Dave Cav
04-09-2009, 10:10 PM
I have finally started making some decent progress on my workbench. I have the legs pretty much done and assembled, and started milling the lumber for the top today. The legs are glued up from alder and milled to about 3 1/2" square. Stretchers are also glued up from alder and milled to size. Short stretchers are attached by M&T, long stretchers by bed bolts (actually just 6" bolts and square nuts). I finished the leg glue up yesterday and assembled them to see how they looked.
Today I started milling the top. Most of the top will be ash. I started with 5/4 ash, between 7 and 10" wide and around 7 feet long. I trimmed it all to 78 inches on the RAS, then jointed all the boards and ripped them to 3 1/2, so I got 2 to 3 top boards out of each rough board. Tomorrow I'll lightly thickness plane the boards, just enough to clean up the sides. Under the legs is a pile of walnut; that's what I'm going to mill the dog hole strips out of. I decided to do walnut dog holes just to add a little contrast to the top. The walnut boards were pretty rough and didn't have very good edges, so I ripped each one down to 1 3/4" and also ripped a few pieces of ash to the same size, then edge glued them so I'll have a board that's 3 1/2" wide with walnut on top and ash on the bottom; I'll mill the dog holes, probably using a dado blade and sled on the table saw as per Landis, and when they're glued up only the oak will show. I'm probably going to glue the top up in two 12" wide sections so I can thickness plane it with my 15" planer, then glue the two sections together and then flatten it with a router sled, or take it to a big shop with a wider planer or belt sander...assuming I can move it.
Vises will be fairly ordinary, both conventional, one in the left front, one on the right end. The front vise jaws will be about 20" wide, and the end will be around 12 or 14. For the front vise I'm using a Grizzly vise that provides the hardware and you provide the faces.
115293
Today I started milling the top. Most of the top will be ash. I started with 5/4 ash, between 7 and 10" wide and around 7 feet long. I trimmed it all to 78 inches on the RAS, then jointed all the boards and ripped them to 3 1/2, so I got 2 to 3 top boards out of each rough board. Tomorrow I'll lightly thickness plane the boards, just enough to clean up the sides. Under the legs is a pile of walnut; that's what I'm going to mill the dog hole strips out of. I decided to do walnut dog holes just to add a little contrast to the top. The walnut boards were pretty rough and didn't have very good edges, so I ripped each one down to 1 3/4" and also ripped a few pieces of ash to the same size, then edge glued them so I'll have a board that's 3 1/2" wide with walnut on top and ash on the bottom; I'll mill the dog holes, probably using a dado blade and sled on the table saw as per Landis, and when they're glued up only the oak will show. I'm probably going to glue the top up in two 12" wide sections so I can thickness plane it with my 15" planer, then glue the two sections together and then flatten it with a router sled, or take it to a big shop with a wider planer or belt sander...assuming I can move it.
Vises will be fairly ordinary, both conventional, one in the left front, one on the right end. The front vise jaws will be about 20" wide, and the end will be around 12 or 14. For the front vise I'm using a Grizzly vise that provides the hardware and you provide the faces.
115293