Building Workbenches

[TEK]

Thanks for the feedback folks!

And now - I just discovered that my brain must have been utterly and completly out of business for some periode of time now...
A total brainfart has occured. And I really thought this through! Discovered it just when I started to think «hey, I can actually accomplish this»...

View one of the last pictures posted and see if you can figure out what it is.
Hint: see post 122 and 127.

I’m been pondering about how to fix it, and doing it «properly» requires a lot of rework.
I have concluded that I will do a patch and that will for the rest of my life remember me that this is buildt by me and not be some machine (or professional woodworker)

[ergo]

Uhh, is it the front to back top and bottom pieces taps colliding with the vice mechanisms? Or a front left leg being wrong way around?

In any case I sympathize with your frustration - but please do keep at it. It'll be a beautiful project.

[CADman_ks]

...

View one of the last pictures posted and see if you can figure out what it is.
...

I have concluded that I will do a patch and that will for the rest of my life remember me that this is buildt by me and not be some machine (or professional woodworker)

Is that the front left leg is turned around wrong?, since it doesn't have the mortise for your slide pieces? If that's the case, just turn that post around, and fill in that outside mortise that will be exposed from the lower rail mortise and tenon. Much easier than redoing the slot for the slide.

At any rate, it doesn't really matter what is wrong with it because it looks a LOT better than the bench that I have now. Oh wait, I don't even have one...

Keep up the GREAT work!!!

[Renron]

TEK,
Bummer , Left front leg looks 180* turned backwards. No groove for the scissor . I would remake the leg, so it wouldn't bother me in the future. In the long run you'll be glad.
UNLESS............You have the skills to be a DUTCHIE MASTER and fill in the mortise hole(s) . Matching the grain lines in the filler stock will help to hide the Dutchie. I've done some that I can't find.
Ron

[TEK]

You are correct, I hadthe vice leg turned 180 degrees.
Somehow I was thinking on it as if it was the vice itself, and for a long time it made perfectly sence that it should be that way. Inwas looking at some pictures on the net, and there it was - a vice leg with the track for the criss-cross and suddently it dawned upon me. Mine was the wrong way....

I’m have filled in the hole, but the result is way from invisible. The outside of the legs grain pattern is very far apart (for birch) as the wood is from the end of the tree. I did not find any pieces with the same grain pattern, so a seemless patch was not doable.











Not perfect, but OK

[TEK]

If you look at this picture you may see the grain pattern.
Birch is normally very dence grained, but this stock seems to be from the outer part of the tree, and in a direction that causes the year rings to be very wide.
Or actually, it seems to mostly be related to the direction of the grains compared to the surface of the leg.

[TEK]

While I’m at it I also did some more work on the leg.
First I extended the track for the criss-cross. I also extended the mount for the criss-cross.
After observing the amount of force that the vice apply to the vice I concluded that the tiny viny criss-cross mount I originally made probably would cave-in after some time of usage.
So now I have extended the hole and will make a new, mutch more sturdy mount.

The picture show the original mount placed in the mortise for the new mount...



After that was done I made the new mortise.
And guess what - I actually managed to do a new brainfarth and started to make the mortise on the inside of the leg instead of the outside. I got to drill four holes for the corners before realizing.
So now I have four 10mm holes to fill as well. It’s the same size Inuse for drawboring, so I will make some beach pins and insert into the holes.
But WTF am I thinking with :roll:

For the mortise I start by drilling foure holes in the corners (guess tou got that already), then I use the drill press with a forster bit to take out the main of the mortise, before I clean up eith chiesels.

[ergo]

If you have some thinner material left that is lenght of a full leg then perhaps routing or table sawing some 4..5mm off the full lenght of the leg and replacing a full long strip would look almost seamless and is work but should not be as much as making a new one.

[TEK]

Yeah, I did think about that.
But it’s a workbench, not a livingroom table...

In some years, hopefully it will look like this




and nobody will ever notice a small patch on a leg!

[TEK]

Some progress...

I have glued up and drawbored the end pices of the base. The streatches is just try mounted.
I think I will wait to glue them up until the top is ready. I’m a bit afraid of getting something out of alignment.

[TEK]

Got the wood for the top inside the workshop from the garage where it has been stored.
Just had to test one board on top of the base.

