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Thread: New Year, new workbench -- mucho pics!

  1. #61
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    Al, you have no respect for your camera, if it quits working or starts smoking, I am not responsible!
    Jr.
    Hand tools are very modern- they are all cordless
    NORMAL is just a setting on the washing machine.
    Be who you are and say what you feel... because those that matter... don't mind...and those that mind...don't matter!
    By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand

  2. #62
    Wilbur!! Good to see you back at it! Great joint work, and good to see the bench project coming back to life.

  3. #63
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
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    Earth somewhere
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    Good inspirational thread for when I start my bench.
    Sent from the bathtub on my Samsung Galaxy(C)S5 with waterproof Lifeproof Case(C), and spell check turned off!

  4. #64
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    Oct 2006
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gary McNair View Post
    Very nice - I enjoy working with kiln dried Doug Fir although it has a tendency to splinter easily - what glue are you using?
    I'm using Titebond III, only because that's what I have on hand.

  5. #65
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    Oct 2006
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Gendron View Post
    Wilbur, have you tought of starting a thread about japanese tool use? it look like you use them a lot and know how to use them, it would be fun to have a little "show. on what they are and how to use the different saws and planes!
    Your bench will be a great one!
    Thanks for even thinking that I have the expertise necessary to take on such a task! That's quite a compliment. There are certainly many people who have a lot more experience with Japanese tools than I do.

    I do like and use Japanese tools a lot. I have started threads about them in the past. There was one infamous thread where I decided to see how well Japanese chisels really performed in hardwoods. You can read that thread here, and the hilarity that ensued.

    Overall, it seems that in this forum oftentimes threads where Japanese tools come up veer off into alleged issues about Eastern mysticism and the spirituality of the tools, which don't really have anything with how those tools perform at all, along with a sense that since some aspects of Japanese hand tool construction and use are different than western hand tools, they therefore cannot be valid at all. As a result, I've been inclined to chime in on questions as they come up, rather than bring up the topic myself. My own feeling is that there are many more similarities than differences between Japanese and western hand tools.

    But I'll think about it.

  6. #66
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    Feb 2009
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    Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada
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    Thank you, I have a ryoba saw from LV, that I never realy used...I guess didn't understand it well... But used it today after reading this thread last night...It worked!

  7. #67
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    This is indeed an interesting thread....

  8. #68
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
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    East Brunswick, NJ
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    I have the legs joined to the bench top. To do this, I needed to make 8 mortises to receive the double tenons at the top of each leg. These mortises are all 1" wide, about 2" deep, and about 5" long, and are how the legs are secured to the benchtop. That exercise gave me a lot of practice trying various methods of making a mortise.

    There were three main methods that I used:

    1. Chopping with a 1" wide mortise chisel, like I did with the mortises for the leg stretchers. This is the most satisfying for me, because afterwards I can go around saying, "Yup -- I used a 1" wide mortise chisel to cut a 1" wide mortise 2" deep and 5" long." The problem is, the usual response to that is, "What are you -- nucking futz?"

    The other problem that I had was that the Douglas fir seems to have become much harder in the time it took me to get around to this step. It seemed to go much more slowly than when I made the leg mortises for the stretchers.

    2. Chopping a narrower mortise along each side of the 1" wide mortise with a 1/4" mortise chisel, and then wasting out the middle. Also satisfying, but not as satisfying as using a 1" mortise chisel. It was surprisingly easy to clear out the waste with a regular chisel.

    3. Drilling out most of the waste with a brace and bit, and paring/chopping the remaining waste. This was the least satisfying of the options, but it was the fastest. I used a squared up scrap piece of wood as a guide when paring/chopping to help me make sure the sides of the mortise were square.

    Regardless of which method I used, I learned the importance of clearing out the chips when making a mortise. Even the drill and pare method slowed down quite a bit when I let the mortise fill up with shavings from drillng and paring. To help me clear out the chips, I used that time honored hand tool -- the shop vac.

    In any case, from here on out, making the more normal sized 1/4" wide mortise and tenon joints used in furniture are going to be a piece of cake in comparison.

    Anyway, here's another picture illustrating what I'm up against with fitting the mortises to the tenons.



    Because my base is already assembled, I have to fit all 8 mortise and tenon joints simultaneously. Basically, the way I went about it is to drop the base into the mortises, marking out the parts of the 8 mortises where it looks like the fit is too tight, and then paring out the mortise at those spots. I started out by trying to adjust the tenons, but fitting the base, marking the tight spots, moving the base out, and rolling the base on its side so I could get at the tenons got old quick.

