Sawbench Build

[Robert Hazelwood]

Thought I'd do a little build thread for a saw bench I'm building. I've been meaning to make one of these for a while, and I guess now's the time :)

I'll be building it from some stock I already have on hand and which is not likely to be used in any serious projects. I've got a bit of red oak that's been sitting in the wood rack for some time now- an 11" wide by 4' long slab of red oak, and a couple 5/4 planks about 6" long by 6' long:

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One design constraint is that the bench will built from only these three pieces. The 8/4 slab is about perfect for the top, and I think I'll turn the 5/4 planks into wide boards to form the uprights and tenon those into the top, using the remnant 5/4 to make a stretcher running between uprights. It will look more like a sitting bench than a typical sawbench, but it seems the best way given the material constraints.

An "artistic" rendering of what I've got in mind:

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Besides being a (hopefully) useful shop implement, this bench will be an exercise in through-wedged mortise and tenons, which is a joint I'd like to become more proficient with. Aside from that it will be a simple build; I'm not splaying the uprights at all, they will just be 90 degrees to the top. I may do a little shaping to the uprights and stretcher, something like you see in the drawing.

To start with for tonight, I cut the 5/4 planks to rough length so I can glue up the two uprights. A Disston D8 does the work:

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This is how I've chosen to orient the mostly rift sawn planks:

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Now I can work on jointing the edges. Type 6 Stanley No. 8:

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I decided to try an edge jointing method I've seen advocated here by Warren Mickley, Brian Holcombe, and others. Instead of first flattening a reference face and then jointing an edge square to that, I ignore the faces and just concentrate on making the edge flat and without wind. I also make sure it is generally square to the faces, but the critical reference is with winding sticks on the edge:

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The idea is to avoid extra work in flattening each face beforehand, only to again flatten the resulting panel afterwards. I'll just be doing the latter part; we'll see how it goes.

The edge jointing went smoothly and quickly, as it should since these are only 20" long boards. Ready for glue-up:

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And the fruit of tonight's labor:

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That's it for now. A lot of planing ahead :rolleyes:

[Brent VanFossen]

Looks like a fun project. Thanks for the writeup and all the photos.

[Brent Cutshall]

I need to make one of those. Keep up the good work, I'll be watching!:p

[Jim Koepke]

Thought I'd do a little build thread for a saw bench I'm building. I've been meaning to make one of these for a while, and I guess now's the time :)


I need to make one of those. Keep up the good work, I'll be watching!:p

Like sawhorses, saw benches will work best in pairs. For long rips three is even better.

jtk

[Chris Hachet]

A sawbench is something I need to build, and yours looks like it will be especially nice.

[Jim Koepke]

A sawbench is something I need to build, and yours looks like it will be especially nice.

Another thought when rip cutting with two benches... There needs to be room for the saw under the second saw bench. Otherwise the tip of the saw may bump any cross member under top.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Excellent! I will enjoy following along with your build.

[Robert Hazelwood]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

Jim, I can definitely see the advantage of having a pair of these. I'm hoping the large size of this one allow it to suffice for most furniture-size stuff, ripping off of the side primarily. It will also be a secondary workbench, and something I can easily take with me in the truck.

[lowell holmes]

I made a saw bench and a small horse the same size. The horse is a krenov saw horse.

http://www.woodsmithshop.com/media/pdf/404/trestlesawhorses.pdf

I made my sawhorse out of 3/4" white pine and it has never failed. I've had it for 10 years.
The horses pictured in his book "The Fine Art of Cabinet Making" are the ones I copied.

[Jim Koepke]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

Jim, I can definitely see the advantage of having a pair of these. I'm hoping the large size of this one allow it to suffice for most furniture-size stuff, ripping off of the side primarily. It will also be a secondary workbench, and something I can easily take with me in the truck.

The second bench helps to keep the cutoff from falling or splitting at the end of the cut.

Another consideration is to have the top thick enough to use a holdfast or two.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

Looks like a nice little project. I'd go ahead as planned and not really overthink this too much. I', sure you can find something to support the offcut without making another bench just for that.

[David Eisenhauer]

I like the design and the wood you have picked out for it.

[Bill McDermott]

Having things work together is easier to think about after things have been built. I like having my saw horses the same height as my bench. But, I wish I had put the stretcher on my saw horses at the same height as the top of my saw bench.

[David Eisenhauer]

Way too much thinking ahead Bill. Slow down or you will blow a head gasket. Planning ahead? Forsooth.

[Robert Hazelwood]

Ha...I can be bad as anyone about overthinking and paralysis by analysis, but I'm trying to keep this a one bit serendipitous :) I just kind of like the design concept aesthetically and want to do some multiple through-tenons. If it sucks as a sawbench I'll just bring it inside and tie my shoes on it :D

I've got most of the stock prep done now. Started with some cross grain jack plane action, using my beat up old Sargent transitional. Followed with a try plane (actually a 26" jointer set up as a giant try).

