Jerry Strojny
11-05-2009, 2:56 PM
A couple of weeks ago, a friend (Evan) and I drove down to American Sycamore Retreat (http://www.americansycamoreretreat.com/) for a weeklong "class". We had a one-on-one with Mike Van Pelt building a workbench. He started his school in 2001. A few years ago he was on the Woodworking Shows circuit doing the demo's in the Delta booth.
A workbench to me is the "center" of the workshop. So it was very exciting to finally have a "real" workbench. And even better something that I built. Just felt like sharing with the great people here my experience, and encourage any else to tell the story of their bench.
DAY 1
Each bench will take about 110 bd ft of hard maple and 35 bd ft of walnut. So it was straight to the wood pile and start jointing and planing.
After jointing and planing the the rough lumber, we cut them all down to about 4" wide.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020173.jpg
After selecting the boards we each wanted for our top, we marked for biscuits every 6". Then the "marathon" glue up. All hands on deck for these. The three of us had to work fast to get all the surfaces gooped with glue and then clamped....and then we did it again. That was the end of day 1.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020178.jpg
DAY 2
Day 2 started with taking all the clamps off and then getting to work on the aprons. We selected 2 maple boards and 2 walnut boards. After machining those just like yesterday, we got ready to work with the plunge router. Mike has a 1" solid aluminum template made up for routing out the dog holes. Here you can see me working one of 26 for each bench. Tedious and repetitive work...it was a long day for me.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020185.jpg
After all those were done, we marked for biscuits and glued the walnut to the maple...voila, you have instant dog holes.
DAY 3
Today we started with cutting the top glue-up down to it's final size. Multiple passes with a router...If it were up to me and Evan, we would have cut it slightly long using a portable saw and then just cleaned up the cut with the router...would have been much faster with the same results. But anyway.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020190.jpg
Here you can see Evan cutting more biscuits to attach the apron to the top.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020193.jpg
Here I am cutting my aprons down to final size. Must match the length of the top exactly! (well very close at least.)
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020199.jpg
After all that was fitted to the top, we glued them to the top.
Next we got started on the wood for the vises. Here is Evan face jointing a piece for his side vise. Two pieces are used to make the tail vise. They all get run through the planer, ripped to width on the table saw, and then glued up. Final planing is done the next day to clean up the glue and get them to final width and length. We also had to make the end aprons. These were all done at the same time with the vises.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020200.jpg
DAY 4
Next we got to drilling holes for the vises. A bit of set up happens before the drill actually comes out. 3 holes for each vise, so after 12 holes, we could finally move on.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020207.jpg
Here I had just cut my tail vise to final width...I got lucky on my second try...Mike is admiring how well it lined up the the sides of the bench.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020211.jpg
We then marked the center-point for holes in the end and side vises. Took them to the drill press, and drilled those 12 holes. After those were drilled, we marked and pre-drilled the holes for the vise hardware that gets attached to the underside of the bench and screwed those down.
Here is near the end of the day. Apparently we had also machined and glued up wood for the legs...you always start to forget to take pictures by day 3 or 4 of anything don't you?
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020216.jpg
DAY 5
We worked on the base this day. In the picture below, you can see two feet glued up. The spaces are the mortises for the tenons that will be cut into the bottom of the legs.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020219.jpg
After cutting the legs to length, they were sent to the router table. Mike has a big profile bit that put a nice detail to the top of the leg...you can it here, Even is sanding the side of the foot on Mike's oscillating belt sander.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020221.jpg
End of the day, we flipped over the bench tops...it's been a few days since we saw them. We were pretty proud of what we had done so far.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020226.jpg
DAY 6
Last day. All the base pieces had been glued up so all that was left was machining some wood for the shelf. I guess I forgot to take any photos of the shelf stretchers...but how many times do you need to see jointing, planing, ripping, cutting the length? The only unique thing was cutting the tenons on the end. Table saw with a dado cutters. Nothing special. After machining the walnut for the shelf slats, the tops were rounded over (1/8") and then marked for pre-drilling. Drill press did the "heavy work" of the pre-drilling. Maple plugs were used on the walnut slats. Here you can see Evan touching up the tops of the shelf slats to match the top of the stretcher. (A 1" rabbit was cut for the slats to sit on.)
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020235.jpg
Here is my bench with the top on for the first time. All that was left was making the "end caps" that fill in the open side of the tenon in the legs. The tops and sides were sanded with many grits, until it was smooth as....you know what.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020233.jpg
We hung around the shop till about 7:30 chatting with Mike. I was sore after that week. Lots of heavy lifting for a desk jockey. But well worth it. I love the bench....but I suppose I should actually use it before I give the official thumbs up.
Incase anyone was wondering, the bench is 78" long, 81" if you include the jaw of the vise. 24" wide. Aprons are just over 5" and the top is 1 3/4" thick. The side and tail vises are 6" tall. The vise hardware is Rockler's 12" vise. (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=17385&filter=vise) The legs are about 4" square, the feet are about 4"x5" and 28" long. When I got it home I set the individual pieces on a bathroom scale. The overall weight is about 322 pounds. It is a very solid and stout bench. In the future I hope to add a board jack (like shaker style benches) and also add some drawer storage on that shelf in the base. Any ideas for the board jack would be greatly appreciated. Oh yeah, I'm still debating as to what finish to put on it. Happy building!
