut the mortises before, but I finally cut the tenons and drilled holes for drawboring.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S1OWz1WeVSI/AAAAAAAAA6E/jv2cFZZ791s/s800/IMG_3445.JPG

I'm going to use double mortise/tenons to attach the top to the legs. Here you can see the hole for the leg vise screw to pass through. In the previous picture you can see the slot for the parallel guide at the bottom of the leg.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S1OW03NCLrI/AAAAAAAAA6I/uko8Q9K_01g/s800/IMG_3446.JPG

I'm sure I'm going to lose major hand tool cred points here, but the holes for the leg vise screw and the drawboring were drilled using a combination of a drill press, cordless drill, a 3/8" brad point bit, and a hole saw. Why? Because overall I kind of suck at precision drilling. ;)

A picture of the dry fit. The side that I'm working on will actually be the underside of the workbench top.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S1OW1yEVnRI/AAAAAAAAA6M/5mhQOTdkeNw/s800/IMG_3447.JPG

Not much exposition here, as Chris Schwarz already has written all you need to know about drawboring.

It's amazing how much you can do if you have a long weekend when (1) you're not on call, and (b) said weekend does not involve eating large amounts of turkey or Santa bringing presents for the kids, in which case you also have to deal with visiting relatives. ;)

[harry strasil]

Well, it took me 9 years from the time the log was cut till the bench was done, took delivery of the dried timbers on Feb 9 last year, did the final vise on Sep 1. 09.

It was worth the wait!

After all Noah didn't build the Ark in a day.

All good things are worth the time to do it right!

[Al Navas]

Wilbur,
Great job! This will be a wonderful bench!!! Do they allow the use of chisels/hammer/mallet in between patients? :D Or maybe the noise is too much, right? There is a thought...


Jr,

Glad to spot you here - I am looking forward to your traveling shop during the Kansas City Woodworking Show!!! My video camera is getting itchy, for sure.


Al

[Gary McNair]

Very nice - I enjoy working with kiln dried Doug Fir although it has a tendency to splinter easily - what glue are you using?

[David Gendron]

Wilbur, have you tought of starting a thread about japanese tool use? it look like you use them a lot and know how to use them, it would be fun to have a little "show. on what they are and how to use the different saws and planes!
Your bench will be a great one!

[harry strasil]

Al, you have no respect for your camera, if it quits working or starts smoking, I am not responsible!

[John Keeton]

Wilbur!! Good to see you back at it! Great joint work, and good to see the bench project coming back to life.:D

[Brian Ashton]

Good inspirational thread for when I start my bench.

[Wilbur Pan]

Very nice - I enjoy working with kiln dried Doug Fir although it has a tendency to splinter easily - what glue are you using?

I'm using Titebond III, only because that's what I have on hand.

[Wilbur Pan]

Wilbur, have you tought of starting a thread about japanese tool use? it look like you use them a lot and know how to use them, it would be fun to have a little "show. on what they are and how to use the different saws and planes!
Your bench will be a great one!
Thanks for even thinking that I have the expertise necessary to take on such a task! That's quite a compliment. There are certainly many people who have a lot more experience with Japanese tools than I do.

I do like and use Japanese tools a lot. I have started threads about them in the past. There was one infamous thread where I decided to see how well Japanese chisels really performed in hardwoods. You can read that thread here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=83526), and the hilarity that ensued.

Overall, it seems that in this forum oftentimes threads where Japanese tools come up veer off into alleged issues about Eastern mysticism and the spirituality of the tools, which don't really have anything with how those tools perform at all, along with a sense that since some aspects of Japanese hand tool construction and use are different than western hand tools, they therefore cannot be valid at all. As a result, I've been inclined to chime in on questions as they come up, rather than bring up the topic myself. My own feeling is that there are many more similarities than differences between Japanese and western hand tools.

