Project: Auxiliary Bench for my Shop [Archive] - Sawmill Creek Woodworking Community

Jim Becker

10-24-2019, 8:51 PM

I've been threatening to build an auxiliary bench for my shop since the recent small renovation I did that removed the big, old miter station in favor of more shop space and a "dedicated" work surface for my guitar building. Well...yesterday, I started the task. While I plan a cabinet to be part of this setup, I'm starting with the bench top because I can use it on top of the MFT that's temporarily in service in that spot for as long as I need to since I want it to be a little higher up anyway.

The design for the top is a general structure of maple with two 25mm thick MDF inserts that will be setup with a typical MFT-type grid of 20mm dog holes on 96mm centers. There will be one row of .75" holes down a piece of maple that will be about in the middle so I can use my hold-fasts when they are the right tool for the job. I may or may not put a vice on the top...most likely if I do, it will be on the end rather than the front face so I'm not banging into it. I may use a Moxon or other "attachable" vice on top of the other end for when that method of work holding is appropriate. Here's the basic idea for the top with some refinement still in the works:

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I grabbed about 17 board feet of 6/4 maple yesterday from a local supplier and milled it up to use for the bench. The nominal thickness of the bench will be 65mm (about 2.5") and the width of each strip of maple is 35mm (not quite 1.4")

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While I established the general dimensions for the top in the above drawing and my head, there's nothing that substitutes for using the actual material that will be assembled together to ascertain exactly what the width is going to be. That started with laying a bunch of milled pieces next to each other so I could establish what the exact width would be. This was done at the end that is "solid" laminated maple...the utility area where heavier work can happen and where a vice might potentially live if I do decide on a face vice. Final width came in at 560mm which is about 22"...a narrower bench than my primary, but perfect for the intended task

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From there, I started cutting things to length, such as the shorter pieces that would be laminated for the solid end of the bench top. Using the stop on the fence insured they were all exactly the same size.

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It was then time to reassemble the laminated end to perfectly size the end piece that would be perpendicular to the laminations. I clamped things together tightly like they would be during the future final assembly and then measured with both the rule and by eye to get it exact. Three of these pieces get cut to the same length as the other end is a "double".

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That pretty much completed the cutting and allowed for the first dry-fit.

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It's easier to do sub-assemblies for something like this, so that's what I did...many clamps got to go to work here. :)

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Jim Becker

10-24-2019, 8:52 PM

Those subassemblies were left to dry overnight and were all jointed flat to clean up the bottom and then got a very light pass through the planer to bring everything to identical thickness post-glue-up. I did a final dry check at that point and was satisfied...

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I chose to use 12mm Dominos to set things up so that all the top surfaces were indexed to each other. The tenons would also help keep things from slipping around as the glue up proceeded.

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Since one end would, as it were...end up...being "solid" all the way across and the other end would just have an end-cap, all the initial gluing was at the former end. Things slipped together one component at a time with some gentle persuasion with a soft mallet.

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A bunch of glue and a few minutes of time...along with some clamps...completed this task. At this point everything is assembled except for the end piece that caps the laminated end. More on that in a moment.

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The aforementioned end cap has to be treated differently because it is a true cross-grain situation where seasonal expansion/contraction can and will occur. So while it will be glued and pinned securely at the front edge with a Domino and well, glue...the two remaining connections will have to float, but be secure. There are two additional Dominos (middle and back) but they are in wider mortises with no glue so they cannot bind. I chose to use two screws to secure the middle and back of this end cap, installing them in recesses with oversize holes to allow that movement. The first step was to bore a larger recess that would ultimately be filled to hide the fasteners. A 25mm (about 1") Forstner bit at the drill press did that deed, creating a recess that is about 12mm deep. I further bored out the holes for the screws oversized. Glue was applied toward the front of this piece and then it was assembled and clamped to the remainder of the bench top assembly.

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Jim Becker

10-24-2019, 8:52 PM

Ok, that leaves some impressive looking 25mm holes to fill. I don't have a dedicated plug cutter of that size but I have a big yellow machine that can make pretty much anything like this with a few minutes of programming and cutting. :) So I did. I cut plugs in 25mm, 25.02mm and 25.05 mm as I wasn't sure how precise my Forstner bits are. As it turned out, the Fische metric Forstner bits are "spot on".

