My First Workbench Build - A Journal

[William Fretwell]

That sort of cracking is very disheartening. You need lumber from much bigger trees. I would replace it with dry lumber with no centre. Those can distort as they dry but can be squared. Save the cracked lumber for a different project. Big lumber takes a very long time to dry and bringing it into a warm workshop invites trouble as the outside dries and shrinks. It happens to us all. Acquiring old dry lumber well ahead of a project is not easy. When you do come across it I find it outside the usual channels and can include some real gems. An old lumber mill very near me was shutting down (falling down mostly). They cleared out their attic, all the wood had been there for at least 80 years and was so dirty they had no idea what it was. The price was thus all the same. If you bought a pile you wanted the whole pile as you would never match it.
Even when you are told it's 'dry' it is often not. So plan your next bench at least 10 years ahead; no not joking.

[Eric Schubert]

Weird how SMC deleted posts when editing on mobile...

Anyway...

That sounds awesome! I'd love discovering what's underneath the dirt, maybe finding some awesome pieces.

I'll poke around a bit and see what I can find. The are a couple lumber yard nearby. And I'll look into mills. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Robert Engel]

Eric,

I feel your pain!! This is a common issue with large beams as they dry and/or are milled. You see it all the time in timber frame structures. Warping and cracking are more common when the lumber contains the pith or center of the tree.

Sorry to say this after all the work but I would not go further trying to use them.

Here are a couple suggestions:

1. Glue up the legs out of smaller timbers. A 4x4 or 3x5 leg is plenty big enough

2. If you want to use those beams, I would rip them right down the middle about 1" on either side of the pith, rejoint and square everything back up, sticker and let them acclimate for at least 3-4 weeks. Then go back and rejoint/square everything up.

At this stage of your project, I think option 1 is the way to go.

[Edit]BTW if you are worried about sawing the boards, I would suggest either go to a sawmill with a bandsaw and ask them to resaw them, or simply rip them with a hand saw. You'll need to have some wedges handy if they close up.

Hope this help!!!

[Eric Schubert]

Thanks, Robert. I agree... at this point, finding a way to use these beams is going to involve a lot of work. I don't want to just throw these out, so I'll keep them around and see what I can do with them in the future. But those deep splits decrease their usable volume considerably.

[Eric Schubert]

Wow, it's been two months since I touched this thread! I'm not dead, I swear! And neither is this project.

The past couple of months have been insane for work and just stuff going on in general, so I've not made any progress on the bench since the cracking issue became apparent. However, it looks like I should be able to get back on track again.

Since I don't want to just abandon what I've got, I'll see if I can salvage the pieces I have. I'll probably cut them lengthwise to remove the cracked sections, leave them dry for a little bit to make sure the moisture isn't an issue anymore, and then laminate them together again. If nothing else, it'll give me more practice flattening and squaring pieces, which isn't a bad thing.

And last, but certainly not least, have a fun, safe, and memorable Independence Day, everyone!

[Eric Schubert]

Got to work on the bench again. I just decided to use the pieces as-is. I want a bench to use, it doesn't have to be pretty.

Leg #1:


Edit: looks like Photobucket has removed 3rd-party hosting unless you pay $40/mo... guess it's time to find a new place to put my photos

[Eric Schubert]

As I'm starting to work on this bench again, I'm noticing that cutting generates a fair amount of sawdust. Even though much of it is larger, heavier particles, I see dust settling on other areas of the basement. So, before I go too far, and even get some sanding done to smooth the bench when it's done, I'm considering building an air cleaner. I scored a free furnace blower that still works, and I'm coming up with a design. My only concern is making sure I use a fine enough filter. Looks like pocket filters get down to 1 micron, which is great. But those pocket filters are pretty long. If I'm going to make a roll-around air cleaner that can double as a table, why not consider making it convertible into a downdraft table?

Anyone have a source for plans on doing this? Making an air cleaner / downdraft table combo? I'm trying to figure out how to force the downdraft air to go through the filters, but I just can't wrap my brain around it...

[Eric Schubert]

A few days ago, made some progress. Squared up there sides of my second leg. The final side is pretty wonky, though. I may just flatten enough of the side to give me a flat area for my mortise and tenon joint and ignore the rest. I'll have to take a good 1/4" off if I want the entire side to be flat.

[Eric Schubert]

Also planning to get that part done this afternoon. Hope I can stay motivated to get it done.

[Eric Schubert]

Terribly unmotivated to flatten and square these big legs again. But I forced myself to get at it. Very nearly ended up flattening the final side anyway, after having to remove a lot of material to get it close. Looks like this one is good enough to call done. Two legs down, two to go.

[Mike Kreinhop]

Unfortunately, this thread is now a victim of the recent Photobucket change in its T&C. Would you post a link to your Photobucket gallery?

[Eric Schubert]

I plan to look at moving my albums to another photo hosting site, eventually. But, for now, here's the link to my album:
https://s163.photobucket.com/user/Mr...shop/Workbench

[Mike Kreinhop]

Thank you!

[Eric Schubert]

Got a little more done tonight. Cut the last two legs off from their beams. I gotta say... cutting through wood that thick with a hand saw takes a bit of effort. But, now I'm primed to start flattening and squaring up these last two pieces. Hopefully I'll make some progress this weekend, with little on the calendar for an excuse.

[Eric Schubert]

Today's effort made some good progress. Got leg #3 flattened and squared. I noticed that I don't have a consistent thickness down the length of each board. Is this something I should fix now? Or just compensate by angling my tenon shoulders to match the angle? Or, since fir is so soft, do I just ignore it, since we're talking 1/8-3/16" over nearly 3 feet of material?