But I'll think about it. ;)

[David Gendron]

Thank you, I have a ryoba saw from LV, that I never realy used...I guess didn't understand it well... But used it today after reading this thread last night...It worked!

[David Gendron]

This is indeed an interesting thread....

[Wilbur Pan]

I have the legs joined to the bench top. To do this, I needed to make 8 mortises to receive the double tenons at the top of each leg. These mortises are all 1" wide, about 2" deep, and about 5" long, and are how the legs are secured to the benchtop. That exercise gave me a lot of practice trying various methods of making a mortise.

There were three main methods that I used:

1. Chopping with a 1" wide mortise chisel, like I did with the mortises for the leg stretchers. This is the most satisfying for me, because afterwards I can go around saying, "Yup -- I used a 1" wide mortise chisel to cut a 1" wide mortise 2" deep and 5" long." The problem is, the usual response to that is, "What are you -- nucking futz?" ;)

The other problem that I had was that the Douglas fir seems to have become much harder in the time it took me to get around to this step. It seemed to go much more slowly than when I made the leg mortises for the stretchers.

2. Chopping a narrower mortise along each side of the 1" wide mortise with a 1/4" mortise chisel, and then wasting out the middle. Also satisfying, but not as satisfying as using a 1" mortise chisel. It was surprisingly easy to clear out the waste with a regular chisel.

3. Drilling out most of the waste with a brace and bit, and paring/chopping the remaining waste. This was the least satisfying of the options, but it was the fastest. I used a squared up scrap piece of wood as a guide when paring/chopping to help me make sure the sides of the mortise were square.

Regardless of which method I used, I learned the importance of clearing out the chips when making a mortise. Even the drill and pare method slowed down quite a bit when I let the mortise fill up with shavings from drillng and paring. To help me clear out the chips, I used that time honored hand tool -- the shop vac. ;)

In any case, from here on out, making the more normal sized 1/4" wide mortise and tenon joints used in furniture are going to be a piece of cake in comparison.

Anyway, here's another picture illustrating what I'm up against with fitting the mortises to the tenons.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S6aI-aaEn4I/AAAAAAAABAg/khGefI3wy6o/s800/IMG_4147.JPG

Because my base is already assembled, I have to fit all 8 mortise and tenon joints simultaneously. Basically, the way I went about it is to drop the base into the mortises, marking out the parts of the 8 mortises where it looks like the fit is too tight, and then paring out the mortise at those spots. I started out by trying to adjust the tenons, but fitting the base, marking the tight spots, moving the base out, and rolling the base on its side so I could get at the tenons got old quick.

It went faster when I learned that I can be a bit more aggressive with adjusting the tenons and mortises. On this scale, I don't think that I'll need 0.005" precision, especially I was planning on drawboring the joints, and I expect gravity to be on my side in keeping the top stable when the workbench is finally done. Besides, I know what the fit was like in the leg mortises for the stretchers, and since I had to redo the two stretcher joints, I got a real good look as to how much good glue contact you can have with what might look like a sloppy joint, but is actually much tighter than you might think.

Finally, I got the legs connected to the top!

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S6glonKDBMI/AAAAAAAABBU/D8WY0C9a3fc/s800/IMG_4152.JPG

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S6glp07J5dI/AAAAAAAABBY/S-E8ZgZQRjQ/s800/IMG_4153.jpg

After several cycles of adjusting the tenons and/or mortises, test fitting the legs to the top, working the legs out of the top (the hardest part), and adjusting again, I had gotten the legs so that they were fitting to a point that when the leg tenons were inserted into the mortises, the shoulders of the leg tenons were about 3/8" from meeting up with the benchtop. But it seemed that I just needed to to the slightest bit of trimming to get it to fit. But I decided to go with brute force instead. ;)

See the clamps in the pictures? Those are 36" Wetzlers. I placed the clamps across the bottom of the legs and the benchtop, and I used them to force the legs home. The net result is that at least some of those 8 M/T joints are an extremely tight friction fit -- so tight that I decided skip the drawboring that I was planning to do, and to let gravity and friction to keep these joints in place. This assembly is not coming apart any time soon. If by chance it does, I'll drawbore and glue the joints then.