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They were cut 15mm deep and I sliced them off at the bandsaw leaving just enough to be able to sand them off flush

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While I had the CNC running, I cut the 25mm MDF inserts for those big open areas on the design. I then recut one of them because I'm stupid and mentally said that 176mm was 171mm. These machines cut exactly how you tell them to. LOL

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At the end of the day, I have a glued up maple bench top assembly ready for the inserts. From here, I need to get the inserts, um...inserted...and create a basic structure that holds them flush yet allows them to be replaced in the future should they become damaged. I may take the whole thing out to get two quick light passes through a wide sander to completely level things. And finally, the whole thing will go on top of the CNC and all the dog holes will get cut.

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Steve Wurster

10-25-2019, 8:02 AM

Looking good, Jim. Great explanation and pics. Looking forward to more progress on this.

Dylan Wyatt

10-25-2019, 10:09 AM

I really like the inserts that you are planning, I want to do the same thing but with steel on a general purpose bench. I understand the floating connections on the "solid" end of the bench, but how do you account for the movement at the end of the bench where the inserts will be placed? The cut out width for the inserts at the insert end would basically stay the same all of the time since there is very little cross grain connection but the "solid" end will expand and contract basically giving you a trapezoid of different dimensions depending on the time of year. Is this a concern with the intended function of the bench or is it negligible in such small areas? For the bench I am planning that would be negligible, but others need much more precision.

Very nice looking build, I like how you easily break down the steps for your projects in each post.

Jim Becker

10-25-2019, 10:01 PM

Jim Becker

10-26-2019, 11:02 AM

So...day two and the final day for this auxiliary bench surface has come and gone...

Because I (mistakenly) assembled this on my current main bench top which is in desperate need of replacement...it's not flat, has too much metal in it (accidentally) to allow truing with hand planes and no longer meets my needs)...I had a very slight twist to the assembly after glue-up. It wasn't much, but it was something that I couldn't leave in a brand new work surface. So I put it on the CNC to "level" one side (I chose the top since it would also clean some things up a bit) and had to do it in two steps because the assembly was about 5" longer than my effective cutting area. The first step was to do as much as possible that included the solid laminated portion and then "sneak up" on things for the last few inches after flipping it around. It didn't have to be "perfect" looking because it was going to a wide sander afterward, but it had to have the twist gone so I had a flat reference surface. This photo is after completion of both steps.

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Then I was off on errands including taking it to my friends at Bucks County Hardwoods to get sanded. It got a couple of light passes with the now-flat top down to insure the bottom was parallel to the top and then a couple passes to really clean up the top side....about 1mm off both sides in the end with a final thickness of 62mm. (~2.45")

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Back to the shop and then it was time to install the supports for the panels. There are corner blocks to permit screws to hold in the panels and some narrow stock down the edges to permit the panels to have support all around. I forgot to take a photo after installing these elements. The work was done on top of the CNC bed that had just been "cleaned off" making it "perfectly" flat so I could get as close as possible to the panel surface being at the same level as the maple portions of the construction. If anything, I preferred having to shim up rather than shave down, if you catch my drift.

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That done, the assembly was flipped over so I could measure, drill/countersink and screw down the top.

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I did need to do a little shimming at a few of the corners...used up sandpaper got the nod because, well...it was right there where I could grab it. :) You can see the support structure for the panels in this shot that I wasn't able to show previously.

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At that point, the bench was completed...at least the building part...and it was time to move on to the truly scary operation: boring a bunch of holes in the right places

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Jim Becker

10-26-2019, 11:02 AM

I had already done a "plan" for the bunches of dog holes in the CNC design software before I started building this but because the final dimensions were fluid, it was necessary to revisit the file and change things to match the final physical structure exactly so that all the "boring" business happened in the correct locations. This includes some slight adjustment laterally to insure the mounting screws for the panels were not in play. I actually added a second full row of the .75" dog holes down the wider front edge. Additionally, a third short row of the same were placed toward the back of the solid laminated portion of the bench in case I decide to put a face vice down at that end. I still have not decided on vice accommodations and probably will not until I design and build the cabinetry for under it.

