Project: New Main Bench Top (build)

[Phil Mueller]

Looking great Jim. I’ll agree with you on the green and purpleheart. My bench has a maple leg vise with the green LV screw. It’s in close proximity to my purpleheart crochet. Never have liked the combo. Been meaning to paint the screw for going on 3 years now LOL.

Also, I’ll just throw this out as a thought. My purpleheart crochet is attached to my maple bench top with two lag bolts recessed just as you are indicating on your build. Both bolts will loosen from time to time. Not sure if it’s because of use, wood movement, or ? I’m just thinking you might not want to plug the hole so that the lag can be tightened from time to time. Just something to think about.

[Jim Becker]

Phil, I actually am contemplating not plugging the hole as you note. I may look for a 2mm plastic cap or something to clean it up and hide the bolt head.I did paint the visible part of the vice black today and I think it's going to look great. Even though I have a lot of green things in the house, particularly in the master suite and kitchen, it's not my favorite color in the shop. Only one green tool and it's a combo sander.
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Well, OK, now...this afternoon was quite productive. Fixed the vice location to the correct side of the bench, got the benchtop onto the Adjust-A-Bench base and drilled the .75" dog holes through the bottom...which was NOT a fun task as I'll explain below.

As noted, I started off with adjusting the vice position to the correct side of the bench. This was quick and easy...like ten minutes of work. I'm so glad I didn't use glue. LOL

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It was then time to remove the old benchtop. Rather than wrestle with something really heavy, I simply used my new auxiliary bench as a dolly so I only had to lift one end at a time and then only an inch or so

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I wheeled it over to the double doors and then tipped it down to the floor. It will be disposed of tomorrow with the help of the big orange power tool. I'll put it down by the road as it will be grabbed by the roving scavengers for sure, along with a few other things that need to be disappeared. Next, I used the same technique to get the new benchtop over to the Adjust-A-Bench base after flipping it over.

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I pre-marked the bottom so I could move it around until it was centered and positioned as I intended it to be on the base. A quick drill of 8 pilot holes and then installing 8 small lag bolts got things put together very securely. Darn...that looks nice and it's not even done yet!

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For the next couple of hours, I bored out the .75" dog holes through the full 80mm thickness...a thankless task in purpleheart. Hard stuff! I actually ended up using two spade bits so I could alternate them for cooling and occasional sharpening. I used THREE different drill/drivers for the same reason; one for some .25" pilot holes which seemed to let the spade bits cut faster in that stuff and two for the spade bits so both bit and driver could cool down between holes. A piece of scrap was clamped on the bottom to minimize splintering (one small not-nice thing with species like purpleheart) as the bits broke through. I only managed to get two small splinters which fortunately were easy to remove. This was not a pleasant task and I'm SO glad that I was able to do most of the boring on the CNC!

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So at that point....

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[Jim Becker]

It was time to turn my attention to the vice jaw. I took the "raw jaw" that I had glued up the night before and milled it down from 45mm thick to 40mm thick which also cleaned up the faces and glue lines. It was then clamped to the bench above where it would be living as a vice jaw so I could lay out the dog hole and the through holes necessary for the vice hardware. And yea...the "virgin" use of one of my hold-fasts on the new bench occured.

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By clamping the piece in place, I could directly extend boundary lines to insure everything was absolutely lined up when the vice jaw is in place and level with the benchtop. Note I used a light colored pencil as a regular pencil line is hard to see on the purpleheart

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Off to the DP to drill some holes in the designated places...two 25mm, one 35mm and a lonely .75" dog hole on top.

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The vice will get final assembled tomorrow as the black paint on the hardware will have dried overnight. In the mean time, I just couldn't resist checking out what the effect of some BLO would be on the purpleheart. Oh. Wow. No question, this bench is getting oil and wax at a minimum. Wow... I already know what it will do to the cherry, but it's been a long time since I built something with purpleheart and I forgot just how special this wood can be.

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[andrew whicker]

That's a cool scraper... I'm guessing you don't 'sharpen' it like the thin scrapers?

[Jim Becker]

That's a cool scraper... I'm guessing you don't 'sharpen' it like the thin scrapers?

