Small heavy Workbench, inexpensive

[Scott Winners]

Wow. Four months. I have been kinda stewing on reviewing this thing, got my first commission this morning, so it is time.

1. Overall I am happy with the build based on reading a ton of (free, online) stuff written by Christopher Schwarz while waiting for his book to come in off Amazon. In general, following Chris' 10 or 12 or 18 rules (guidelines) in numerical order for bench building served me well, but the book, second edition, was worth the money.

If I was stuck with a small bench like this, I mean truly stuck for years and years with a 24 x 48" workbench top I would do whatever I had to do to get the weight up to 300+ pounds, greater than 136 kilos. Maple top eight inches thick and 8x8 spruce legs, Ok fine. Crucible makes holdfasts that will work, according to an email exchange I had with somebody over there, up to 9 inches thick. Or should anyway. I think it was John somebody. He seemed kinda non plussed but he answered my question without asking for more background info.

I do like having plenty of room at the left end of the bench (right hander) so I can work on stuff from the end, and I like having room to get to the backside of the bench at get at stuff from back there without having to release and re-clamp. Now that I have used this thing a while I am glad I left room for that, when I look at pictures of benches up against walls I just kind of cringe inside, but whatever works for you, you should do.

Should have built even heavier. My other beef is the $20 BORG vise. I bet i could trying closing that thing down on my pinkie finger and the vise would wrack before I felt pain. i would try it right now except it is Friday night and I have had a couple glasses of wine. Maybe I'll try it Monday morning. I am pretty much going for the $500 double threaded 3 inch diameter maple screw (Vermont retired syrup maker tree that used to be owned by the Ethan Allen) with the $18 unobtanium garter and the 6 million dollar chain tensioner instead of the old fashioned peg, so now that I have been using the $20 vise for four months I am ready to spend $6,000,518 on a leg vise for my next bench.The $20 vise is OK for saw sharpening, and straight grained hardwoods, but when I get into figured hardwoods the combination of inexpensive vise with light weight bench is quite painful.

Another drawback to this short bench is it is pretty crowded on the shelf under there already; I made a drilling guide, a shooting board, a saw vise, a holder for auger bits, I have 6 planes under there, three strops, a mallet for the holdfasts, and it is crowded.

I do have a planing stop on the end of the bench that is worth it's weight in gold, but beware the hardware labels at the BORG. I bought three screw-bolt hanger thingies labeled 3/8s, but two of them were actually 1/4 inch when I got them home. I should remake the vise jaws to clear the ends of the bolt hangers, I have about 3/4" unsupported stock when sawing in the vise that could go away with a little planning.

Besides building the bench and ancillaries, I have made a bunch of 6s6 pieces and done soap finish on them. My personal favorite is palm oil soap on hickory. I honestly don't love any of the olive oil soap pieces. Haven't fooled with any of the palm/olive oil blends. Working on a white oak hanger for my framing chisel. The poplar one is OK, but aesthetically lacking. Hoping the wee boxes I have made for my various planes will make my first drawers less painful.

And a pair of boot jacks. That is the commission. One of my co workers picked up the walnut one this morning, spanned to opening width with her hand and cussed. She asked if I could make a boot jack with a wider opening so she could use it help take off her insulated winter boots. I said yes.

benchtools.jpgbenchholding.jpgother.jpg

[Jim Koepke]

My other beef is the $20 BORG vise. I bet i could trying closing that thing down on my pinkie finger and the vise would wrack before I felt pain.

Learning how to control racking can turn it into a useable advantage. Start with a way to counter the racking:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?183743

When planing thin pieces the spacers help to regulate the vise so the thin piece isn't bowed.

It looks like you may benefit from making a second shelf under your bench.

Over time my below bench storage has been reduced to being limited to a couple of clamps, holdfasts and a few other things that are always used on the bench top.

jtk

[Rob Luter]

Nice job. I like that big Barr chisel.

I built a bench with very similar underpinnings (below). I didn't have the guts to try and chop all the mortises so I glued the legs up using 2x6 lumber and just left voids for the tenons. For me it was one less opportunity to screw something up.

[chris carter]

For some reason I can't view the original photos. Something about not having appropriate permissions. But....