Here's the hole design I finalized on for both the 20mm holes on 96mm centers in the panels as well as the rows of .75" holes in the solid stock This combination makes for great flexibility and I'm considering this general idea for the replacement top for my main bench, too. The singular reason I want/need the .75" holes is for my beloved hold-fasts. (and a couple of really nice brass dogs I sometimes use for hand-plane work)

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Given the finalized design it was time to take a deep breath, strap that thang onto the CNC and "press the button". Hold-down was interesting for something this "thick". There was not a huge amount of downward force required because the bench has quite a bit of weight, but some was necessary to counter any minor "lifting" that comes with up-cut tooling. (These holes are too deep to use anything but up-cut for chip clearing) More importantly, screwing down support along the edges of the construction insured it could not move in any direction. While this bench top is a few inches longer than the maximum cutting area of my machine, the pattern of holes all fell within those limits

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And so it begins...

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And continues...

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After the holes were all bored (20mm holes completely through the MDF panels and the .75" holes 40mm deep...the max for my .375" cutter...in the maple), the edges of the holes were slightly chamfered with a 90º v-bit.

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And...now the work is almost done...

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Jim Becker

10-26-2019, 11:18 AM

Since I couldn't bore the .75" holes all the way through the solid maple due to cutting depth constraints on my longest .375" end mill, the work had to be completed with a drill bit. Easy enough...clamp a waste board on the bottom to prevent tear-out and then cut the final bit of material out with a sharp Forstner bit. Rinse. Repeat.

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And now the assembly is complete including all the dog holes and ready for sanding, etc.

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A "test fit" for the intended space that this work surface will occupy most of the time. It will be on top of the MFT temporarily until I get the permanent cabinet built. That will actually help with the design of that cabinet because I can ascertain if the "general" height is appropriate for the work I intend to do on this surface. It's a bit higher than a common bench height, but most of the work lends itself to that. I may or may not make it variable height.

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As is my custom with bench surfaces, everything got an application of BLO which is renewable at any time. I'm very pleased with the end result...

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And for the completion of this phase of the overall project...I'll leave you with this nice wood porn. :)

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Dylan Wyatt

10-26-2019, 3:40 PM

Dylan, you raise a good question relative to the inserts. Even though the MDF (which in this case is leftover Extiera exterior rated stuff) doesn't "move" much, the maple might so width-wise, I left a tiny bit of accommodation for that movement by slightly narrowing the inserts when I cut them.

Do be careful with steel on a bench if you use any "sharpy-pointy" tools...

The bench top is actually complete and I'll be posting more photos tomorrow.

Thanks for the reply, I figured you had accounted for that. As for my bench, I am planning a 2' square steel insert in a bench that will likely be 5' x 10'. If I get too close to the steel with any sharp tool it's my own fault:D

Jim Becker

10-26-2019, 8:25 PM

That's not a bench you're planning, Dylan...that's a bowling ally! :) :D

Tom Bender

10-27-2019, 8:14 AM

Jim Becker

10-27-2019, 10:07 AM

Great build along Jim, and a nice bench. The CNC really works for you.

I'm not clear on the accommodation for wood movement. In your second post you say "oversize holes" but the pictures don't show that.

The pilot holes in the end pieces that the screw shanks are in are 1/4" despite the screws being #10. I modified the countersink so that the heads had some movement, too. That's just not clear in the photos unfortunately.

Jim Becker

10-31-2019, 8:36 PM

This week's little project is to build the cabinet that will be supporting the bench top already completed. Aside from producing a few prototypes for a client, I had a little lull in paid work and that's always a nice excuse to work on something for my own benefit. :) Aside from things like drawer slides of the appropriate length and a few fasteners, I had all the material for this project in my racks.

The carcass for the cabinet was cut out of a sheet and a half of .75" "shop grade" plywood I had hanging around. Since I have the CNC, I decided to use that rather than slinging it up on my slider. Sheets are heavy. Lifting once is enough. And contrary to past sheet goods projects, I left them at their ~97" long and adjusted my bench to the same height as the CNC bed to support the full sheet, even though I was only cutting on half of it at a time. Since I had already done an informal "cut list" for the components, it only took a few minutes to create the files and then cut out the parts...I was taking my time, too.

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Once one end of the sheet was consumed by the parts I had planned for it, I flipped things around and cut the parts planned for the other end. A .25" compression bit was used with two passes for the .75" material. I "can" probably cut full depth for this material at a slower feed rate, but with a likely reduction in quality. I like to cut the first pass with a .02mm allowance and the the second and final cut gets the rest of the depth while also cleaning the entire edge. As side from sanding the small areas where I used tabs to hold the piece in place in the sheet (I don't have a vacuum table), the edges were "glue up ready, more or less. This is the pile of components resulting from the cutting so far...

