finally made something...

[Robert Trotter]

well I have been asking a lot on this forum and still am:) but since I am on holidays I thought I might try and use some these new toys I have and make something.

Bought just construct constructoin timber s4s (or is 4s4?) the home centre (borg). I selected each piece so most was OK but I just wanted to try out some techniques and using some a few of the planes I have now so I tried truing up the surface and making things square and the same size. A bit or a pain with the construction garde spruce, knots and reversing grain. Had bit of tearout on the wide top of one of the benches. Tried plainng across the grain and fixing things and then closed up the mouth and finer shaving and worked a lot better. Not great but good practice.

Oh!:eek: forgot to put the pics in...here ya go...

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They are saw benched copied from Chris' pics on the internet. One has a narrower base the the other.(70 degrees and 75 degrees leg slope) Just to see the differnce in using them. It worked out well as they stack very nicely making a shelf unit when not in use. Getting them the same height took a while with a saw and lot of use of my LN 102 block plane. Nice little tool on the end grain. Just getting to know it. But I am sure we will be best buddies.

The horns (what do you call them?) at the end were cut with a straight hand saw (mutiple times - really need to get a saw for cutting curves) and then cleaning up by hand with a chisel.

Mortices and chisel work done with my 6mm and 21mm cheap Japanese chisels. I really need some more chisels to suit the work I am doing.

Then I had to sharpen all my blades again so I decided it was time to fix the old water stones ( I do have nice new ones Shaptons as well) so I went down and bought a masonry block and folowing some of the advice from people here, went at it. Lot of water and then a final few swipes with my diamond stone (just for keeping all my stones flat) and they were like new. I think having bought the new stones I wasn't worrying so much about stuffing them up. But they turned out OK.

So now I had some blades needing a touch up and nice flat stones I decided to make a little sharpening board...

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I made it this way so it is like a bench hool and I can put presure on it mith my waist to give me a very stable stone for sharpening.

So then I went at it and sharpened things up.

THe end


Robert

[Louis Bois]

Nice work on these Robert! An excellent introduction to your handtools. Sounds like you learned some of the subtleties of hand tool use.

One of the things I like best about handtools is the feedback you get from the wood being worked...such as you witnessed with reversing grain, etc...

Well done!

Cheers,

[Wiley Horne]

Really excellent work, Robert. Bootstrapping yourself up from a Workmate using what you've got is the best part!

The bench stone will be most useful. Especially for chisels. With the stone right beside you, you can touch up as you go, so they stay sharp and you never have a dull chisel or a stack of them needing sharpening.

The saw benches look great.

Wiley

[Robert Trotter]

Thanks Wiley and Louis,

I really like the the saw benches. When I was younger my Dad had some saw horses which got used a lot but I think these saw benches will be a lot more useful. I really like how you can put planes and tools on the bottom shelves. And they are pretty stable. I used the first one to make the second one and it was a lot more stable than the workmate.

They will come in handy also when I start making my workbench. And in the future I think they will be useful for an assembly area, which is why I wanted them the same height.

Robert

[Mark Stutz]

Robert,
I really like the saw benches. That's one thing on my "to do" list...but I can only seem to find my square tuits, never the round ones.

Mark

[Jon Toebbe]

Those sawbenches look great! That's next on my list of projects once I finish my lathe stand. Chris Schwarz recommended making them rather short -- 18 inches, IIRC. Is that what you went with? If so, how do you like that as a working height?

[Robert Trotter]

Hi Jon,

I think they are a bit bigger than Chris's. Mine are 22.5" high and 35" long. I am a tad under 6' tall and I like the height. Means I don't have to bend over so much and I can still get over the work for sawing and I used the first one in a Japanese style for chopping motices etc.. That is, I put the work on it and then sat on it and chiselled away. I also used one for planing on while making the second. just clamped a batten at the end and used that. A bit low but not too bad. Better than going for a ride on the workmate. Yeeehahhhh!:p

I used the computer model from Chris's blog and took some measurements and then went down and looked at what timber they had and chose from that. I could have used 2x4 for legs and maybe a 1x___ for the top[ to keep it light but I wanted them to be solid. And they are. But I went with 60mm square leg stock and then squared and straightened them up. The top of mine is from 2x8. The stretchers (?) are 2x3 stock and the shelf unit and end panels/braces are from 1x6 stock. Once I had the member sizes I would use I drew it up on SketchUp so I could calculate the leg lengths and for cutting. I could have done this some other way but I was also practice for using Sketchup.

I wanted them as multi-purpose benches. Sawing and for use as an assembly area and also as a seat when working at my to-be-built-bench. And I will use them to make may workbench so I wanted them long enough to support the top while glueing it up.

Overall , while they are bigger, they are not too small that they are just taking up space. I have the two stacked and they lock nicely together to make nice shelves while not in use. (Until the shed is built)

Robert