Building Potting Benches

[Jim Koepke]

It is interesting to see you having success with just banging the dowels through the dowel jig. I have a plate, and if I try to just split stock and hammer them through I usually end up with a fair proportion of kindling. I have better luck starting them into the plate a short distance more or less to mark the size. Then I flip a plane upside down and clamp it in the bench vice and use it to trim the "marked" piece very close to size before putting it all the way through the plate.

The benches are very nice. Not hard to see why they sell.

Nicholas,

Thanks for the kind words.

My dowel pieces do get trimmed with a large chisel first. A large chisel allows for a slicing motion along the length of the riven piece. Before when they were driven through only the 3/8" cutter they would come out a bit sloppy at times. Sizing them first with the 1/2" and then trimming some more improved them greatly.

I am also using my heavy mallet. Care is taken to check with each hit by rotating the cutter to ensure the dowel stock stays square during the process.

It would likely help to have cutters stepped in increments of 1/32" or even less.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

Attachment 313564

Close enough. Cutting dowel stock is one of the places where using my pull saw is preferred.
jtk

Thanks for the tips Jim, I find this to be much more interesting than the A2 steel discussion. I'm thinking with the pull saw and your setup that the small dowels are easier to start cutting since you can push the saw against the fence. Is that right? By the way, you sure have gotten a lot of use out of the saw fence (what do you call that?)

[Jim Koepke]

Thanks for the tips Jim, I find this to be much more interesting than the A2 steel discussion. I'm thinking with the pull saw and your setup that the small dowels are easier to start cutting since you can push the saw against the fence. Is that right? By the way, you sure have gotten a lot of use out of the saw fence (what do you call that?)

The slots in the edge are used as guides for the saw. This was either my first or second bench hook. It was made to be a simple miter box. It has had a lot of use. One of my smaller bench hooks is used when doing a lot of dowels from long stock. It has marks for measuring the length before cutting and a ramp. The ramp allows the dowel to roll off the bench hook and out of the way on to the bench.

jtk

[Stew Denton]

Jim,

I hadn't read the thread since you updated it by adding the section on making dowels. It is much appreciated. Finding good dowels seems to be more difficult than it used to be. I think the ones at the lumber yard are some sort of soft imported stuff, and they are not very strong. Good hardwood ones can be had when we visit one set of the kids, but that is a 4 hour drive, and they are expensive when the woodworking shop has them.

Where do you folks get the doweling jig. Can I make on by just drilling out some holes in something like quarter inch plate steel, or is that approach not a good one?

I am glad to see that the first bench already sold. As was pointed out above, you make them nice looking, and they are built to last. It is pretty neat that you have something like that to build that seems to sell, and you can feel good about how they are built.

Stew

[Jim Koepke]

Hi Stew,

My dowelling fixture came from Lee Valley. My recollection is that some folks have built their own by drilling holes in a steel plate. It might wear over time, but if you can make one, why not make another.

One place I always look for dowels is at art supply stores like Michael's. My recollection is they have 4' dowels instead of the common 3' found at lumber suppliers. Looks like there is one in Amarillo. Google maps has changed their format so I have no idea how far that is from Borger.

A lot of the dowels at the borgs are made of poplar. It isn't stiff enough for my liking. Another thing about them is they all have a stick on label for the check out scanners. To me that is a waste of a few inches of dowel or a lot of work to get the glue removed.

My recent experience with better results from knocking dowel stock through a larger size first has me thinking of trying to make a dowel plate. Not high on the to do list at the moment.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Now it is hustle time.

Both potting benches have sold.

This week most of my time will be taken working on a commissioned piece.

Well, at least most of the lumber has already been purchased to build a couple more potting benches.

And so it all goes around again. The Home Depot lumber was all wet and splintery looking. So went to the local lumber yards. The first one didn't have the wood where it was available for me to go through the pieces to be able to select pieces that could be worked with for making potting benches. Went to another across town, actually in our sister town across the river. They are much better set up for those of us who like to look through what is available and select our pieces. Some was in a warehouse a block from the main store. They sent someone with me to help dig through the stacks.

When you dig through stacks of lumber, the folks who work there appreciate it if the wood is stacked back neatly when you are done. I try to leave the stacks neater than when I arrived.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

Now it is hustle time.

Both potting benches have sold.

This week most of my time will be taken working on a commissioned piece.

Well, at least most of the lumber has already been purchased to build a couple more potting benches.

And so it all goes around again. The Home Depot lumber was all wet and splintery looking. So went to the local lumber yards. The first one didn't have the wood where it was available for me to go through the pieces to be able to select pieces that could be worked with for making potting benches. Went to another across town, actually in our sister town across the river. They are much better set up for those of us who like to look through what is available and select our pieces. Some was in a warehouse a block from the main store. They sent someone with me to help dig through the stacks.

When you dig through stacks of lumber, the folks who work there appreciate it if the wood is stacked back neatly when you are done. I try to leave the stacks neater than when I arrived.

jtk

Funny - I was just visiting the local lumberyard and looking to find a few 'select' cedar boards. I didn't find what I was looking for there - mostly just rough cedar fencing (1/2 inch thick) and 1 1/8 decking boards. All of it was full of knots and useless to me. I was hoping to find some 2x8 cedar or 2x6. Anyway, the owner came out to talk and actually helped me look. Later he remarked that he hated the folks who came in, picked out the best pieces and just left the rest lying willy nilly and unorganized. I got the feeling he would throw out the offenders and he mentioned that this actually makes it harder for him to compete with the HD that is 18 miles away. I'm sure your lumber guy appreciates you putting things striaght after picking.

[Jim Koepke]

Looking for lumber had me in a tizzy. Most of the time my tight knot cedar comes from the Home Depot. Their stock was very wet and poorly surface finished.

Went to the lumber store. (Baker's Lumber, if you saw my post in Off Topic about my truck trouble you will understand my smirk right now.)

They didn't have the 5/4 cedar my benches have been made of in the past. They did have some nice 2X4 cedar.

The top frames were made using a 10' piece cut into two 40" lengths and two 20" lengths. This had me wondering about how to get the space between the legs needed to fit over the wheel wells. Then it hit me in a flash. The simple solution was half blind dovetails.

Change of Joinery.jpg

This also allowed for deeper lap joints (a big dado? when does a dado become a lap?)

The thicker wood made for shorter shelf slats. It also required a little carving for the 18 quart dish tub to fit. It also is a bit more solid than the previous benches.

A thanks goes out to Derek Cohen and others for sharing the method of using a thin piece of metal to extend the saw cut in half blind dovetails.

Drilling out the waste was tried as were a few other methods. In the end it seemed the fastest method for me was to make a third cut in the middle of the socket and extend the cut with the thin piece of metal, in my case it was the end of an old taper ground saw blade, sharpened a bit. Then a quick chop and it was easy to clear out at least an 1/8" chip at a time. The cut in the middle helped the chip collapse and exit out of the socket.

Maybe it should be filmed next time.

Note: After unloading these images from the camera I ran outside and wiped down the BLO before it got dark.

jtk