My workbench is actually smaller in size and weight. I deal with the weight issue with an yellow 80lb weight on the shelf. That keeps it anchored down fine. A 5 gallon bucket filled with sand will also work. Or anything heavy. My choice is just dual purpose

weight.jpg

For the racking in the vise, I made a simple anti-racking device. It's made from 1/8" pieces of wood which is convenient because if I know the thickness of the wood, say it's 3/4" I can just count out 6 pieces. Otherwise, just lay your board and anti-rack and on the edge of the bench and just slide over all the excess pieces and you are left with the thickness of your board - very quick and easy. I made mine long enough to cover the entire vertical height of the vise so it not only stops racking horizontally, but also vertically if I have small pieces in the vise. It is 100% effective.
rack stop.jpg

In action:
rack stop 2.jpg

(thumbnails of my images aren't showing.... not sure why....)

[Jim Koepke]

[edit]

(thumbnails of my images aren't showing.... not sure why....)

Sawmill Creek is going through some changes related to members not being able to see or post images.

There has been some discussion of this of late.

Thogh your images are showing up on my screen.

jtk

[Scott Winners]

Didn't mean for this to take a week. As part of my review I re-read the Christopher Schwarz work bench book, and paged through the blog entries at lost art press. Mine is the second book, 'Art and Philosophy of building better benches.'

I do think my build punches a bit above its weight class for over all stiffness especially, and wanted to try to get at least a reasonable hypothesis on why. I did my build before the book came in, based on reading Chris' free stuff online, and I read all the books about timber framed buildings at my local library. What I have here is sized to fit my space, design direction from Christopher, and built like a barn.

I reserve the right to change my opinion later when I learn more facts, but i think three things are working for me.

Tenon size.
House/ barn joinery.
No lag bolts.

The only tenons in Chris' book bigger than the smallest tenon on my build are the leg to top braces on his Roubo. "When you design those massive mortise and tenon joints" what I did was look at building a small barn or a spacious shed. I got a 1.5" Barr chisel. I bought 4x6s for the undercarriage. My leg to top tenons are 24.375 cubic inches, 3.25 x 5.0 x 1.5 inches. The tenons on my short stretchers are 3.0 x 1.5 x 5.5 inches (24.75 cu in) The tenons on my long stretchers are 4.5 x 1.0 x 5.5 (24.75 cu in).

When I was reading up on Lost Art Chris has a recent (since I was there last) blog entry about how the leg to top joints are the most important joints in the bench and should be as large as possible. Each of his Roubo legs has two tenons on it, each nominally 1.25 x 5.5 x 4.875, 33.5 cu in each, but there is two of them per leg. When I read the rest of his book and recall "when thinking massive joinery" from priority one I think piffle.

Barn joinery. The idea of putting a shoulder on all four sides of a tenon, pointy heads be damned, does not seem to be (my limited research) an actual joint used in buildings from back in the day. It is a form found in palatial mountain chalet built timber frame style with metal connectors using Wyoming oil money. The history of such a joint in furniture making is not explored by me. I did also find a late 20th article from U Wyoming stating the best place to put a through peg was smack through the middle of a tenon. This hypothesis is also historically incorrect, as relish failure as the wood dries is more likely with less relish between the peg and air. See photos of, for instance, George Washington's threshing barn at Mount Vernon, though it was rebuilt in the 1990s.

NO metal bolts. I was in the home stretch, top was laminated and I was ready to cut my legs to length from the timbers. I just could not bring my self to put bearers across the tops of the legs and fasten the top with lag bolts. I at least had to try joinery here. I cut my legs long, so if I failed I could cut them down to use bearers and lag bolts. I cannot see going to a bunch of effort to make 8 solid MT joints and then wimping out on the last four to finish a bench. The other side of that coin is I process enough firewood annually to see cord wood both shrink and swell with my local seasons. You just can't put a lag bolt in wood here and expect it to stay together, the annual humidity change is too severe. It would be smarter to use wooden wedges and keep a mallet handy.

End of the day, me casa, su casa. If you are in Fairbanks someday, drop me a PM. I'll come to your hotel, drag you back to my shop and let you try working some faces edges and ends on this little thing. This thing is not built like no baby high chair, it is built like a barn. Might stuff some BBQ down your throat too.