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The design of this cabinet includes a base that can be leveled in both directions. Why? Because my shop floor slopes...the building was originally constructed as "mostly garage" by the previous owners. I decided I didn't want to have to deal with things like shims which are a pain when wheels are involved, too. So to accommodate the idea I had for adjusting level, the base/bottom pieces are longer than the carcass, leaving about 35mm at the end for a couple of bolts that will secure things at a particular height. Assembling the box would be with screws and glue. Here I'm marking the end panel location so I can pre-drill for screws that will come up through the bottom since this panel has to sit on top of the base, rather than fasten to the end like at the other end. (Disclosure...I forgot to make this panel about 18mm shorter in my cut list to account for being on top of the base panel, so I had to trim it off prior to assembly) I then used the markings to put in pilot holes as shown and then countersunk on the bottom (not shown) for the screw heads. During assembly, I run the drill/countersink back through into the vertical panel so that the screws will not split that panel.

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Assembling the case bottom and that one panel required a little setup....but it worked out nicely. Apply glue, use a few brads to hold it in alignment and then run in the screws.

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Jim Becker

10-31-2019, 8:37 PM

With that one end panel installed, I could change the orientation so that the bottom was, um...on the bottom...and fasten the other end panel using glue and screws on the end of the base component.

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The "top" was then put on the bench and the previous assembly inverted onto it, glued and screwed from the ends.

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I did have to trim down the back panel as once again, my cut list was too generous...which when you think about it is much better than too stingy. Board stretchers just don't seem to exist. ;) Once the back was in place a partition was installed to complete the basic cabinet carcass.

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Yea, it's a box. Really exciting by itself. But the next part is much more interesting. Remember I mentioned a leveling feature? That's what's coming now. :)

The case bottom has a clone piece of exactly the same size. It will be fixed to the case bottom with hinges at one end and an adjustable stop system using two carriage bolts at the other end. To start this part of the project, I temporarily clamped the second bottom to the case bottom so I could do several things including building up support for the hinges at one end and drilling perfectly aligned holes for the carriage bolts at the other end. Here you can see the start of the hinge support which will be several layers of plywood with a triangular piece of solid stock.

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To allow for longer fasteners for the screws into the case as well as to provide enough clearance for leveling both left-to-right and right-to-left, I added a piece of .5" plywood to the bottom of the case. This block combined with the way the surplus entry door hinges were designed allows for 28mm between the two "bottoms" and a good bit of leveling adjustment in either direction. I'll really only need about .375-.5" over the length of the bench adjustment, depending on "where" in my shop the bench is positioned, and the available space is wide enough to be able to have a solid shim I can slip in there at the exact thickness needed to provide more support than the bolts alone over a long period of time in the anticipated bench position it will normally live.

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Here you can see the adjusting end with a temporary 28mm shim for "true" level while the bench is on the bench, as it were. :)

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Jim Becker

10-31-2019, 8:37 PM

So at this point, the carcass is built, and the leveling adjustment mechanism is fabricated...time to move on to installing the casters

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After removing the "mobile" base from the carcass by taking out a few hinge screws and unbolting the bolts :) , I installed some 1/4" x 20 carriage bolts in the bottom-bottom panel to fasten the casters with. A few of them started to "turn" while putting on the nylon lock nuts, but I was able to grab the edges of the bolt heads with a plier and get all of them very snug.

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I chose to use 1.25" long bolts because I felt that 1" was going to be a little too short for comfort. However, that meant I also had to grind off about 1/8" to keep the bolt ends from interfering with the swivel action of these 5" double-locking casters. It was like having some Fourth of July sparklers going for a few minutes, but an easy operation. :D

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That completed the assembly of the "mobile" and level-adjusting base...which I then painted black before putting it back on the case.

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Jim Becker

10-31-2019, 8:55 PM

The remaining work on the cabinet was to mill and install some solid stock edge-banding. I had a little bit of maple left over from the bench top, so I resawed that into quarters and planed the resulting pieces down into ~18mm wide by 10mm thick sticks. These are fastened using glue and 23 gage pin nails. As I always do for things like this, I take off directly from the case to get the exact lengths for a given component, mark the cut line, line it up with a saw tooth, back off the miter gage, start the saw and make the cut.

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About 30 minutes later, all the trim was on. I decided to do the back side, too, since I had the material and it would dress things up. Any remaining visible screws will get some spackle/filler before the paint goes on.

