Jessica Pierce-LaRose
09-25-2011, 5:17 PM
Bought a "butcher block" top on Craigslist - turned out to be a laminated glue up a fellow had made for workbench or table or something. There where a couple of poor joints, but the price worked out to be around fifty cents a board foot for the maple, so I went with it. Only 5 or so feet long, but that's about what I can fit in my tiny room right now. Spread, cleaned and injected glue into the iffy joint, clamped up, and it closed up well and seems to be holding despite trying to stress it. Probably not the best idea, I probably should have ripped and re-glued, but I guess I'll see what happens.
The top was wider than I want, and if I had started from scratch, I would have gone thicker than the shy of two inches this started as, so after looking at for a while, I sharpened up my mutt of a panel saw (a nice handle from a Disston D-7 with a trashed blade transplanted on a skew back blade that had a trashed handle) and ripped it down the middle. Both my sawing and sharpening skills are improving, because it was quite easy to hold the line, and even at 7 TPI, the cut was pretty quick. Need to work on keeping plumb, however. Next step was to glue the two halves together. (I'm hoping this helps keep the iffy joint in line, as well.)
I'm going to be decent at flattening large surfaces, considering I doubled the flattening I needed to do by going this route. Made some notes of which sides are going to plane well - some of the boards have a bit of changing grain direction, and one piece has a strip with the wood going the alternate direction. Of the four possible sides, the best looking are not the best behaving, of course.
Planing was interesting - putting it on the sawhorses made it a bit low, and despite non-slip pads everywhere, the slabs slid around (probably helped by the finish already on the boards) on the sawhorses, and the sawhorses slid around on the floor. I sat or stood on the boards when I could, which helped. I sharpened up my LN 62 for heavy shavings with a cambered blade to start - but with this much surface, that was a bit of a workout, as that thing feels like it weighs more than my Millers Fall jointer! None of the slabs were too out of flat or wind, but there was significant planer snipe on the ends that made the whole thing require a bit of work. Had I not wanted to squeeze out the most length, I probably would have just chopped the ends and made life easier.
Prior to the glue up of the two slabs, I drilled for some dowels to serve as locating pins, and then drilled a bunch of pilot holes through the back and into the front piece to drive a bunch of heavy screws with washers to hold the whole thing together. In the photo I've just started putting clamps on, I don't know if the clamps have ended up being necessary - I've a healthy amount of squeeze out, and the joint is pretty tight. I have no idea why I started with the small clamps.
All in all, I'm starting to think this was a stupid way to do this - if the butcher block had come from a factory and was pretty much ready to glue up with less work, it might have been worth it. All in all, I think I made a lot more work for myself to save not that much money. The top was pretty much an impulse buy, and once it was in the house mocking me, I had to do something with it.
As it stands now, the top is about 3 5/8" thick, 5 feet long and a little over 15 inches wide. I'll probably be gluing two boards to the front for square dog holes, and one more in the back just to cover the seam and get a little more width - probably finishing around 20" wide.
I really only posted this because now it means I have to finish the project. The plane is something roubo-esque, with a Jorgensen iron vise on the end, and some fashion of leg vise on the front. I'll need to figure out the final plan before I proceed any further.
208467
The top was wider than I want, and if I had started from scratch, I would have gone thicker than the shy of two inches this started as, so after looking at for a while, I sharpened up my mutt of a panel saw (a nice handle from a Disston D-7 with a trashed blade transplanted on a skew back blade that had a trashed handle) and ripped it down the middle. Both my sawing and sharpening skills are improving, because it was quite easy to hold the line, and even at 7 TPI, the cut was pretty quick. Need to work on keeping plumb, however. Next step was to glue the two halves together. (I'm hoping this helps keep the iffy joint in line, as well.)
I'm going to be decent at flattening large surfaces, considering I doubled the flattening I needed to do by going this route. Made some notes of which sides are going to plane well - some of the boards have a bit of changing grain direction, and one piece has a strip with the wood going the alternate direction. Of the four possible sides, the best looking are not the best behaving, of course.
Planing was interesting - putting it on the sawhorses made it a bit low, and despite non-slip pads everywhere, the slabs slid around (probably helped by the finish already on the boards) on the sawhorses, and the sawhorses slid around on the floor. I sat or stood on the boards when I could, which helped. I sharpened up my LN 62 for heavy shavings with a cambered blade to start - but with this much surface, that was a bit of a workout, as that thing feels like it weighs more than my Millers Fall jointer! None of the slabs were too out of flat or wind, but there was significant planer snipe on the ends that made the whole thing require a bit of work. Had I not wanted to squeeze out the most length, I probably would have just chopped the ends and made life easier.
Prior to the glue up of the two slabs, I drilled for some dowels to serve as locating pins, and then drilled a bunch of pilot holes through the back and into the front piece to drive a bunch of heavy screws with washers to hold the whole thing together. In the photo I've just started putting clamps on, I don't know if the clamps have ended up being necessary - I've a healthy amount of squeeze out, and the joint is pretty tight. I have no idea why I started with the small clamps.
All in all, I'm starting to think this was a stupid way to do this - if the butcher block had come from a factory and was pretty much ready to glue up with less work, it might have been worth it. All in all, I think I made a lot more work for myself to save not that much money. The top was pretty much an impulse buy, and once it was in the house mocking me, I had to do something with it.
As it stands now, the top is about 3 5/8" thick, 5 feet long and a little over 15 inches wide. I'll probably be gluing two boards to the front for square dog holes, and one more in the back just to cover the seam and get a little more width - probably finishing around 20" wide.
I really only posted this because now it means I have to finish the project. The plane is something roubo-esque, with a Jorgensen iron vise on the end, and some fashion of leg vise on the front. I'll need to figure out the final plan before I proceed any further.
208467