[Renron]

TEK, your doing a fine job. BUT..... I'm with Ergo and think you should rip 5mm off the leg and make it look pretty. Just my opinion. You'll thank Ergo later. You know how you are.
Ron

[TEK]

Dam it - your are hard to please

I’m more into my bad feeling on planning to rip and glue this large slabs...
Anyone know the value of something lile these? Are they worth more then regular planks (20cm x5cm) in the same length?

https://www.finn.no/bap/forsale/ad.html?finnkode=142678802

Here is some quite a bit larger, but this guy claims over 500usd pr slab 8O

[JCP]

Veeeldig fine planker det der du :W

[TEK]

Jupp - går litt dårlig samvittighet for å splitte dem opp. Føler at de egentlig burde bli til bord eller noe annet pent møbel.

[Renron]

Dam it - your are hard to please

I've seen the quality of your work and the pride you take in your projects. All very fine and supreme quality. I would say YOU are hard to please.
Can't help you with the value of the slab(s) you have. I would think that slabs are more valuable than regular planks. Try to sell them. ? Ask local friends about their value.
Ron

[TEK]

I’m mostley torn between these two utilizations:


Everyone seems to agree that I should go for the left solutions, but I want to go for the right and keep the as one slap (when viewed from above).
But I’m no expert and everyone recommends the rip-and-glue solution, so it seems ignorant of me to not do it that way.
Then again, Christofer Shwartz, one of the gurus of bench design, challenges a lot of others by using single slaps as well as quite wet lumber for workbench tops.
And if it was a single slab I would have no doubt, but I will need to do a horizontal glueup of two slabs, and I do not see anyone else doing that.
And then I start to think that it’s probably good resons that nobody does it.
But them again, these habe been on my garage for several years without breaking up - why would they not hold if I glue them together?

I could probably use the center of the slabs as the top,
And the two leftovers on the sides as the underside to make the right thickness...

All these choices - what to do...
Follow my ignorant gut feeling, or the advice of several experts saying that I should rip-and-glue....

[ergo]

With that long drying period they must have very little moisture in them and individually very stable. When that big area is glued then they would be ok if both 'live' same direction and so on... but will they, thats the big question. Not the quite the same but we had some hassles with middle gray paper glued to the composite aluminum plate. With higher moisture in Taiwan for example those would wrinkle up bad. A better solution was to glue only edges and not the whole area under the paper as we had done at fist. No idea if that would work for a big slab like you'r planning but there might be some logic that both would have some more freedom to move. Or then maybe no glue at all and some hidden bolts instead that have some horizontal movement leeway.

[TEK]

Each top will be 25cm (10 inches) wide, 10cm (4 inches) thick and approx 180-200cm long.
As strip or not will not affect the length its not a very wide area we are talking about.

But maybe, if I do it this way, I should take care of matchin the top and button so thar core wood and outer wood is above each other - so that both slabs glued together would move the same amount.
I have noticed that also with strip glued tops some take care to ensure that the senter mount has space to move.
If you have wood vs steel, then movement will be quite different between the wood and the steel.

Not to long before I start ripping, so in some nesr future I will have to decide...

[TEK]

Expect from the slabs I have now used all the wood I collected a few years ago (see post 33).
So, today I went on a new roadtrip to get some more.



This is what I dared to load into the car...

[ergo]

Very cool. You'd have enough material to build two benches - keep the better one and sell the other one. Though not sure what would be the fair price for this much of precise and hard work.

[TEK]

I reached out to https://lostartpress.com. As I do have «The workbench design book» I figured it might be worth a shoot to see if I could get another view on how I should go about to make the tops.

So, now I have decided what to do... The next post will show what it is.

[TEK]

Ripping the first straight edge with the circular saw


Then ripping on the table saw to 26cm (a bit more then the target width)


Repeat four times and we are ready to start flattening the boards.
That will be another day...

[TEK]

After some round of running the material to the thicknesser I figured out that due to crop and twist in the slabs I would not get the expected thickness of the top by gluing up two slabs.
My top would probably be closer to 3" than to the target thickness of 4".

So, the ripping has started...
But I’m also finding that I’m not able to flatten the ripped material on my jointer.
The outfeed table is to short for the almost 2m long planks.

