Building a bench (the kind you sit on)

[Judson Green]

Looking good Chris! Fun watching this come together.

[Brian Holcombe]

Looks great. I've personally been considering a tongue and groove plane for these types of things, do you prefer the router plane over that?

i'm a hybrid woodworker, so while I cut joinery by hand, I often do stuff like this with a router.

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks guys.

Brian, I don't have a t&g plane (though I would love to have a Stanley or LN 49), but I do have the LV small plow along with the wide blade/t&g attachments. For stopped work, I think the router plane is really the way to go. The plow is too long to get to full depth on these. Technically, I could have started the groove with the plow and then finished them with a chisel, but the router plane with the fence made it a quick easy one tool job (though the plow was/is being used on the grooves for the rails/stretchers).

Also, worth noting is that a T&G plane does not have an adjustable fence so would you not be able to get a cut in far enough on legs like these. Additionally, for cutting the tongue on the panel that will go into the grooves on the legs I will be using a rabbet plane on each side of the board, as using my t&g setup on the plow would require me to cut the tongue straight across the endgrain...much easier IMO to cut 2 cross grain rabbets.

T&G planes are super great for standard long grain t&g work. I will be using my t&g attachment for the bottom of the storage area for instance and for this kind of thing I would actually love to have a dedicated plane (e.g. No. 49), but for a groove between 2 mortises, I can't think of anything easier than the router plane.

My router plane as a special place in my heart. It was the first premium plane I ever purchase, and it was the tool that more than any other really opened up the world of handtool work for me. Before I had other dedicated joinery plane I used if for rabbets, groove, tenons...and all sorts of things. I now have other planes, and also more skill with chisels than I once did, so it sees much less use than it used too, but I still love it. When its the right tool for a job it is THE right tool for a job.

[Chris Griggs]

So remember back in post #81 when I filled in part of the mortise for the top side stretchers? Here's why I did that...

Because the lid of the bench will open for storage and because the bench had arms the lid can only extend as far as the interior faces of the legs. When I initially designed things I made the top side stretcher deeper than the front and back so that there tops would be flush with the lid...hence the longer mortises. As I thought about this I realized that I didn't like the look of those wider stretchers. What I elected to do instead was to make all the top strechers/rails the same size and then on the ends install what I guess I'd call blades (for lack of a better word) that slightly overhang the side stretchers (just like the lid will on the front) and created a uniform appearance all the way around. This probably doesn't make much sense to read but the post just below this one will show the frame assembled and you'll see what I mean.

But first the joinery...

I elected to attached these blades using a short stopped sliding dovetail. In this specific case I only tapered one side of the dovetail and left the other side flat as the female portion of the joint is nest to a mortise and I wanted to leave enough material between the two and avoid any interference.

Even though these were only 4 joints I ended up futzing with them for quite a while in figuring out how wide/deep to make them and in fitting them. It actually ended up taking a few hours for just a few joints and they still ended up kinda dog-ish, BUT all the show faces look clean, and sliding dovetails also serve to pull the legs into the tenoned stretcher creating rock solid end assemblies.

These pics are ordered to show the process I ended up using.

Marking the shoulders of these pieces from the shoulder of the stretches they will sit against. Then using two gauge settings and marking from the same face, I establish the width of the tail at its widest point (btw before determining the width at the widest point its a good idea to make sure that the resultant tail will be sufficiently stout at its narrowest point). Finally using a DT marker to layout the angle. Worth noting here is that, becasue it is being used as a reference for dt marker I did shoot the endgrain before layout..I wouldn't have bothered to shoot or plane the end grain on a tenon for instance, as I don't use the end grain for a reference in that case.

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Using my dozuki here to cut the shoulders (thanks Stu), cutting the angle of the tail with a bench chisel, and then refining with my 18mm Koyomaichi parer (thanks Stu again!). This is for the angle side BTW, for the non angled side I pretty much cut it just like a tenon, BUT because I wanted the these to be really dialed in (since I would be transferring them to mark out the female part of the joint) I took the idiot proof route, cut a little wide and then brought the non angled cheek to final depth with my router plane. A paring chisel would have worked there too but I was feeling cautious so, becasue it could, I took the idiot proof safe route for the flat side.

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[Prashun Patel]

Darn you. You are really making me want to invest in a new saw... Nice work and great documentation.

[Chris Griggs]

sliding dovetails cont...