Whew!

Next step: making the groove in the bottom of the benchtop for the deadman, and then I can turn this bench over. After begging my neighbors for help, that is. ;)

[Michael Peet]

Looks great, Wilbur. I hope mine comes out that nice. How much would you estimate the undercarriage weighs? I have just started assembling my legs and am surprised at the weight.

Mike

[Robert Rozaieski]

Looking good Wilbur! You should be home free now.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Great job Wilbur. Work and family commitments/distractions aside, you should be finished in no time and will get to enjoy the fruits of your labors. As for more mortises, after this effort everything else will seem a piece of cake, particularly when you use woods that are less stringy. By the way, I've always believed in the brute force and ignorance technique when the wood will allow it. You aren't going to have any problems with the bench staying together, but forget ANY hope of ever getting it apart. The only way that will happen is with dynamite or a chain saw.:D

[Floyd Mah]

Hey Wilbur, I know what it's like to be on call and waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm retired now so no more shoes falling. Anyway, great job, but I noticed that you made a mistake. The legs are on the top of the table!!! You're going to need to go back to the hospital and get a bunch of orderlies to help you turn that bench over. I made a lighter workbench and I had to recruit my kids when they came over on the weekend to make the flip.

[Wilbur Pan]

One of the last things I needed to do before flipping my workbench over is to make the groove to receive the upper tenon on the sliding deadman. Originally I thought about this in terms of being a deep groove, as it is 5/8" wide and needs to be 1-1/2" deep. So I thought about using some sort of plow plane, except that none of the planes that I have that would be suitable for this task will make a groove that deep. Then I started thinking of this less as a groove, and more like a really long mortise.

I used my Japanese plow plane to establish the sides of the groove. The groove is 5/8" wide, and the plane cuts a groove 1/4" wide, so I did one side and then the other.

After the sides were established, the groove was about 1/4" deep. It needs to be 1-1/2" deep when its done. To do the rest, I tried a few approaches, but the most efficient seemed to be to use a 1/4" mortise chisel to continue the grooves that the plane left. I chopped down at the far end of the groove so that it was at final width and depth, and then started working back along the tracks left by the Japanese plow plane, first one side, and then the other. There was one section of the groove where I tried drilling out the waste with a 1/2" brad point bit and cleaning up the sides, but this seemed to be easier overall, and not much slower.

It also helped that I sharpened my mortise chisel really well, so that it had a nice matte finish. ;)

Here's an in-progress shot of the groove.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S7dMEir-ZII/AAAAAAAABB4/6qGsfPlv8Es/s800/IMG_4460.jpg

This may sound like a lot of work, but it's actually not as bad as it may seem. The key, I think, is that by establishing the end of the groove, I gave the chips someplace to go as I chopped, which makes mortising go much faster. As a result, I can work back going about 1/4" at a time, and it takes me about 5-10 seconds of chopping to drive the mortise chisel down to the depth that I want. This goes by much more quickly than it sounds.

Of course, a router would be faster, but what's the fun in using that? In the end, it will be way cooler to say that I made this groove by hand. Stupider, maybe, but still cooler.

Plus, I don't have a router. Not the electric kind, anyway.

After finishing the chopping. I used a router plane to finish leveling out the bottom of the groove, checked the groove with a straightedge and square, and pared the sides of the groove to make sure that they are the correct width and square.

Here's the final result, along with the tools that I used during this process.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S7k1WBQF9UI/AAAAAAAABCY/_clm5FwvIZk/s800/IMG_4473.jpg

Between this and making the 1" wide mortise and tenon joints for the stretchers and leg-to-benchtop joints, I've done a lot of mortise making. This is what I learned while doing all this chopping:

-- Again, I think the key to making the mortise chopping easy is to first give the waste somewhere to go. Either work on one end and make it full width and depth, or simply drill out a hole at the end of the mortise to give you clearance. It's surprising how much faster the chopping goes.