The principle is the same...you need a burr to do the deed. But that heavier piece of steel is a pleasure to use for sure. I have both the one pictured as well as one that's rounded for "scooping". I may never use them much for my guitar making because, well...CNC...but I caught a sale and felt they would be an asset to have in my tool box.
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I mounted the vice today in the few minutes I had between other things and wasn't quite happy with things. I need to do a little shimming under the bench as something is off. I may actually need to get a beefier or different style vice for this much thicker bench as it mounts a little low on the face and doesn't provide much support area. Again, I didn't use any glue, so it wouldn't be a stretch to switch to a different type if necessary.

[Jim Becker]

Yesterday and today, during the time I had available, I pretty much finished up this project, outside of the future plan to take it for sanding once things open up business-wise in PA. There is a minor dip where the 'rear' panel meets the solid section and taking off about 1mm in the wide sander will solve that. But for now...it's just fine.

My activity on Thursday revolved around completing the vice install. I wasn't happy with the raw install, so a little minor shimming under the bench took care of that. I plugged the original holes drilled for mounting the movable face and then proceeded to carefully clampe and align things, re-drill for slightly larger lag bolts, install the bolts and then shave the top of the movable jaw so it was dead level with the benchtop.

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That left me with a bench ready for a lot of sanding smooth and then a little oil to "perk it up"...

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Speaking of oil...yum...wow...

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Lastly, I decided to get my holdfasts, dogs and dog-clamps better organized "at" the bench, rather than in a drawer across the room. A scrap of pine, a scrap of aluminum angle and a few minutes with the CNC machine did the deed.

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So...it's time to use it.

[Paul F Mills]

That will be really beautiful.

[Jim Becker]

That will be really beautiful.

It's almost too pretty to work on. LOL. But it already has its inaugural scratch...

[David Utterback]

A real gem, Jim. Looks like it will serve for a lifetime of projects. Thanks for sharing!

[David Eisenhauer]

Jees Jim, this a work of art as opposed to a workbench. Nice work and I'd imagine somewhat trickier layout and milling to make everything fit into the two outer rails plus the center rail. For me, building from the outside-in is always harder to accomplish than inside-out where things can run a little wild and then get cleaned up to final dimensions. Do you think this will this end up being the "final" bench build for your shop?

[jim sauterer]

Wow that looks great jim nice job.

[Jim Becker]

...and I'd imagine somewhat trickier layout and milling to make everything fit into the two outer rails plus the center rail. For me, building from the outside-in is always harder to accomplish than inside-out where things can run a little wild and then get cleaned up to final dimensions. Do you think this will this end up being the "final" bench build for your shop?

The CNC piece for the dog holes was really easy as I just made a minor adjustment to the "workpiece" size in the file and recalculated the toolpaths after I physically completed assembling the benchtop from the components. The bench ended up being slightly narrower and longer than my original 'back of napkin' design. It went from 1600mm x 800mm to 1680mm x 775mm once I final milled all the components. The only real change to the hole design was adding an extra row at the end of the bench which was made possible when I switched from a solid, separate end piece to the "waterfall" end in an effort to accommodate wood movement. There was enough space then for that extra row once the extra length of the bench was also factored in.

And yea...I don't need any more benches! This one is just a replacement top and I've wanted to do it for years. The Auxiliary bench was a new addition and has that nice downdraft function and pocket hole jig setup. The dedicated guitar bench is what it is and is the only one that's fixed height. All three are mobile, although it's rare I move my main bench and the guitar bench has its place on the south wall that I don't expect to change. The Aux bench does what it does but is also my "dolly" for moving heavy things around...like this new main benchtop as show in the build above.

While I'm sad that I'm not able to do work for clients right now due to the mandated shutdown of non-essential businesses (including my material suppliers), I'm happy that I was able to put the time to use on some personal projects that needed to get done. There are more of them coming soon.

[eugene thomas]

Bench looks nice. Wife told me if ever waste that much purple heart i have new bed to sleap on.

[Jim Becker]

Bench looks nice. Wife told me if ever waste that much purple heart i have new bed to sleap on.

If I used it for firewood, it would have been wasted wood. But this was the right project for it in my little world. It's hard, heavy and not unusual to be used in a bench. Russell Crawford recently did an amazing new bench out of maple and purpleheart. The contrast is amazing!

[Phil Mueller]

Wow, beautiful. You’re going to love using that. Well done.