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Jim Becker

10-31-2019, 9:04 PM

The "cubby" on the right side of the case will get four drawers with full extension slides...which I ordered from Lee Valley today to take advantage of the current free shipping promotion. As with the case components, I use the CNC to cut the parts after making a quick cut list spreadsheet to be sure I had dimensions correct. These drawers are cut from ~.5" maple plywood and will have simple glued and screwed joinery just like I do for the tack trunks I make for folks. Very strong. After a very short period of time, I had all of the drawer parts cut and will likely assemble them tomorrow.

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These drawers will be faced with leftover 3/4" multi-ply from when I ripped out the miter station...seems appropriate since the bench will live in the same place. I will likely make full width pulls the emulate the same on the Husky tool cabinets I have nearby in the shop. The cabinet will be black for the same reason...hey, I'm a little anal sometime. :)

Jim Becker

11-01-2019, 10:21 PM

Much progress today and moving toward the finish line...I just need the drawer slides to arrive so I can complete the installation of the drawers, get it off the bench and then do the mounting points for the bench top which will keep it about 165mm off the top of the cabinets so that my hold-fasts can be used with even the thinnest material.

As I previously noted, the drawers are simple glue and screws assembly and are very strong. the front and back panels get installed first as shown to the solid bottom and then the sides go on. That leaves no visible plywood "end grain" showing from the sides once the applied drawer fronts are installed.

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I originally planned for four drawers but was able to sneak another one of the shorties up top with no problem...cutting the parts on the CNC only took about 5 minutes since I could reused an existing file with just moving a few things around to fit the piece of plywood I had left.

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Note the creative "bench extension" so I had enough space to assemble the taller two drawers at the other end of the bench. :)

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Since my small Sundown amplifier will live in the left side cubby, I needed to open up the back a little for both the electrical cord and so that the amp wasn't sitting in a box...amps like that are open at the back and that's part of the sound transmission. It also means ventilation for the tubes. Yup...it's a tube amp. :) The hole was simple to do with some pilot holes, a forstner bit from both directions to keep the corners clean and a jig-saw with a fine blade. "Shoulda coulda woulda" cut this on the CNC when I produced the back panel, but I just plain forgot. No matter...some other tools didn't feel so lonely since they got to do some work. :D

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To figure out the drawer front dimensions, I created a story stick and worked things out before cutting the pieces from multi-core plywood salvaged from the destruction of the old miter station. The top two faces are 53mm tall, the middle face is 105mm tall and the bottom two faces are each 155mm tall.

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I applied two coats of "relatively inexpensive" satin sheen water borne paint I grabbed off the shelf at True Value when I picked up the nuts and bolts for the casters. It was an easy job with a nice 2.5" brush and looks better than in these photos where it was only partially dry. I didn't paint the top yet as I want the ability to securely use glue for the mounting system I'll figure out for the bench top in the next few days.

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Jim Becker

11-03-2019, 4:59 PM

I had a little time yesterday and today to faddle with this project in-between things like "mowing the leaves", etc. :) The focus is on the drawers and while I'm still waiting for the original four full extension slides to arrive from Lee Valley tomorrow or Tuesday, the one I ordered separately from Amazon when I added the fifth drawer was in hand last night. So I worked on the bottom drawer and that will serve as the procedural template for the remaining four drawers.

I didn't take a photo of installing these first slides, but the cabinet mounted pieces are flush with the bottom of the case. I then calculated the position that the drawer mounted piece had to be up from the bottom to just clear the cabinet bottom and also the distance back from the front they needed to start to allow for applied drawer fronts to be flush. Once that was accomplished, the drawer was slipped into the case and the drawer front was applied. One of my steel rulers served as a spacer on the bottom very nicely while I clamped the drawer front in place and then drilled/countersunk from the inside and installed two screws.

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I decided to use some aluminum angle for full width drawer pulls that would look similar to those on the Husky tool cabinets already in my shop. Since Professor Dr. SWMBO and I had to run a few errands after dropping our older daughter off at work early afternoon, I picked up the metal at Home Depot for one the the day's stops. The angle is the 1/16" thinner style and is a 1" angle. 1.25" would have been "more ideal", but there was none in the rack. The metal was cut to the required 570mm wide on my miter saw that now lives upstairs near the lumber rack and then had any burrs removed with a fine file. The underside reveal is just enough to catch a finger and will also clean up the look of the top of the plywood drawer fronts.

