The phoenix has arisen - bench progress

[Derek Cohen]

Well I guess it not quite a Phoenix, but the bench build was in threat when I left off at the last report.


I had reached this point ... the top was looking good, and I was ready to assemble the base.





And then Perry, my ex-friend, discovered that I had inserted the dog strip back-to-front! Bugger. Looking through old photos I realised that the dry run had them the correct way, and I had marked them for the glue-up ... and then misread my markings. Bugger again.


A repair was complicated by the fact that the dogs angled 2 degrees ... now in the opposite direction!


Many on the forums recommended that the best way to deal with this was either to fill in the dogs and drill them for dowels, or to try and insert a shim and re-chisel the dog angle. It struck me that few were willing to start again - to cut out the dog hole strip and re-make it. Modifications as repairs are rarely satisfying. It is far better to have the Real Thing, even if this means pushing the envelope to do so.


Reshaping the dogholes is not practical. It is not just that they slope at 2 degees on both sides of the shaft, but that the head of the dog faces the wrong direction. Even if you turn this around, the support for the dog hole head is now absent. I don't want patches.


The plan was to remove only the dog hole strip as far as the last dog hole. There is no need to touch the side board or the area for the tail vise, and the latter includes leaving the dovetail well alone.


I must say a big Thank You to Perry who came over this weekend to help. I really could not have done this without him. The bench was rotated several times. Most importantly, Perry made sure I did not get anything back-to-front!


The main working tool here was a powered router. A series of guides were built to use with a bearing bit. The sides were deepened in a progressive manner, working to a few mm of the final dimension for the dog hole strip.


Top ..





Bottom ..





... keeping well away from the tail vise area ..





I had managed to beg another 4"x2" board in European Oak, and this was turned into a new dog strip with dogs 3" apart. This was an upgrade on the previous dog hole strip, where I joined pieces together having run out of this wood. It had look OK, but there were joins if one looked carefully. Now the strip was one continuous piece.





Checking that the strip ran in the correct direction!!!





A temporary planing stop while I fine tuned the insert ...





Here we are, glued up, the strip a little proud of the bench ... Perry looking on. Thanks again Perry.






That was Sunday night. I finished work today and had a few hours free. The first thing I did was plane the raised strip flush with the bench ...





Even with a close inspection it was not possible to see that there had been a repair.





I am delighted with the way it turned out. On a high I decided to nail together the base.


While preparing to draw-bore the stretchers into the legs ...

[Derek Cohen]

... a novel way of inserting the draw-bore pins occurred to me. I ran the pins through my pencil sharpener ...





to taper the ends ...





After a coat of oil the base ended up like this (I must point out that the flash does accentuate the figure) ...





One detail for now - the sliding deadman lower guide. This is screwed on to the stretcher. The idea is that I will not have to lift the deadman over it (when fitting the deadman), and this should translate into a fit with closer tolerances) ...





Next weekend I should finish the bench. Just the leg vise and deadman to complete (80% done) and the tail vise to screw on. Then the dogs to machine. The shelf has to be made. And a few other odds-and-ends.


Regards from Perth


Derek

[Jeff Bartley]

Derek,
Kudos to you for the excellent repair! Much, much better than a patch. And your friend Perry deserves a beer, or two: one for spotting the mistake and the other for helping to fix it! Actually, make that a case of beer.
I also use a pencil sharpener to taper my pegs when draw-boring....it's just so easy.
The bench looks great and don't feel bad if it takes weeks, months, or even years to finish things like the shelf....I've been using my bench for two years now without a shelf....but it's on the short-list.
A question: is European Oak like a white oak or a red oak? By that I mean, is it closed-celled like white, or open-celled like red?
Enjoy your new bench! Jeff

[Prashun Patel]

You really should start charging for these posts, Derek. Thanks for taking the time to detail things as you do. Have learned a lot fm u.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Jeff

This oak was sold to me as "European Oak", which means it likely originated in Eastern Europe. I have very limited experience with US White Oak, but they appear to be the same.

It is a tough wood to plane the end grain of, but is like butter (after Jarrah) when working on the face grain.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Matthews]

You really should start charging for these posts, Derek. Thanks for taking the time to detail things as you do. Have learned a lot fm u.

Shhh..... let him think no one is watching...
Derek's shop tools look better finished than my furniture.

[Sean Hughto]

Glad it worked out. Looks fantastic.

I once was making a wall cabinet with dovetailed corners, and during glue up, somehow managed to reverse some pieces such that the tail/pin combinations were not paired as marked and cut. Luckily, probably more fluke than anything else, they matched well enough to go to together anyway. All to say, it's easy to make such mistakes.

How thick is the front most board on your bench? I ask because from the pictures, the dog holes look set back from the front a bit far. This mainly comes into play when working edges (profiles , grooves, etc) where you need to hang a relatively narrow board off the front of the bench in order to accomodate a plane with a fence or molding plane (electric router too, of course).

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Sean

The dog holes are 2" from the front edge. Early on I had to decide whether to keep them close - and lose the hole over the legs - or run them continuously behind the legs, which wold have been 4" out from the edge. As you can see, I chose to get them as close to the edge as practical.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Bobby O'Neal]

These have been very exciting and encouraging threads

[Pat Barry]

Derek - very impressive that you were able to route out the strip accurately enough to fit in a replacement strip. Especially since you didn't remove it completely but patched it in. Thats very close tolerance work.. Well done

[Jim Neeley]

Not just that, it doesn't look like others will notice the mod. Great work!! :-)

[Bruno Frontera dela Cruz]

Sweet dovetails!

[george wilson]

Great job! You will always be glad that you went back and did it over.

[Derek Cohen]

.... Thats very close tolerance work....

Hi Pat

I meant to write earlier (- will add it in on my website) that the trick is to rout close to the final dimensions only. If one attempts to hit the line first time, there is so much resistance from the wood that you may be forced with the grain and over the boundary. I routed to a few mm, and then took the final cuts at the line.

Also, the dog strip was used as a template for the "hole" by fitting it on top, and butting a fence against the edge. The bearing bit was then run against that fence. I required minimal planing, and only chisel work at the end to square up. Of course, all this sounds easy, but it was exhausting as it ran for about 12 hours.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Richard Francis]

The difference in oaks appears to be between quercus robur (English Oak) and quercus petraea (French or European oak), both pedunculate oaks and quercus alba (American White oak). Not a great deal of difference in strength altho' the american oak tends to be more tightly grained and thus stronger for some uses.
The difference is noticed by oenophiles where the american oak produces more flavour in those Aussie chardonnays and the european oak tends not to be leakproof unless split for staves rather than sawn.
see http://ajevonline.org/content/46/4/424.full.pdf