Way Late Project Pics

[Mike Vermeil]

I love looking at everyone else's project pics, so I thought I'd better catch up with some of mine that have been complete for a while now.

The first is one of two identical red oak benches that I built for some extra seating during Christmas time. They're nothing fancy, but were a good refresher exercise in cutting angled tenons and chopping mortises by hand. There are lots of tapers & curved edges, but they don't show up well in the pics. I cut the angled tenons on the table saw, and chopped the mortises by hand after clearing out the waste with my drill press and/or hand drill. They're finished with 4 or 5 coats of General Finishes oil/poly combo. I was pretty happy with how they turned out, especially the through & wedged tenons on the stretchers. The stretchers, however, are both visually and functionally about 2 inches too low, as they hit your achiles tendon when sitting if not careful.

The second pics are of the tables I added to my Rigid mobile SCMS stand. I love the Rigid stand (the actual name is "MSUV - miter saw utility vehicle") for it's portability - I do quite a bit of site work - but I missed having full stock support on both sides as I had in my last shop. Adding these melamine tables was realively easy, and functionaly they're a huge improvement over having only the single rollers. Originally, I attached them to the stand's table and roller stands with a combination of 3/8" bolts, nuts and wingnuts, but found that the bolts flexed too much. My Dad then made a prototype of this new stand for me, which completely solved the flexing problem, and is now making three more to replace the rest of the bolt-mounts. The tables come off in less than one minute, can be reinstalled, leveled and aligned in about three, and are light and robust enough to be easily taken to the jobsite when there's a lot of trim work to do.

I've got a couple more projects, but have run out of room, so I'll do another post.

Thanks for looking. Hope you can get something from them as I almost always do from all of yours.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

I really like that bench, Mike!! Especially the arched stretcher.

[Bryan Nuss]

Great looking bench, Mike! I love the finish and the curved stretcher.

What size planks did you use and what did you use for a finish?

[Matt Meiser]

Nice bench! I also like the tables. You've gotten me thinking about building something like that for my Stablemate miter saw stand. Mine stays in the same place, but suffers from the same lack of stock support.

[Darren Ford]

Great bench Mike, you have made red oak look good. Nice job.

[Tom Sontag]

I really like that bench, Mike!! Especially the arched stretcher.


That's not an arched stretcher Jim. That's a little bow he decided to keep in the board. :D

I too like the arched stretcher design.

[Jason Tuinstra]

Very Nice!

[Corey Hallagan]

Great looking bench!

Corey

[David Fried]

The bench does look nice and I've been looking for bench ideas/inspirations. Think I'll tuck this picture away!

[Pete Harbin]

Clean and sleek looking. I like it!

Nice job!

Pete

[Todd Davidson]

Hi Mike~

I'm pretty well set on purchasing the Dewalt CMS stand mainly due to its compactness when folded and ease of adding/removing the saw, although I have a couple questions about the Ridgid stand (I do like it better than the Dewalt in function). What are the appx dimensions when folded? Is it easy to add/remove the saw? Any problems mounting a non Ridgid saw? Given the amount of stuff I have packed in my work van already space is at a premium but I need a stand that is easier to move around than my current set up of a workmate and two roller stands. Thanks!

[Mike Vermeil]

Hi Mike~

I'm pretty well set on purchasing the Dewalt CMS stand mainly due to its compactness when folded and ease of adding/removing the saw, although I have a couple questions about the Ridgid stand (I do like it better than the Dewalt in function). What are the appx dimensions when folded? Is it easy to add/remove the saw? Any problems mounting a non Ridgid saw? Given the amount of stuff I have packed in my work van already space is at a premium but I need a stand that is easier to move around than my current set up of a workmate and two roller stands. Thanks!

Todd,

I'm not sure of the dimensions when folded, but next time I break it down, I'll try to send you a note. Per the Rigid design, the saw is held to the table with nuts and bolts, but I suppose you could improvise some type of clamping system that might be faster if you'd like to take the saw off. I leave my saw on the stand when folded, which is how the stand is designed to function, and wheel it right into the shop for use there with the extension tables I made. Mounting a non-Rigid saw was no problem, but there are some obstructions on the bottom side of the table that you have to watch out for. I had to mount my Hitachi saw somewhat further back on the table than where the pre-drilled holes are for the Rigid saw. I work by myself, so a big benefit to this unit is being able to load the whole rig into the bed of a truck by myself. I can lift the whole thing off the ground if necessary, but don't recommend it. Normally I lean the non-wheel-end stub legs onto the tailgate, lift the wheel end & rotate it onto the tailgate. From there I just steer the unit into the bed. The process is reversed on the way out. It does take up quite a bit of bed space, however, but so far that hasn't been a problem for me. With a van, you'd probably be able to place the stand in the upright position (looks just like a hand cart with a saw attached to it) to save space, as long as you secure it.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[Mike Vermeil]

Great looking bench, Mike! I love the finish and the curved stretcher.

What size planks did you use and what did you use for a finish?

Bryan,

All of the planks are 1 5/16" thick, and the finish is the oil/urethane top coat combo from General Finishes - called "Arm-R-Seal" - available at both Rockler and Woodcraft. Oh ya, I applied some stain before that but don't remember the exact colors. Usually I use at least 2 or 3 different colors to arrive at the final color. In my opinion, the colors are much richer and more complex that way. The "Arm-R-Seal" is a great general purpose finish. The tung oil in it gives you the rich, wet, figure poping quality of a regular oil finish, and the polyurethane adds durability and eliminates the maintenance required with an oil only or oil/wax finish. I believe I used gloss in this case.

Mike

[John Renzetti]

hi Mike, Nice bench, clean design. Looks strong and functional. Like your idea for the worksite stand for the saw.
take care,
John

[Michael Melo]

Mike,

I recently purchased this stand and would like to add wings to it much like yours. I was hoping you could share further details (photos would be great too) on how you put it together. any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Michael

[Mike Vermeil]

Michael,

I'd love to expound on the cleverness of my design, but there's really not a whole lot to it. The table beds are simply 3/4" melamine covered particleboard with 3/4" plywood backs screwed and glued to them. I just made sure that the backs had straight edges to align the beds with.

In one of the pictures you can see how I attached the extension tables to the stand. My first method was 3/8" carriage bolts with the heads recessed below the bed surfaces. This worked OK, but flexed too much for my taste. The second method was the custom aluminum stand you can see in the picture. The one pictured was the prototype my Dad made for me, and due to his busy schedule, is still the only one. It works great, and only one on each table is necessary. If you can't machine one up for yourself, you may want to try 7/16" carriage bolts. They may flex less. I guess the only thing you can't see too well is where the tables meet the extension rollers. There again I used 3/8" carriage bolts.

All in all, the system works pretty well. When I'm installing a decent amount of molding on a job site, I always take the tables with me & they save a lot of headache. In the shop, they're a major upgrade over the rollers alone, but aren't quite as nice as a purpose-built bench assy or the like. Generally, they require a bit of fussing to keep them aligned perfectly - a level of accuracy I don't really care about when hanging crown molding, but one I prefer when building fine furniture (or what passes for that in my shop!).

Hope this helps. No digital camera right now, but let me know if you want more pics & I can get them in a couple days.

Mike

[Peter Pedisich]

Mike,

Real nice bench, I love wedged through tenons.

Great truck, too!

Pete

[lou sansone]

real nice work and I like the color of the oak. what exact finish did you use?

lou