Marking out the the female portion of the joint directly from the tails. I don't always directly transfer the marks, but in these ones have a shoulder at the front which makes transferring really easy. I then sawed out the walls using my "mortise tip" dozuki (same saw as before...again from stu). This thing is great for stopped cuts. It works best if you saw a little past the stopped part of the joint, which I did (though not in the photo). Typically, the front of a stopped joint is hidden by a shoulder anyway, so saying past the stop is totally fine. Anyway, it doesn't get you 100% of the way there, but it makes getting to full depth or near full depth on stopped cuts a lot easier. With the walls sawed down wasting out the rest with a chisel was pretty easy.

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The non show side of the assembled joint.
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The show side. Here you can see the slight overhang/reveal I was talking about at the top of my last post. This will match the slight overhang of the lid at the front.

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Up on all fours!

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[Chris Griggs]

Darn you. You are really making me want to invest in a new saw... Nice work and great documentation.

I mostly use western saws, but I do like having a dozuki around for fine cross grain work. Big fan of the mortise tip on this one. This one is Goyokucho/Razor Saw brand. I think it cost me like $40-$50 shipped from Japan.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks Chris. Funny enough I have been looking for a Japanese saw as well. Leaning toward a ryoba 210mm to start with.

The bench is coming along well!

[Graham Haydon]

Good stuff Chris, I must say I do enjoy chopping a mortice by hand and you write up is very acurate. I find I have a basic system but as you mention adjustment on the fly to suit the situation is essential.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Chris - is that one of the rubber handled saws from the "Toolbox saws" category over at Stu's, or something else? I'm having trouble finding it. Do you have the Gyokucho model number?

[Chris Griggs]

Chris - is that one of the rubber handled saws from the "Toolbox saws" category over at Stu's, or something else? I'm having trouble finding it. Do you have the Gyokucho model number?

Hi Joshua. No, no rubber handle, it has the typical rattan rapped handle. Its actually not listed on his site. I believe the model number is 306, but you can just order the #370 and than in your order notes ask Stu to substitute it with the "mortice tip" version. They were the same price when I bought mine, I would assume they still are but you can always email Stu before ordering just to make sure.

(BTW, the #370 is 25ppi and the mortice tip #306 is more like 18ppi...just FYI in case it matter to someone)

[Chris Griggs]

After being away from home for a week (first visiting my folks in MN and then going to the in-laws in Bucks County, PA), it felt get to some good time in the shop today and make some progress on the build.

Today was panel raising day.

I had initially planned to use flat raised panels (see right in photo) but ended up doing beveled panels (see left). I felt this added a little bit more dimension and depth.
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The method I used for raising them was pretty standard and straight forward. First marking how far in and how far down I wanted the bevel to go, then hogging off most the waste with a coarsely set jack and following that with a finely set jack. That was for the long grain, short cross grain was pretty much the same but I used smaller planes and took skewed cuts. Using a fenced rabbetting plane, I then cut a uniform thickness rabbet to get a nice even fit in the grooves the panels will sit in. The panels will be glued at the top to give some additional support to the top stretcher which is relatively narrow and flexes some under a persons weight. I don't normally think of a panel as a structural component, but in this case it will play a supporting role (please ignore stupid pun ), so I was especially careful to make sure the tongues were a snug, slip fit to ensure a good glue bond at the top.

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I've been making a point lately to try to work at a steady pace and rhythm, but progress was kinda polky today. I've noticed that as I get farther into a project I start to work with a little to much caution which tends to break my rhythm and slow me down some. It's starting to look like something though, and all in all progress on this has been pretty steady. Next thing is to make arms and do their joinery. Once that's done I just need to cut/shape some curves, add some cleats and a bottom, glue-up/draw-bore, make a lid and attach its hardware, and then finish. Still a good bit to do, but I suspect those last steps will go relatively​ quickly.

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[Brian Holcombe]

Nice! Coming along very well.

[Adam Cruea]

Looking awesome, man.

I really like those raised panels. They give the bench a *lot* of dimension and depth. Definite good choice.

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks dudes! Its funny how stuff changes as you build. I had envisioned these as flat panels the entire time, but once I did the first one as flat and put the assembly together it didn't seem right so I added the bevels. Always hard to how something is going to look until its cut and together. Glad you agree that it was the right decision.

Thanks for the comments! Hoping to make some more good progress over the next couple days.