So, before proceeding I need to fix that. I will build a stand for the jointer so that I might use the table saw as a outfeed table. Hopefully that will make it easier to flatten the planks.
The plan is to make a easy, foldable work table so that it might be stored away when not in use.
(A different plan is to buy a combined jointer/thicknesser that is quite a bit larger than the ones I have today - but thats quite expensive and will occupie a lot of floor space)

[Steve Manning]

After some round of running the material to the thicknesser I figured out that due to crop and twist in the slabs I would not get the expected thickness of the top by gluing up two slabs.
My top would probably be closer to 3" than to the target thickness of 4".

So, the ripping has started...
But I’m also finding that I’m not able to flatten the ripped material on my jointer.
The outfeed table is to short for the almost 2m long planks.

So, before proceeding I need to fix that. I will build a stand for the jointer so that I might use the table saw as a outfeed table. Hopefully that will make it easier to flatten the planks.
The plan is to make a easy, foldable work table so that it might be stored away when not in use.
(A different plan is to buy a combined jointer/thicknesser that is quite a bit larger than the ones I have today - but thats quite expensive and will occupie a lot of floor space)

TEK, I have a pair of these that I've used on my planner for long boards, in particular when I made my workbench. https://www.woodcraft.com/products/s...tand-woodriver

[TEK]

Thanks for the input.

But...I have one as well - however the table (my old workbench) that my very small and pony jointer stands on top of is so high that the support is to low, even when at it’s highest setting. So I tried to build it up, but I it did not get it square and steady.
So instead of «mocking around» trying to get that setup to work I figured that if I build a lower table with some adjustment possibilities I should be able to use my table saw as a very presise outfeed table and at the same time get my jointer to a decent working hight.
And if I want to I might use the outfeed roller I have as well.
Thinking about it I will probably use the same table for my thicknesser and use the outfeed roller there as the thicknesser gas a different height than the jointer.

PS: the jointers top is only 75cm long, and Inwould really have loved to have a decent 14" jointer!

[Renron]

Tek,
I made a quick planer sled when I needed to plane long boards for a project I made a few years back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOzRB30gxpE

Ron

[ergo]

Very nice upgrade to a machine there Ron and a nicely done video of the process!

All this talk about planers and thicknessers comes at an interesting moment. I'm just pondering on an offer I got, to buy a Hammer A3 26. It does make me even more inclined to take the deal as such a machine will help with many project in future. As is, I do not have neither planer or thicknesser yet, only a handheld planer I bought for creating the Ardent bevels.

[TEK]

Ron: is it you that made the video? I did not know that you were a youtube star8O
Very nice video and very nice infeed/outfeed table.

Ergo: if you work with rough cut lumber a jointer and a planer are very useful tools.
I must jowever say that I’m really struggeling to get the hang of my jointer.
It might be because I have no experience and do everything wrong, or it might be that it’s tuned the wrong way.
It seems like I take to mutch off the start and/or end of the bords, so that my pieces always end up with a bow in them (beeing thicker at the center).
I thougth it was due to the large boards (still might be) but today I experienced the same with a much smaler piece as well.

I feel that the thicknesser is much easier to use, but I need a flat side first and the jointer kindof are supposed to help me with that...

[ergo]

I also spotted the 'interesting upside down table saw' in Ron's video and the videos section gives a nice video for that "Radial Arm Saw". A very flexible saw that one. My father has a bit similar one but it only moves in one axis, so can only be used for cross cuts and not rip cuts.... Hmm or may be it is not limited. I've never taken a close enough look so it might be as flexible Something to check out next time I go over.

[Steve Manning]

TEK, I've watched some of this guys videos on tool setup, there generally pretty good. Here's one for the jointer. https://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/jointer-setup/

[TEK]

Steve!!! Right now you are my hero!
I viewed the video you linked to. I have to say that he used a lot of words, and his accuracy level is quite a bit beond mine.
I have almost none if the setting he has on my toy-jointer.
However - he gave a tip that the knives should be a tiny bit above the outfeed table.
I readjusted my jointer, that took like five minutes. Then I tested again. Whooa - what a difference!8O

I have these quite small pieces that I tried to flatten. And before adjusting I just was not able tonget it right. They just curled the same and got thinner and thinner in the front.
After adjusting it took two passes and the were perfectly flat.

That feelt very releaving!