A workbench to me is the "center" of the workshop. So it was very exciting to finally have a "real" workbench. And even better something that I built. Just felt like sharing with the great people here my experience, and encourage any else to tell the story of their bench.
DAY 1
Each bench will take about 110 bd ft of hard maple and 35 bd ft of walnut. So it was straight to the wood pile and start jointing and planing.
After jointing and planing the the rough lumber, we cut them all down to about 4" wide.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020173.jpg
After selecting the boards we each wanted for our top, we marked for biscuits every 6". Then the "marathon" glue up. All hands on deck for these. The three of us had to work fast to get all the surfaces gooped with glue and then clamped....and then we did it again. That was the end of day 1.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020178.jpg
DAY 2
Day 2 started with taking all the clamps off and then getting to work on the aprons. We selected 2 maple boards and 2 walnut boards. After machining those just like yesterday, we got ready to work with the plunge router. Mike has a 1" solid aluminum template made up for routing out the dog holes. Here you can see me working one of 26 for each bench. Tedious and repetitive work...it was a long day for me.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020185.jpg
After all those were done, we marked for biscuits and glued the walnut to the maple...voila, you have instant dog holes.
DAY 3
Today we started with cutting the top glue-up down to it's final size. Multiple passes with a router...If it were up to me and Evan, we would have cut it slightly long using a portable saw and then just cleaned up the cut with the router...would have been much faster with the same results. But anyway.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020190.jpg
Here you can see Evan cutting more biscuits to attach the apron to the top.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020193.jpg
Here I am cutting my aprons down to final size. Must match the length of the top exactly! (well very close at least.)
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020199.jpg
After all that was fitted to the top, we glued them to the top.
Next we got started on the wood for the vises. Here is Evan face jointing a piece for his side vise. Two pieces are used to make the tail vise. They all get run through the planer, ripped to width on the table saw, and then glued up. Final planing is done the next day to clean up the glue and get them to final width and length. We also had to make the end aprons. These were all done at the same time with the vises.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020200.jpg
DAY 4
Next we got to drilling holes for the vises. A bit of set up happens before the drill actually comes out. 3 holes for each vise, so after 12 holes, we could finally move on.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020207.jpg
Here I had just cut my tail vise to final width...I got lucky on my second try...Mike is admiring how well it lined up the the sides of the bench.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020211.jpg
We then marked the center-point for holes in the end and side vises. Took them to the drill press, and drilled those 12 holes. After those were drilled, we marked and pre-drilled the holes for the vise hardware that gets attached to the underside of the bench and screwed those down.
Here is near the end of the day. Apparently we had also machined and glued up wood for the legs...you always start to forget to take pictures by day 3 or 4 of anything don't you?
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020216.jpg
DAY 5
We worked on the base this day. In the picture below, you can see two feet glued up. The spaces are the mortises for the tenons that will be cut into the bottom of the legs.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020219.jpg
After cutting the legs to length, they were sent to the router table. Mike has a big profile bit that put a nice detail to the top of the leg...you can it here, Even is sanding the side of the foot on Mike's oscillating belt sander.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020221.jpg
End of the day, we flipped over the bench tops...it's been a few days since we saw them. We were pretty proud of what we had done so far.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020226.jpg
DAY 6
Last day. All the base pieces had been glued up so all that was left was machining some wood for the shelf. I guess I forgot to take any photos of the shelf stretchers...but how many times do you need to see jointing, planing, ripping, cutting the length? The only unique thing was cutting the tenons on the end. Table saw with a dado cutters. Nothing special. After machining the walnut for the shelf slats, the tops were rounded over (1/8") and then marked for pre-drilling. Drill press did the "heavy work" of the pre-drilling. Maple plugs were used on the walnut slats. Here you can see Evan touching up the tops of the shelf slats to match the top of the stretcher. (A 1" rabbit was cut for the slats to sit on.)
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020235.jpg
Here is my bench with the top on for the first time. All that was left was making the "end caps" that fill in the open side of the tenon in the legs. The tops and sides were sanded with many grits, until it was smooth as....you know what.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u317/ElGuapoLego/Workbench/P1020233.jpg
We hung around the shop till about 7:30 chatting with Mike. I was sore after that week. Lots of heavy lifting for a desk jockey. But well worth it. I love the bench....but I suppose I should actually use it before I give the official thumbs up.
Incase anyone was wondering, the bench is 78" long, 81" if you include the jaw of the vise. 24" wide. Aprons are just over 5" and the top is 1 3/4" thick. The side and tail vises are 6" tall. The vise hardware is Rockler's 12" vise. (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=17385&filter=vise) The legs are about 4" square, the feet are about 4"x5" and 28" long. When I got it home I set the individual pieces on a bathroom scale. The overall weight is about 322 pounds. It is a very solid and stout bench. In the future I hope to add a board jack (like shaker style benches) and also add some drawer storage on that shelf in the base. Any ideas for the board jack would be greatly appreciated. Oh yeah, I'm still debating as to what finish to put on it. Happy building!