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Thread: My First Workbench Build - A Journal

  1. #151
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Loveland, CO
    Posts
    418
    David, how do you support your trays? Did you glue a strip along the inside of the gap?

  2. #152
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Austin Texas
    Posts
    1,957
    I ran a rabbet (not really needed at all) on the bottom sides of both of the split tops along the strip-sides and screwed in a 1/4" thick x around 3/4" wide ledger strip for the trays to ride on. The ledger strips on each side each extend out approx. 3/16" or so to create a "runway" for the trays. The slight extension of the strips on each side do not seem to affect any clamping I want to do down between the split tops. I did make the ledger strip extension minimal so that it would not cause the clamps to have to be kept too far away from the edge of the split tops. If your gap between the tops is parallel, you can fab your trays to a close overall width tolerance that will allow you to keep the ledger extension to a minimum. Weather down to the shop today is lousy or I would send a photo. When folks hear about trays in the split, they tend to think about debris catching and clearance. Yes, the trays do catch curlies, saw dust, chips, etc, but are easily cleaned out.I have said before, I have a death fear of sweeping tools off the bench to the concrete floor and don't have a handy place on or near my bench to keep my marking gauges (somewhat bulky tools as opposed to marking knives, chisels, etc) and like to have them very close for repeated use on a project. The trays work for me, maybe not for others. Its all OK.
    David

  3. #153
    Eric,

    The base is hard maple scraps the top a piece of hard tulip poplar slab I had and the jaws are mahogany.

  4. #154
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Loveland, CO
    Posts
    418
    I honestly have no problem with emptying out the trays once in a while. It's just part of shop cleanup. I can't imagine it's that big of a hassle. It's more of a hassle to not have your tools handy when you need them than it is to clean the trays out.

  5. #155
    I think the whole tool tray vs no tool tray thing is kind of overblown. You adapt to the workbench you have...

  6. #156
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Loveland, CO
    Posts
    418
    Got a bit more done. Sharpened up my iron and had at it, smoothing out another 4x4. Unfortunately, while I thought I had finally completed smoothing on all my pieces, I had placed one into my "done" pile without touching it. So there's one left.

    Otherwise, this phase is nearly complete. Once I smooth the last piece, I'll start working on the next phase, which is any.

    Is it advised to chop the mortises in the top first? Or should I cut the tenons on the legs first?

  7. #157
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    SE Michigan
    Posts
    3,222
    Eric, if I understand your question correctly, I would advise to completly build the base first including the tenons on the top of the legs. Then you can turn the base up side down onto the bottom of the bench top and mark the exact location of the mortises using the actual tenons of the legs. If you chop the mortises in the top first and something isn't perfect in your base build, the legs/leg tenons may not line up well with the mortises you've already chopped in the top.

  8. #158
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Stone Mountain, GA
    Posts
    749
    I agree with Phil. Set out the top slabs on the ground, bottom side up, then flip the base upside down and align it over the slabs, then scribe the tenons onto the slabs.

  9. #159
    For a typical MT joint I cut mortises first and leave them alone. It's much easier to fit a tenon to a mortises than vise versa.

    However in this case accurate marking may be an issue if you do mortises first.

    I think which way you go depends on the tools you have. I would do whichever one you can do the most accurately first. That is likely to be the tenon.

    Either way, always make sure the second part is undersized so you can fine tune fit.

    For fitting, I use a guide block to ensure 90° walls on the mortise. A rabbet block plane is quite handy for roughing large tenons, then finish up with a router plane (you will have to mount the router plane in a base for tenons this long).

    What type tenons are you doing, single, double or dovetail? Through tenons? Wedged?

    Are you concerned at all about the tenons shrinking?

  10. #160
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Loveland, CO
    Posts
    418
    Thanks, Phil! You got exactly what I was trying to ask there. Sounds like a very logical way to mark out my mortises in the top slabs. Thank you for describing that.

    Robert, I plan to do a sort of double tenon, with each leg having a dovetail/tenon combo. If you take a look at my drawing in my earlier post it should hopefully make more sense. I realize that a double dovetail/tenon probably isn't necessary, but I've seen it on a number of benches and like the style. Plus, it will be a way for me to get extra practice with mortise and tenon joinery.

    As far as the tenons shrinking, I'm not too concerned about it. I want to make them have a somewhat snug fit, so I'll probably have to use a mallet to remove them. And I'm going to use lag screws to hold the top slabs down to the base. Overall, I don't think it will be too much of an issue. But, I'm curious if you've seen them become too loose over time due to moisture loss?

    Humidity is pretty constant in our home, due to a whole-house humidifier.

  11. #161
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Loveland, CO
    Posts
    418
    I got a bit sidetracked today working on another project, so I didn't make a ton of progress tonight. However, I took care of a few tasks that needed doing in my shop area. Cleaned up a bit. Took out a huge bag of shavings to the trash. Sharpened my #7 again. And I did get about halfway done on my last 4x4, so I'm almost done with this phase of the project.

  12. #162
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Loveland, CO
    Posts
    418
    Finally got all of my lumber smoothed out. The 4x4's aren't exactly flat/square, but I'll deal with that as I need to. I might be able to get away with using one flattened face as an outer surface to clamp against, and forget the rest. Just measure off of that one face and get my tenons cut. We'll see how it goes.

    In any case, next steps are to cut down all of my pieces to length and prepare for assembly. Still need to order those barrel nuts, too...


  13. #163
    I don't intend to come off as preachy, but for the parts that you're working on, I believe it would pay off to get them square. At the very least, ensure that the ends where you're laying out and cutting joinery are really square. Layout and joinery on out of square stock is, at best, an annoying challenge to remember how to handle everything bc it's not square and, at worst, results in poor joinery.

    I say this while building a bench of my own at the moment and dealing with laying out and cutting mortise for the legs into the underside of the top and having one leg tenon slightly off from where I wanted to be. Having to deal with that issue at the joinery stage is a pain.

    Keep up the good work!

  14. #164
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Loveland, CO
    Posts
    418
    Thanks, Phillip. I do appreciate you sharing your experience on this. My main issue is that most of these 4x4 boards have twist or bow in them (or both) to the point where getting both ends square and parallel may not be possible without removing some major amounts of material. I'm not sure if it's terribly noticeable in the pictures, but you might be able to see which ones are the worst of the bunch.

    As I prepare to cut them down, I'll look for the best pieces for the long stretchers. Then I can see how I can make adjustments from there.

    Would you simply get both ends square and aligned with each other?

  15. #165
    Join Date
    Nov 2014
    Location
    Baton Rouge, LA
    Posts
    126
    Is there a reason you didn't cut them down prior to squaring them up? Wouldn't that have minimized the amount of wood you needed to remove to eliminate the bow and twist?

    Can't wait to see the final bench and am enjoying the updates.

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