-- When chopping, many light hammer blows is easier, and not really that much slower, than a few big hammer blows.

-- It seems that the conventional wisdom is that chopping the mortise takes a lot of time. Actually, the final paring and checking the sides of the mortise for square probably takes up just as much time.

-- Whenever I was having trouble with making the mortise, without a doubt the problem was either a tool that could be sharper, or I thought something is square when it really was not.

-- It's unbelievable how useful a big wide 2" chisel is. I've put a 2" wide paring chisel on my shopping list.

Now that this groove is finally done, I think I've cleared a major milestone, because now I can turn this bench over and use the top. After flattening it, of course. ;) Then I can use the bench to make the other parts: the deadman, and the leg vise assembly.

[John Schreiber]

Stupider, maybe, but still cooler.
It's good to hear from someone who thinks like me.:o:)

[Wilbur Pan]

With the help of my neighbor, I got my workbench off the sawhorses and onto its side. The legs on the front side of the bench are proud of the front side of the benchtop by 1/16"-3/32", so I put it on its side so it would be easy for me to plane it down.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S7x3AfhmPjI/AAAAAAAABCk/o05tkJnYek8/s800/IMG_4474.jpg

I mentioned this before in this thread, but it's really great to have a plane with a wide mouth and a decent amount of camber. I took a jack plane and had the 3/32" of extra material pretty much removed in less than 10 swipes. You can get an idea of how few shavings I needed to make with the jack plane by what's on the floor. The reason there are so few shavings is that each shaving is pretty thick.

So after work earlier this week I finished off the smoothing of the legs. Tonight we had a very nice dinner on our back patio, and just as we finished, I saw my back door neighbor who knows all things woodworking, and he came over to help me get my workbench on its feet. I decided to get a jump on flattening out the top. When I did my original glue up I kept what would eventually be the top faces of the 4x4's aligned, so this side of the 4x4's were pretty well aligned. They were out maybe 3/32" at most.

I used the same technique as I did way back when I flattened out the underside of the bench: I marked out two foot sections, and made liberal use of a straightedge to help identify the high spots and a crayon to help me locate what parts of that section I had and hadn't planed yet. Then I went to town using a jack plane with the pronounced camber, going across the grain. My wife decided to take an action shot of me doing this. You can see that I have the first two foot section done, and I'm getting ready to attack the next two foot section.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S71CRDStkYI/AAAAAAAABDI/2Lbk9YRpcOM/s800/IMG_4511.jpg

Again, this went more quickly than I would have thought. I had the major unevenness between the boards flattened out in about 1-1/2 hours. Then I set about to jointing the benchtop surface.

I've been looking forward to this part of building my workbench, because I had some toys I was saving up to play with during this part. Here are three of them:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S71CSAs7rmI/AAAAAAAABDM/HciR5NIMpH4/s800/IMG_4533.JPG

These jointers all have a story. The Stanley #7 was the second plane I ever bought, and the first plane where I tried a Hock blade and chipbreaker.

The wooden plane was one that I got for pretty cheap when a family called our woodworking club to get our help to figure out to do with their grandfather's woodworking equipment after he had passed away. In thanks for our help, I got that wooden jointer plane for a song. The blade says "W. Butcher Warranted Cast Steel", and appears to be laminated.

The Lie-Nielsen #7 I got when I had read an interview with Thomas Lie-Nielsen about their plans to offer O-1 steel blades for some of their planes. I emailed the company to tell them that their lack of O-1 steel plane blades was one of the reasons I had never bought a Lie-Nielsen plane, since I didn't really like using A-2 blades based on my trying out a Lie-Nielsen plane from my neighbor. To my surprise, Thomas Lie-Nielsen himself sent me a reply, and in an impressive feat of salesmanship, thanked me for my input, and then asked me, "Are there any particular planes you would like to order with O-1 blades? I'd be happy to get started with a tool you are interested in." After being asked that, I really had no choice but to buy a LN #7, right? ;) This is one of the first Lie-Nielsen planes with an O-1 blade.

