Workbench question

[Chen-Tin Tsai]

So I got started over the weekend building my new workbench. It's a modest sized one, about 36" long, 15" wide and 33" high with a 3.5" thick top. I'm making it from 2x12 fir framing lumber, which I've cut and ripped down to 37ish" x 3.5ish" pieces. They'll be turned on edge and laminated. If my pizza box calculations are correct, the bench will be 75lbs or so dry weight. Add on another 25lbs or so for the vise and probably 40lbs of fishing sinkers that I will be storing in a shallow, covered tray spread out between the stretchers, I think it just might be heavy enough to work (mostly :o). I forgot to take pics while I was making sawdust with my tailed apprentice but I'll try to snap some of the pile of wood in my living room :D

Now, I'm working with a #5 Stanley to plane down and true up the surfaces (I'm now getting a full width shaving, about 0.005" thick and making a nice, smooth surface now! :cool:) but I'm wondering if it'll work for the top when I laminate it together. Would it just be better now to get a #7 (and if so, where would I get a decent condition one that wouldn't need too much work on the sole?)

I also had an epiphany on why there were apprentices in the olden days...it's tough sweaty work dimensioning lumber. Even with the aid of a circular saw and a table saw, it took me most of the afternoon cutting the 2x12s down to rough dimension and I haven't started to glue up the top! :p I would have loved to have had a power jointer and planer yesterday :rolleyes:

Oh, yeah, and a minor update on my plane iron sharpening; I got a Veritas MkII jig and some new sandpaper and went at it with a vengenance. The irons out of my #4 had a chunk missing that had to be ground down (took a while) and the #5 was out of square. I rebeveled both at 25 degrees (according to the set up of the MkII jig) and got the edges down even. Most grits, I'm getting a decent wire edge (though it's still hard at higher grits) and the irons are cutting much better. In fact, for both planes, I'm able to take full width (around 1.5" wide) shavings off of the fir and it leaves the surface pretty good (there are some very nice iridescent patterns in the planed surface). It was also markedly easier to plane when the soles were waxed with Johnson's Paste Wax. I also see people rubbing something like candle wax on their planes before use; is this some sort of special wax, or would plain beeswax from the arts and craft store work?

[Joe McMahon]

The wax you saw was probably paraffin used in caning. It is cheap and available at most hardware stores as well as a lot of larger grocery stores. It works quite well.

[Terry Beadle]

A #7 would be nice to have but it is not a requirement. You can keep using the #5 you have but check with a long straight edge. The #5 should be adjusted to take a 2 thou shaving to finish the work bench top and the straight edge will give you the feed back you need to get to flat or a very slight hollow.

If you get a #7, like off the bay or some one like jonzimmersantiquetools.com, it will make the work more easy to accomplish a flat bench top but it is not a requirement to achieve flat.

Good luck and enjoy the process !

[Rick Erickson]

The rule I've heard is to double the length of your plane and that is the board length you can legitimately flatten.

[Tri Hoang]

use the cheapest candle you could find...the same advice I got when I started out. It works like a charm. Besides, it take a loooong time to use up just a little piece.

[Chen-Tin Tsai]

OK. After getting the pieces cut and most of the top glued together (got held up some due to trying to figure out how to make a veneer press screw into a wagon bench, a la Schwarz), I started to clean up the legs and prepare the stretchers.

Here's a couple pic of most of the top and two legs with the short stretcher. It's still missing the pieces for the dog holes and where the wagon vise would fit.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3087

A shot of the leg pair and the lower stretcher. The tenon was cut on a table saw since I couldn't think of how to cut it by hand (no tenon saw, only a cheap miter saw from the Orange BORG).
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3088

Here's a stretcher tenon fitted into the leg.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3089

I drilled out the mortise with a 3/4" forstner bit and cleaned it up with a couple of chisels. I had to resharpen a couple of chisels with the Veritas MkII and now they cut much cleaner :)
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3090

Here's a picture of the fit of the tenon into the mortise. It's fairly tight and needs a light tap from my mallet.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3091

A shot of the back. How'd I do for my first mortise and tenon joint?
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3092

[David Gendron]

Thank you for sharing! Good progress. I'm sure you will anjoy your new bench better than the one you have now!!

[Jim Koepke]

Looking good, keep us up to date on what is going on.

jim

[Bill Whig]

Very nice! I will look forward to seeing how it comes out. I hope to try a similar project soon.

Bill

[Chen-Tin Tsai]

Here's an update on my mini-bench. I had bought a new kayak a couple of weeks ago, so I've been spending my weekends playing with it instead of working on my workbench. Now that spring's officially arrived, I also have to do yard work, further cutting into my woodworking time :rolleyes:

This is the bottom side of the bench top, after gluing up all of the pieces. Right now, it's about 16" wide and 37" or so long and just over 3.5" thick. I think I'll lose a quarter to a half inch when I plane down both sides. My Stanley #5 did a fairly good and quick job of knocking down all of the high spots and flattening the top. It was surprising just how uneven my glue-up was...all of the stock was cut to the same width and thickness.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3283

Half way through. Man, Titebond II is hard to plane through. :o
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3284

Mostly done. This is the bottom of the right side where the wagon vise is going to go, hence the slot. This part was tricky.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3285

All planed up and flat. It's mostly flat at this point, but as I don't have a #7 plane, I didn't do any final flattening. However, since this is the bottom, I don't think it'll matter that much.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3287

Here's a shot of the legs that were fitted into the mortise in the top. I forgot to snap pics of them, but the mortises were about 4" long, 2" wide and about an inch deep. I cheated and cut the tenons on my table saw...:o Cutting those big tenons was hard work! I need a tenon saw. :D
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3290

Here's a shot of the lower brace (the bench is upside down right now). The lower brace has a tenon that fits into the leg mortise, and drawbored pinned together (thanks to Chris Schwarz's video on youtube ;)) with 3/8" oak dowels. They're currently dry fitted into the top to hold it in alignment while the glue dries.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/picture.php?albumid=322&pictureid=3289

I didn't take a picture of it, but I also flattened the top (more or less) with my #5. I guess I'll wait to do the final flattening and smoothing when I get my hands on a #7. I've already cut the long stretchers, as well as cut the tenons and chopped the mortise. They'll also be drawbore pinned together. I'm thinking about not gluing the stretcher pins so that I can take it apart if I needed to.

Is this a good idea, or should I go ahead and just glue it? Also, what about the leg tenons into the bench top? Ideally, I'd like to leave them dry so I can take it apart if I needed to move it, but how do you remove the tight drawbore pins?

[David Gendron]

Good job on the workbench! As for the DB pins, you don't have to put glue. And for the top, you could just pined the tenon, with out draw boring it. And then you can just dril these out to take appart!!