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Finished off with the LN #4. This red oak planes nicely, especially the rift sawn sections...but smells funky. Anyways, it planed to a nicer sheen than I'd of expected:

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Then I struck a gauge line for thickness (not aiming for any particular number, just finding the thinnest point on the uprights and gauging from that- as thick as possible, in other words).

Since I'll be doing a lot of cross grain work, to start I bevel each side nearly down to the gauge line, then work the middle with the jack until the bevel is just about gone.

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Then work with the try down to the line, then a few passes with the smoother and the uprights are thicknessed.

Now I work on the top. First, cut it down to nearly final length (40"), getting rid of a large crack in the process:

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Then repeat the jointing and thicknessing.

Then I joint a reference edge on each piece, in preparation for marking the final width.

This is where I could really use a nice panel gauge:

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None of my gauges go much over 6". Had to use the 12" combo square at nearly full extension...while this works fine for making a rough pencil line, it is an awkward and tedious way to make a gauge line, and tough to do accurately- working in a coarse grained wood like red oak only makes it worse. I suppose it was good enough- but I will definitely be laying out joinery from reference faces only ;)

After marking the lines, I just had to use my new bandsaw to cut most of the waste off (I've only had it a week, give me a break! Plus, I don't even have a sawbench yet :p)

Planed down to the lines, and now I have a little stack of S4S parts:

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Next I'll be trimming the ends to final length, and then starting the more interesting stuff.

[David Eisenhauer]

Nice start on some nice looking wood.

[Stewie Simpson]

Robert; take this a comment only. There are valid reasons why the wide face of the board should be dressed flat, prior to jointing the edge.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=353002&d=1485922073&thumb=1 (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=353002&d=1485922920)





http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=353002&d=1485922073&thumb=1

[Robert Hazelwood]

Thanks David. I'm liking the wood as well.

Stewie, I wouldn't disagree. It made sense to me to do it this way for this piece, and I wanted to try the method. The edge joint came out well.

[Robert Hazelwood]

Made a bit of progress on this. I ended up having to make some tool accessories and refurbish some old forgotten ebay purchases in order to complete some of the tasks on this.

I left of with 4-square parts...now to make them 6-square. 300mm Gyokucho ryoba ready for duty:

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The ends of the top are planed down to a knife line freehand. I'm using one of my kanna here- they are remarkably effective on end grain, taking thick shavings and doing the job quickly:

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Followed up with a fine set smoother, yielding nicely finished end grain:

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For the uprights I rigged up a shooting board out of some MDF and a scrap of white oak. It is set up for kanna and working on the pull stroke:

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With all the pieces now to final dimensions, I can lay out the joinery (dovetailed/wedged tenons)

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There is a lot of transfer marking involved. This works ok on the cross grain marks, but on anything going with the grain, it can be perilous on this red oak. The knife ticks I use to transfer a mark for a mortise wall can easily be lost and/or confused with a random line in the grain. I marked the tenons first, then transferred those marks to the mortises. I cut the mortises first, and I was doing this I became suspicious of the mortise wall markings...let's say I have my doubts the transfer from tenon to mortise went perfectly. Luckily I saved the tenons for last, so I can plane off the tenon marks and transfer new marks from the actually existing mortises.

[Robert Hazelwood]

Onto the mortise cutting...these are the featured implements of destruction:

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This show begins with the 1/2" auger, wasting the center out of the 11/16" square, 2" deep mortises:

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Now the bulk of the waste is chopped out with a 5/8" firmer chisel. This is an old Samson I got from ebay several years ago but never had a reason to fettle into shape until now. It's actually better than a proper mortise chisel for this occasion, because its not too thick, leaving some room to maneuver. I sharpened it with a full flat bevel, for riding into the cut, at about 33 degrees.

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With the center drilled out, the mortising goes quite quickly. After 4 or 5 series of chops, I am basically done with one side, except for final paring (I oversized the mortise compared to the chisel because I am not too confident on avoiding twisting with a mortise the deep and narrow)

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After all of the chopping is done:

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After cleaning up the mortise interiors with a paring chisel, I set about flaring the mortises from the top side, to accept the wedged tenons. The mortises are to be flared at 5 degrees each side, and I made a paring block to guide the chisel for this step:

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This is where it stands currently, with all 8 mortises complete in the top.

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Tenons to follow. Thanks for reading.

[James Waldron]

Like sawhorses, saw benches will work best in pairs. For long rips three is even better.

jtk


Depends on design:

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This beastie is 42 inches long, good for ripping stock up to 5 feet or 6-7 feet with clamps (or hold fast once I get around to drilling holes). Longer stock, I go with 2 benches.