But wait, there's more!

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S71CTMfE7EI/AAAAAAAABDQ/aaf2G1bMYgA/s800/IMG_4536.JPG

This is a HUGE 34" long (!) wooden jointer plane I got from Kevin Adams. That's the LN #7 it's sitting next to, for scale. The blade says "William Ash & Co. Warranted Cast Steel", and it also looks like it's laminated.

I gave all of these jointers a try. I was really surprised as to how light the 34" jointer was. Both of the wooden jointer plane blades sharpened up nicely, but my trying to use the two wooden jointers was a big flail. This wasn't a surprise, as I really have no experience with western wooden planes at all. Most of the problems I had were with the shavings choking the throat of the wooden planes.

Between the LN #7 and the Stanley #7 with the Hock blade, I think I liked the Stanley better. The LN #7 is a bit heavier than the Stanley #7, to the point where it was just a bit more difficult to push than I would like, especially for a surface this large.

In any case, I almost finished with the jointing that night. Here's where I'm at.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S71CUM0KYqI/AAAAAAAABDU/4OFdbAl1JG4/s800/IMG_4537.JPG

There's a bit more tearout than I would like in spots from using the jack plane across the grain, but it's really shaping up to be a nice looking bench.

[Wilbur Pan]

I did some more jointing and smoothing of the benchtop. I think it's pretty much where I want it in terms of flatness, especially in the area towards the front of the bench where most of the planing will take place.

By the way, I have to take back what I said about the LN #7 being noticeably heavier and harder to use than my Stanley #7 with the Hock blade. I completely forgot to put some wax on the sole of the #7. Once I did that, the LN #7 was much easier to use. It still felt heavier than the Stanley, but the difference in effort was not nearly as great. Stupid stupid stupid. :eek::o

Getting back to planes that I am more familiar with, I also worked on making the planing stop for Japanese planes. These are the components of the planing stop.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S76e4otfbBI/AAAAAAAABDg/lyJnUpkwr9I/s800/IMG_4593.JPG

A flathead brass machine screw, a threaded insert, and a scrap piece of cherry. This is what it looks like set up.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S76e5VqYaKI/AAAAAAAABDk/6dIBOMeDTSs/s800/IMG_4594.JPG

Nothing is clamped down here. The plane engages the workpiece, and pulls it into the scrap piece of cherry, which pulls into the screws, locking everything in place.

Action shot:

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S76e6FS1fWI/AAAAAAAABDo/ZklYd5D1Knk/s800/IMG_4595.JPG

And the obligatory gratuitous shaving photo:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S76e624XgGI/AAAAAAAABDs/axNd1ovr0lE/s800/IMG_4598.JPG

Compared to a tail vise, this system is ridiculously quick to set up. There's no twirling of the tail vise screw handle, and no backlash to deal with. If I were to plane a thicker piece of wood, I'd raise the screws up a bit (they are 2" long) and use a thicker piece of scrap wood.

I'm also happy to say that with all the jointing and smoothing, my bench didn't move a bit. :D

Sometimes the subject of how flat does your workbench need to be comes up. Since I had a freshly flattened benchtop available, just for grins, I checked out a two foot area at the front edge of my workbench, just in front of the planing stop I made for Japanese planes. I was able to sneak a 0.001" feeler gauge under a Starrett 24" ruler at one spot, and that was all.

Now, I don't think that I am some sort of planing prodigy. I used a LN #7 and my go-to Japanese plane for this purpose. I didn't do anything special -- just running the planes down the length of the benchtop covering a bit at a time.