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Attaching the aluminum to the plywood required five .125" holes to be bored and then countersunk for #6 screws. That's drill press work with the aluminum angle perched on a sacrificial piece of wood. The stops were used on the tool to insure that the countersinks were all the same depth and diameter.

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Installation of the pull is easy. I did carefully refine a few of the countersinks with a hand drill just to insure that all the screws were seated flush.

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Aside from paint, this bottom drawer illustrates how things will look. Once the other drawer slides are in-hand, it will not take too long to install the remaining drawers and then move on to getting the bench top supports on this cabinet and installing a vice on said bench top to complete the build.

Jim Becker

11-03-2019, 5:02 PM

I did also receive the vice hardware....this Yost unit was very reasonably priced and I'm impressed with the quality. It will be a "face vice" installed in the "end vice" position for this new work surface. If I need to use a front vice for something, I can do that on the main bench. In the mean time, I will not be backing into vice hardware when doing work on the main bench...which could hurt or something. :)

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Steve Wurster

11-04-2019, 7:54 AM

It's looking really good, Jim. I was going to say that cutting all that plywood with your CNC seems like taking the slow route, but then I realized you have almost no waste. That seems like a plus.

Jim Becker

11-04-2019, 9:10 AM

Steve, I would suspect it's chronologically faster to sling material onto the slider, but 1) I'd have to do a lot more lifting and manipulation and 2) the cuts are even more accurate on the CNC than on the slider. Assuming I program it correctly, of course. LOL I now make cut lists for this kind of project, but that still assumes I do the math correctly. I'm using Excel now for that because I can pre-measure material general thickness and use that in a simple formula to help make sure things fit together and end up at the desired total dimension. Example...the 2 sides of a drawer box that overlap the 2 other sides have to be exactly two material thicknesses longer than their side of the bottom in my design. The material thickness here was "generally" 12.43mm so the two referenced sides had to be 24.86mm longer than the drawer bottom. Doing that math in the spreadsheet helps me make less mistakes but is still fast. I just take those numbers and use them directly to create the rectangular vectors that will be cut by the machine. At that point, it's mostly organizing them on the sheet for cutting which is also pretty quick.

Waste can be a factor no matter how one cuts. If I had a vacuum table I could reduce waste further, but as I've cut more and more with the machine, I've gotten a handle on just how many 'tabs" I actually need to keep a component in place so I can eliminate waste even more by getting things close together, even with overlapping "kerfs". One of the reasons that I don't like working with sheet goods that much is the weight frankly. At least with the tach trunks it's all .5" material and that's a little easier for me to handle. Here, I had one lift plus a twirl after the weight was reduced by removing cut parts. My main bench is adjustable height and it serves well to support the portion of the full sheet that's hanging off the CNC's ~4x~4 workspace. So instead of doing what I'd have to do to halve a sheet first, here I have one lift and cut parts a "few" minutes later.

All of the parts from a half-sheet file were cut in 5-8 minutes tops and the programming time was mere minutes, too...it's just rectangles of a given dimension and since all are cut with the same tooling with the same settings, it's a "select all" setup to create the cut file for the machine. Once I built the file for one sheet, the other three were merely a quick modification of the sizes, etc., with the same "select all" to assign the same cutting parameters. The only thing that added a few minutes was calculating "safe" places for the small screws I used for holding the material to the machine's spoil board...a simple matter of moving a guide line in the software and noting its location at the edge of the sheet or its intersection with a perpendicular guide line for something in the middle of the sheet.

Dennis Peacock

11-04-2019, 11:57 AM

Love it! Looks like you're keeping that CNC machine busy. ;)

Jim Becker

11-04-2019, 8:36 PM

Love it! Looks like you're keeping that CNC machine busy. ;)

Always..."to a hammer, everything is a nail" has a CNC corollary you know... ;)

Jim Becker

11-04-2019, 8:47 PM

So....I continued with the drawers today once I got into the shop. Rather than doing fancy math to place the drawer slides, I built things up from the bottom and actually measured things as I progressed to insure that each subsequent drawer didn't interfere with the one below. I piece of scrap served as a spacer for the next slide up and that spacer got smaller and smaller over the process. )

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To get the position, I struck a line back from the top of the previous drawer and measured up from the top of the previous slide, adding a couple of mm for good measure. (pardon the expression :D )

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When done properly (wink...wink...nod...nod...) the slide would clear with a little space to spare.

