Honey Locust Seat Blank

[ken hatch]

The Honey Locust seat blank is out of the clamps and I marked it off using the seat template I made Saturday. After marking I trimmed the blank close to the line with the bandsaw. Now it is drawknife, spokeshave, and #5 to smooth the edge. I expect I will put a heavy chamfer on the front and side edges, undecided on the back edge, before moving on to drilling and reaming the leg mortises. I haven't a clue if Honey Locust will make a good, long lasting seat or if it will even survive knocking the legs home. If it doesn't it will not be the first seat blank to split. That's life.


The seat edges being trued and smoothed:


394651

I need to go through the wood pile to decide on the leg blanks. Right now I'm thinking either Beech, Red Oak or White Oak all of which I believe are in the wood pile. The Honey Locust in the wood pile has grain that is too swirly to make good legs. Once the leg wood is picked then the next decisions are the shape, round, octagon, or tapered and which way, and done with the lathe, plane, drawknife, spokeshave, or some combination of one or more.


All the options are half the fun because there really isn't a correct one.


BTW, have I ever told you how much I love the portable Moravian bench with the Lake Erie wood screw vise? For as light as it is and portable, it is almost as stable as the main bench. The only time the main bench is better is when sawing crosswise across the bench. Then you can feel the weight difference.


I sure will be glad when the woodstore comes through with my 12/4 Ash so I can make the base for a shop sized Moravian bench. The wood screw is here, the Beech slab is finished. All I need is 30 or so board feet of Ash to finish that sucker off. A couple of weeks max if I can get my hands on the wood.

ken

[William Fretwell]

I wonder how deep your tool tray will be on the new bench? It is clearly very shallow on the portable. I made mine 6” deep so I could stand a plane up in the tool tray. This however seriously complicated the top stretchers and the tray itself, but I hope worth the trouble.

[Tom Bender]

That is a nice bench. It's nice to see a bench centered shop instead of anchoring the SS Grizzly (General) in the center of the harbor.

[Tom Bender]

Anyone try a 'hang on' tool tray that could be hung on either side or removed to accommodate the task du jour?

[Prashun Patel]

Personally, I'd go beech on the legs - especially if you turn them. I think it mortises and turns sharper than oak. I have had some luck this year with oak when steam bending, though. I also find oak to split easier, so the rough shaping with drawknives seems to go easier than beech. Pick your poison.

[ken hatch]

I wonder how deep your tool tray will be on the new bench? It is clearly very shallow on the portable. I made mine 6” deep so I could stand a plane up in the tool tray. This however seriously complicated the top stretchers and the tray itself, but I hope worth the trouble.


William,


The portable bench tool tray is 30mm (~1 5/8" for the metric challenged) deep, about 15mm (~5/8") less than the slab thickness of 45mm (~ 1 3/4"). The new shop bench slab is 85mm (~3 5/8"), I expect the tool tray will match the slab less about 15 mm for bottom thickness.

The original top of the portable bench was just two slabs. While no tools did a high dive off the bench I never felt comfortable with the small secondary slab so I split the bottom off and added rails to make a shallow tool tray, It has worked very well. I think the most important aspect of a tool tray is some kind of rail to keep things from rolling off. It also helps if the tray is easily removable for cleaning.

Good luck with your bench,

ken

[ken hatch]

That is a nice bench. It's nice to see a bench centered shop instead of anchoring the SS Grizzly (General) in the center of the harbor.


Anyone try a 'hang on' tool tray that could be hung on either side or removed to accommodate the task du jour?

Tom,

Thanks. My TS doesn't get a lot of love. If it was worth anything it would be gone but it is not worth the effort to sell. The bandsaw is another story.

I haven't tried one but I also have never felt the need. My main bench has tills, a tool cabinet, and a large tool chest behind it, all about as easy to use as a tool tray.

ken

[ken hatch]

Personally, I'd go beech on the legs - especially if you turn them. I think it mortises and turns sharper than oak. I have had some luck this year with oak when steam bending, though. I also find oak to split easier, so the rough shaping with drawknives seems to go easier than beech. Pick your poison.

Prashun,

If I have enough Beech I expect it will be used. The legs I've made using Beech have worked very well. I've some Sapele that was cut for table legs stacked next to the wood pile (for some reason the table was never built), I've thought about using but I'm not sure how or if Sepele would work as "sticks".

ken

[David Eisenhauer]

30mm is 1-5/8" ? Better lay off the saguaro juice, Ken. For the rest of us, 30mm is 1/3/16".

[ken hatch]

30mm is 1-5/8" ? Better lay off the saguaro juice, Ken. For the rest of us, 30mm is 1/3/16".

LMAO, now you see why I work in metric :p, Imperial kicks my ass,

ken

[David Eisenhauer]

Point taken and agreed, by the way. As long as I can dodge centimeters because I have never been able to get a grip on them in spite of lots and lots of overseas work. Millimeters, meters and kilometers are all OK though.