In fact, I'd describe my experience level with hand tools as being in the average range. Certainly there are many more woodworkers that have more years of experience than I do. But if I can hit that tolerance without really trying, my feeling is that most people who have any sort of skill at using a hand plane can do the same.

Chris Schwarz once reported that his workbench had a flatness of a few thousandths of an inch, and I want to say that the number he quoted was 0.006". So what would be the disadvantage of making your benchtop that flat? The only thing I can think of is the time and effort expended in getting your benchtop that way. But if we go by the 0.006" tolerance that Chris Schwarz once reported measuring on his bench, I think that the amount of effort needed to establish 0.006" tolerance is way overstated if you are halfway decent at using a plane. If you can set up a 22" long Stanley #7 jointer plane to take a shaving in the 0.003" range, you should easily be able to hit a 0.006" tolerance over a two foot span. So to me, there really isn't that much effort you need to take to hit that tolerance. It really isn't any more effort than what you would normally do to flatten and smooth any board with hand planes.

[Wilbur Pan]

Got the holes for the holdfasts done. Here are a few quick photos to show how I set things up for drilling these holes.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S8fb7Vk_QwI/AAAAAAAABEU/TAqO_-j4Mrc/s800/IMG_4616.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S8fb6RjkNKI/AAAAAAAABEQ/a5mYY4ZPIHY/s800/IMG_4615.jpg

I used a scrap piece of 2x4, put it on my drill press, and drilled a 3/4" hole through it. Then I clamped it so that the bit was centered on the spot that I wanted to drill. A second piece of 2x4 went on the bottom to prevent blowout.

I found a brace with a 14" sweep on eBay a little while ago, and I have to say, I was amazed as to how much easier the drilling went compared to my experience with a 10" sweep brace. I was able to drill through the benchtop, which is 3-1/4" thick, in less than a minute, without breaking a sweat. And I sweat a lot. TMI, I know. ;)

So here's an action shot of the holdfasts holding fast.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S8fb8V2yehI/AAAAAAAABEY/ohbzsFB328c/s800/IMG_4618.JPG

[Wilbur Pan]

I've got my almost complete workbench in its new spot in my shop.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S8w75awX3KI/AAAAAAAABEg/PHfqLFgVqQg/s800/IMG_4685.JPG

The floor is a bit uneven in that part of my basement, so that the workbench was rocking a little, but putting a wedge under one of the legs quickly took care of that issue, and now this thing is rock solid.

I can't believe how much more room I have now that the workbench is out of that middle area of my workshop. The hand tools stored on the far wall will be moved to the wall above the new workbench location, and my lathe, which used to sit where the workbench is now, is going to be situated along the far wall. I also want to add some lighting directly over the workbench area.

I'm currently working on the leg vise chop. It's so nice to have a real work surface to do this.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/S8w76r7gclI/AAAAAAAABEo/nrNFR7nhKIE/s800/IMG_4686.JPG

After I make that, the sliding deadman, and set some boards across the stretchers for some storage space, this bench will be done! There shouldn't be any real issues with building those parts (famous last words) so unless something interesting happens ;) , my next and last post in this thread will be the finished bench.

[Wilbur Pan]

My workbench is pretty much done. There are still a few things to do. I still need to make a sliding deadman, but I've found that I have other ways to deal with edge planing longer boards for now. I also need to tune up the handle for the vise, put some boards across the bottom stretchers for extra storage, and make a real pin for the leg vise instead of the 3/8" oak dowel that I'm using. I also want to hang an additional fluorescent light fixture above the bench.

But the bench is in position, and I've got the key parts of my wall tool storage up and running. As you can see, I decided to go with unfinished pine boards. I might decide to paint the pine boards later on, but that will be easy for me to do if I go that route, since all the tool storage is just screwed onto the pine boards.

So I'm finally declaring victory on this project. And it only took 18 months. ;)

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/TAW8oKQmW5I/AAAAAAAABIg/Vng-NvC4vGU/s800/IMG_4997.JPG

The exposed 2x4's to the left of the bench is where my sharpening table is. It's not there now so I can mount pine boards onto the 2x4's like I did for my workbench. Then I'll push it back in place.