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After screwing in the cabinet portion of the slide, I measured up from the previous drawer top to ascertain how far to set the drawer side of the slide up from the bottom. This measurement minus a couple of mm did the job. The front of the drawer mounted slides worked out to be 35mm back from the front of the drawer box to end up with the applied faces more or less flush with the front of the cabinet.

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This was once again a "rinse and repeat" until done operation...you can see that the last scrap spacer for the top drawer was indeed pretty narrow.

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And the end result...exactly what I wanted...

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To paint the drawer fronts, I had to remove the aluminum pulls, so I numbered them first so they returned to the correct drawer. The two 150mm drawers at the bottom and the two 50mm drawers at the top also have to go back to their specific spots because of minor variations in how the slides were installed. That's not workable for someone's kitchen, but fine for this "seat of my pants" project.

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Jim Becker

11-04-2019, 8:48 PM

After Professor Dr. SWMBO (who was home today grading papers...) helped me lift the cabinet off the main bench, it was time to get the vice installed on the bottom of the bench top that will live on top of the cabinet. Using a piece of maple left over from building the top, I created the bench-side vice face (325mm wide and 40mm thick), located and placed the necessary holes for the acme screw and guides to pass through and fastened it to the edge of the bench. I actually fastened it twice...the first time on the wrong side which would have put the jaws toward the back of the unit...silly me forgot that things are reversed when upside-down. ;) Fortunately, the glue had not dried and not too many bad words were required to recover. Blocking was also installed to support the bench-side portion of the vice from more of the scrap left over from building the top. I think I have one small piece a few inches long left. Efficient use of material I suppose.

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I'll make the movable vice face tomorrow...I need to raid my rack upstairs and find something interesting to use. To make that easier, I created a template using the bench-side piece before fastening it permanently to the bottom of the bench as shown.

The final part of the job with the bench flipped over was to calculate where I wanted to put the supports that raise it up off the cabinet by about 165mm to allow sufficient space for the holdfasts to be able to grab onto very thin material. I'm still debating on two or three supports.

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As a matter of fact, I glued up three plywood sandwiches made from the last of the remaining material from the old miter station demolition. Once brought to final size, these will provide stout support for the bench top, whether I use two or three. The one at the vice end will understandably have to have material removed to clear the vice mechanism. One thing I need to pay very careful attention to is insuring that the supports, be there 2 or three, are all coplanar so there is no racking/twisting of the bench top when it's fastened down tightly to them. I predict that this project...will actually involve winding sticks which when you think about it is an interesting contrast to the CNC used to cut parts. :) :D

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Jim Becker

11-05-2019, 9:02 PM

WOOT! Got this thang finished up today and I'm excited to be able to start using it for its intended purpose as well as for other things that will benefit from the extra work surface.

The laminations I made yesterday before stoping work for the day were cleaned up and sized before installing on the cabinet top. These add 165mm of "space" that will permit my hold-fasts to be fully functional even for thin material and also bring the work surface height from the floor to just a hair under 1000mm. (The MFT standard height is 900mm) This will be comfortable for detail work standing and reduce back strain due to minimal bending over. There are three supports. The two outer ones are fully engaged to support the top. The center one was left just shy so that I could employ some simple shims to keep the bench top from sagging over time without adding any stress to the same. The top of the cabinet has minor variations and the fitting to get all three supports completely in plane would have taken far more time than I was willing to spend. The two outer supports are screwed from below. I did not use glue for these just in case I decide I must change the overall height in the future after using it for awhile. The center support had to be "toe-nail" screwed because the center divider in the case is on the same line that screws from below would have had to have been installed.

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At that point, the top and supports were painted and it was off to vote. :)

When I returned, I installed the top to the supports. One small shim was required back left and in the center, a small piece of used up 200 grit sandpaper folded over did the deed.

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I then put the aluminum pulls back on the drawers that had been painted at the end of the day previous and I'm happy to say I apparently didn't screw up with them...they went back to where they needed to be quite nicely. :D

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The final construction piece was to make the outboard vice face and get that setup. I had a nice hunk of straight grained 8/4 oak in the rack that was inexplicably the exact width I needed for height so that was chosen for the job. I planed that down to 40mm thick, did the layout for the required holes, bored them at the drill press and then went to work installing the piece to the vice.

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