[Renron]

No that's not me. I'm too ugly for video.
When using jointers check the grain direction of the wood. Always feed down hill (with) not up hill (against) the grain. When I got my jointer I spent 3 hours tuning it up and cleaning the bed. One of the few tools that HAS TO BE PERFECT .
IMO, a radial arm saw is not a precision tool. Give me a heavy table saw with glue blade any day of the week.

[Steve Manning]

Cool beans TEK, glad you got something out of the video. Granted you have to get past the drooling with that jointer he has, but he generally he has some good info with his videos, there's a bunch on his site worth looking at.

[TEK]

I mentioned I needed a stand for my little desktop jointer.
The resonable thing to do would be to gather some scrap and just throw together a simple stand. And that was kindof the plan - until it all went south...

I ended up building a hardwood table thas can be dissasambled and put away. The table top is glued hardwood strips. The legs are tapered so that they may be positioned on top of each other without taking to mutch place. The ended up a bit thinner than original planned - hopefully they will be steady enough.

I ended up using a lot more time and effort on this than I originally planned.
It’s kindof ironic that I really would have liked to have a decent workbench while building this :roll:

[TEK]

[TEK]

In use:





I added a MDF plate with screws to allow for fine adjustment of the joiner.
After some adjusting it seems like I’m finally able to produce a decent result.


This work for sure produces a lot of shavings!

[ergo]

TEK, very nice project again!
What technique did you use to cut those tapered legs?

[TEK]

The frame of the rable us tilted 15 degrees.
I started out with square legs that were 15 degrees on top/button.
Then the idea was that it should be possible to lay all the legs down inside the table top. But that was not possible when each leg was as thick as the frame.
So, to make the legs possible to store within the frame I just split them in the middle using the table saw and a spacer on the backside when pushing them trough.

In this image you can see the legs.




Here you see them before (to the right) and after (to the left) the split.

[Steve Manning]

What more real woodworking ..... when will this madness end? Nice TEK :T:T

[TEK]

when will this madness end?

Thats a good question...
At least it worked - now I have flatten one side on all the bord ripped for the top. After getting the jointer set up correctly and the infeed/outfeed solution in place I finally was able to get decent results!

But I was worried that the table would be unstable, as the legs ended up beeing quite thin.
That would be ironic - all that overdesigning - and then not beeing able to ise it as planned :roll:

But - it all ended well!

However, this work has for sure shown me that my shop layout need some redesign.
I’m not at all set up to be able to using the table saw, the jointer and the planer after each other in any resonable way.
That will have to be adressed when the bench is done!

[TEK]

A lot of work to flattend and plane the material to make all edges straight - but it’s getting there. One half is beeing glued up as we speak...

However, I have something that I’m wondering about and hope to get some input on.
My bench will have a wagon vice.
I wounder if it is a point to make the hole for the wagon vice end flush with the leg of the workbench.
I have the option to do that, but it will require quite a bit of presision, and I’m a bit unsure about the benefits gained.

The idea is that you may clamp smaller stock in the leg vice. If it’s flush with the leg you will get the whole length of the leg as support on one side. If not you will «only» get the support of the bench top. Only as the top will be 4" - and a bit
(11cm before last truing)

[TEK]

A little progress has happend...
I habe trued up all the strips for the tops. I thougt that 10 would do (5 pr side) but I ended up using 12 because I lost so much material when straightning the strips on the jointer and thicknesser.

Ti get from the raw slabs to strips thet could be glued up I followed this process:
- make a straight side on the slap using my Festool plunge- saw and a guide
- using the straige edge as a guide I cut the rest of the strips from that slab
- using the jointer to get one true face on each strip
- using the thicknesser to get each strip good on both sides, and same thickness
- using tge plunge side with a guide again to ensure that I had one straight edge (I normally did not, the first cut was obvilous not accurate enogh)
- finally using the table saw to straighten the other end and to get all stock the same height.

Then all was ready to glueup!



I had to put it on the floor while drying to get some workspace for some other things I was doing.
I notice now that the picture hides how big it is. As it’s six strips glued together, it’s quite heavy

For now I’m out of glue, so I just got one slab glued up (the one with no wagon vice)

[TEK]

After the glue-up I got one half of a bench top.
I was able to run it throug the tabletop plainer, and it was pretty impressive to see the little fellow nibble trough tat big stack of hardwood.
What was not so impressive was that I had bot fastened the machine well enough the first time, so instead of pushing the top forward, the machine started to move backward 8O

[ergo]

That will be a very good looking bench!