[Prashun Patel]

Sheesh, Wilbur, some of those pix are frameable. Wonderful work! I think I'm more in awe of your chisel, plane, and saw collection, though...

[john davey]

Nice setup. One question though. Why all of the outlets since it seems all you have to plug in is your grinder? :D:D

[Wilbur Pan]

Good pickup. ;)

When I was initially laying out my shop, this was the wall that I thought my lathe would be on, and I decided to install more outlets than I could conceive of using, so that I wouldn't have to go back and add more later on. The workbench I was using at the time was at the other end of the shop, where there are few outlets.

Now the lathe is over in that end of the shop, and my new workbench is where the lathe used to be.

[Phil Thien]

Outstanding job.

[john davey]

I was really kinda kidding ;). You can never have enough as far as I am concerned....



Good pickup. ;)

When I was initially laying out my shop, this was the wall that I thought my lathe would be on, and I decided to install more outlets than I could conceive of using, so that I wouldn't have to go back and add more later on. The workbench I was using at the time was at the other end of the shop, where there are few outlets.

Now the lathe is over in that end of the shop, and my new workbench is where the lathe used to be.

[Steve Branam]

I really like the pine boards on the wall. That's so much more warm and inviting than concrete or cinder block wall. I had thought about doing that on my whole wall, but wasn't ready to commit the money for that much pine. The small area looks just as nice without breaking the bank.

[Wilbur Pan]

I thought I'd post an update on my workshop bootstrap process. I have the vast majority of my tools organized and up on the wall, which is a lot better than sitting on the ground in cardboard boxes, which is where they used to be. I'm surprised by how much room was taken by measuring and marking tools. That's pretty much the left third of the wall above the bench -- everything to the left of the chisel rack.

I still haven't made the sliding deadman yet. That's the board sitting on the right side of the bench. I also have pine board cutoffs sitting across the stretchers that will ultimately be a bottom shelf. Those cutoffs are less than an inch longer than they need to be for this purpose. Now that's efficient use of wood. ;)

And before the "time to make a project" chant starts up, I did make a small pencil cup out of cherry scraps that I had. It's nothing fancy -- just 5 sides of a cube, with rabbeted joints at the corners and a groove to hold the bottom piece in. It's on the small shelf just to the left of the chisel rack. Again, I couldn't believe how quickly it went together now that I have a workbench to use.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a3R4RhWn1Is/TDKFssrKeLI/AAAAAAAABK0/R56jz8cgcIo/s800/IMG_5827.JPG

[John Keeton]

Wilbur, it is coming together well!! These pics are a far cry from the "beginning" and your perserverance is paying off. Really looks as though you have maximized your space and ended up with a very workable area.

Great bench!! And, I love the organization. A true Neander haven.

[Terry Beadle]

Great Job Wilbur !

Now that's a bench!

Nothing average about your planing skills either.

I'm sure you will enjoy that bench and all the great times to come.

Gloat Credit Due !

[Garrett Ellis]

Surely by now you have made the sliding deadman?? let's see it!

[Greg Berlin]

This looks incredibly familiar to the bench I'm making right now using 4x4's out of Douglas Fir with 5x5 laminated legs. I'm hoping it turns out just as nice as yours!

[Wilbur Pan]

Surely by now you have made the sliding deadman?? let's see it!
Sorry it took me a year to answer this. Here's a fairly recent photo. The sliding deadman was made of a piece of 8/4 cherry I had lying around. Probably extravagant for a sliding deadman, but given how little I spent on the wood for my workbench, I figured that the deadman and the leg vise were two pieces of wood I could splurge on.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-o2Q_KQNcJFg/T4SByKmV_aI/AAAAAAAAB0Q/7TM1w3XQd0M/s800/IMG_5113.JPG