    It went faster when I learned that I can be a bit more aggressive with adjusting the tenons and mortises. On this scale, I don't think that I'll need 0.005" precision, especially I was planning on drawboring the joints, and I expect gravity to be on my side in keeping the top stable when the workbench is finally done. Besides, I know what the fit was like in the leg mortises for the stretchers, and since I had to redo the two stretcher joints, I got a real good look as to how much good glue contact you can have with what might look like a sloppy joint, but is actually much tighter than you might think.

    Finally, I got the legs connected to the top!





    After several cycles of adjusting the tenons and/or mortises, test fitting the legs to the top, working the legs out of the top (the hardest part), and adjusting again, I had gotten the legs so that they were fitting to a point that when the leg tenons were inserted into the mortises, the shoulders of the leg tenons were about 3/8" from meeting up with the benchtop. But it seemed that I just needed to to the slightest bit of trimming to get it to fit. But I decided to go with brute force instead.

    See the clamps in the pictures? Those are 36" Wetzlers. I placed the clamps across the bottom of the legs and the benchtop, and I used them to force the legs home. The net result is that at least some of those 8 M/T joints are an extremely tight friction fit -- so tight that I decided skip the drawboring that I was planning to do, and to let gravity and friction to keep these joints in place. This assembly is not coming apart any time soon. If by chance it does, I'll drawbore and glue the joints then.

    Whew!

    Next step: making the groove in the bottom of the benchtop for the deadman, and then I can turn this bench over. After begging my neighbors for help, that is.

  9. #69
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
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    Looks great, Wilbur. I hope mine comes out that nice. How much would you estimate the undercarriage weighs? I have just started assembling my legs and am surprised at the weight.

    Mike

  10. Looking good Wilbur! You should be home free now.

  11. #71
    Great job Wilbur. Work and family commitments/distractions aside, you should be finished in no time and will get to enjoy the fruits of your labors. As for more mortises, after this effort everything else will seem a piece of cake, particularly when you use woods that are less stringy. By the way, I've always believed in the brute force and ignorance technique when the wood will allow it. You aren't going to have any problems with the bench staying together, but forget ANY hope of ever getting it apart. The only way that will happen is with dynamite or a chain saw.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

  12. #72
    Hey Wilbur, I know what it's like to be on call and waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm retired now so no more shoes falling. Anyway, great job, but I noticed that you made a mistake. The legs are on the top of the table!!! You're going to need to go back to the hospital and get a bunch of orderlies to help you turn that bench over. I made a lighter workbench and I had to recruit my kids when they came over on the weekend to make the flip.

  13. #73
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    Oct 2006
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    East Brunswick, NJ
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    One of the last things I needed to do before flipping my workbench over is to make the groove to receive the upper tenon on the sliding deadman. Originally I thought about this in terms of being a deep groove, as it is 5/8" wide and needs to be 1-1/2" deep. So I thought about using some sort of plow plane, except that none of the planes that I have that would be suitable for this task will make a groove that deep. Then I started thinking of this less as a groove, and more like a really long mortise.

    I used my Japanese plow plane to establish the sides of the groove. The groove is 5/8" wide, and the plane cuts a groove 1/4" wide, so I did one side and then the other.

    After the sides were established, the groove was about 1/4" deep. It needs to be 1-1/2" deep when its done. To do the rest, I tried a few approaches, but the most efficient seemed to be to use a 1/4" mortise chisel to continue the grooves that the plane left. I chopped down at the far end of the groove so that it was at final width and depth, and then started working back along the tracks left by the Japanese plow plane, first one side, and then the other. There was one section of the groove where I tried drilling out the waste with a 1/2" brad point bit and cleaning up the sides, but this seemed to be easier overall, and not much slower.

    It also helped that I sharpened my mortise chisel really well, so that it had a nice matte finish.

    Here's an in-progress shot of the groove.



    This may sound like a lot of work, but it's actually not as bad as it may seem. The key, I think, is that by establishing the end of the groove, I gave the chips someplace to go as I chopped, which makes mortising go much faster. As a result, I can work back going about 1/4" at a time, and it takes me about 5-10 seconds of chopping to drive the mortise chisel down to the depth that I want. This goes by much more quickly than it sounds.

    Of course, a router would be faster, but what's the fun in using that? In the end, it will be way cooler to say that I made this groove by hand. Stupider, maybe, but still cooler.

    Plus, I don't have a router. Not the electric kind, anyway.

    After finishing the chopping. I used a router plane to finish leveling out the bottom of the groove, checked the groove with a straightedge and square, and pared the sides of the groove to make sure that they are the correct width and square.

    Here's the final result, along with the tools that I used during this process.



    Between this and making the 1" wide mortise and tenon joints for the stretchers and leg-to-benchtop joints, I've done a lot of mortise making. This is what I learned while doing all this chopping:

    -- Again, I think the key to making the mortise chopping easy is to first give the waste somewhere to go. Either work on one end and make it full width and depth, or simply drill out a hole at the end of the mortise to give you clearance. It's surprising how much faster the chopping goes.

