I know you all like bench build threads. And now fate has chosen me. It is my turn to take up the mantle and please the crowd!
Anywhoo, I hope this thread will address some of the little decisions to be made and details of bench building that I didn't absorb through any books or other forum threads. Though this is not my first woodworking project in general, it is the first big project I am taking on primarily with hand tools so there will be a lot to learn. Probably a lot of small details included in supposedly basic operations. I am always appreciative of advice and constructive criticism so lay it on me.
I started out with a bunch of boards that were around 8-9" wide, 2" thick, and 76-80" long. In addition I got a a beam that is about 8" wide, 4" thick, and 80" long. All in all about 80 board feet. All yellow pine from the same tree.
I did start a thread a few weeks ago asking about the best way to dimension boards to get the benchtop (like I said, decisions to be made and details involved in operations that may appear simple from the outset). There is a lot of great advice and information in that thread but it got pretty long and has been inactive for a couple weeks or more, so I figured it would be better to start another thread than to turn that last one into a 10-page ordeal.
Here's what I started with:
IMG_5209.jpg IMG_5296.jpg
The plan is for a Moravian bench along the lines of Will Myers' with a couple modifications. His bench has a 13-1/2" wide benchtop and a 10-1/2" wide tool tray. I'm planning on a 16" wide benchtop and 8" wide tool tray. Haven't gotten that far yet but I think that will be ideal for me. A 13-1/2" wide benchtop seems a little narrow to me and I don't need that much space in a tool tray. It'll only fill up with shavings and tools that I should put away.
A few lessons:
1) Buying a power planer was a good decision. I absolutely would not want to do this all by hand. Jointing one edge on these long boards by hand takes me at least an hour and maybe two.
As I learned in my previous thread, a board also doesn't have to have a perfect face or edge before you put it through the planer. A few of these boards went straight to the planer without any prior work and came out pretty flat. That said, the planer does not take out gradual bows or twists so there's still a lot of handwork to be done. What I found to work best (so far) is to get one face relatively flat, plane the board (both sides) just enough to get fresh faces on either side, then go back to the hand planes to take care of imperfections the planer won't correct on one face, then do the final planing to thickness.
I also built 36" infeed and outfeed tables for my planer (12" Delta) and have found those to be very helpful in getting rid of snipe and making the planer a little more effective in eliminating bows.
2) Though I'd love a nice 14" bandsaw and will certainly get one someday, a circular saw with a fence has worked just fine for making the long rips. As long as the edge that the fence is registering on is straight the setup seems to be plenty accurate.
These are the only power tools that I have used so far and I don't think I'll be needing any more for this project. I bought the planer for $100 and the circular saw for $30. Throw in the circular saw fence and materials to make planer tables and I still have only around $200 in those tools.