    -- When chopping, many light hammer blows is easier, and not really that much slower, than a few big hammer blows.

    -- It seems that the conventional wisdom is that chopping the mortise takes a lot of time. Actually, the final paring and checking the sides of the mortise for square probably takes up just as much time.

    -- Whenever I was having trouble with making the mortise, without a doubt the problem was either a tool that could be sharper, or I thought something is square when it really was not.

    -- It's unbelievable how useful a big wide 2" chisel is. I've put a 2" wide paring chisel on my shopping list.

    Now that this groove is finally done, I think I've cleared a major milestone, because now I can turn this bench over and use the top. After flattening it, of course. Then I can use the bench to make the other parts: the deadman, and the leg vise assembly.

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by Wilbur Pan View Post
    Stupider, maybe, but still cooler.
    It's good to hear from someone who thinks like me.
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  15. #75
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    East Brunswick, NJ
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    With the help of my neighbor, I got my workbench off the sawhorses and onto its side. The legs on the front side of the bench are proud of the front side of the benchtop by 1/16"-3/32", so I put it on its side so it would be easy for me to plane it down.



    I mentioned this before in this thread, but it's really great to have a plane with a wide mouth and a decent amount of camber. I took a jack plane and had the 3/32" of extra material pretty much removed in less than 10 swipes. You can get an idea of how few shavings I needed to make with the jack plane by what's on the floor. The reason there are so few shavings is that each shaving is pretty thick.

    So after work earlier this week I finished off the smoothing of the legs. Tonight we had a very nice dinner on our back patio, and just as we finished, I saw my back door neighbor who knows all things woodworking, and he came over to help me get my workbench on its feet. I decided to get a jump on flattening out the top. When I did my original glue up I kept what would eventually be the top faces of the 4x4's aligned, so this side of the 4x4's were pretty well aligned. They were out maybe 3/32" at most.

    I used the same technique as I did way back when I flattened out the underside of the bench: I marked out two foot sections, and made liberal use of a straightedge to help identify the high spots and a crayon to help me locate what parts of that section I had and hadn't planed yet. Then I went to town using a jack plane with the pronounced camber, going across the grain. My wife decided to take an action shot of me doing this. You can see that I have the first two foot section done, and I'm getting ready to attack the next two foot section.



    Again, this went more quickly than I would have thought. I had the major unevenness between the boards flattened out in about 1-1/2 hours. Then I set about to jointing the benchtop surface.

    I've been looking forward to this part of building my workbench, because I had some toys I was saving up to play with during this part. Here are three of them:



    These jointers all have a story. The Stanley #7 was the second plane I ever bought, and the first plane where I tried a Hock blade and chipbreaker.

    The wooden plane was one that I got for pretty cheap when a family called our woodworking club to get our help to figure out to do with their grandfather's woodworking equipment after he had passed away. In thanks for our help, I got that wooden jointer plane for a song. The blade says "W. Butcher Warranted Cast Steel", and appears to be laminated.

    The Lie-Nielsen #7 I got when I had read an interview with Thomas Lie-Nielsen about their plans to offer O-1 steel blades for some of their planes. I emailed the company to tell them that their lack of O-1 steel plane blades was one of the reasons I had never bought a Lie-Nielsen plane, since I didn't really like using A-2 blades based on my trying out a Lie-Nielsen plane from my neighbor. To my surprise, Thomas Lie-Nielsen himself sent me a reply, and in an impressive feat of salesmanship, thanked me for my input, and then asked me, "Are there any particular planes you would like to order with O-1 blades? I'd be happy to get started with a tool you are interested in." After being asked that, I really had no choice but to buy a LN #7, right? This is one of the first Lie-Nielsen planes with an O-1 blade.

    But wait, there's more!



    This is a HUGE 34" long (!) wooden jointer plane I got from Kevin Adams. That's the LN #7 it's sitting next to, for scale. The blade says "William Ash & Co. Warranted Cast Steel", and it also looks like it's laminated.

    I gave all of these jointers a try. I was really surprised as to how light the 34" jointer was. Both of the wooden jointer plane blades sharpened up nicely, but my trying to use the two wooden jointers was a big flail. This wasn't a surprise, as I really have no experience with western wooden planes at all. Most of the problems I had were with the shavings choking the throat of the wooden planes.

    Between the LN #7 and the Stanley #7 with the Hock blade, I think I liked the Stanley better. The LN #7 is a bit heavier than the Stanley #7, to the point where it was just a bit more difficult to push than I would like, especially for a surface this large.

    In any case, I almost finished with the jointing that night. Here's where I'm at.



    There's a bit more tearout than I would like in spots from using the jack plane across the grain, but it's really shaping up to be a nice looking bench.

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