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Thread: My First Workbench Build - A Journal

  1. #16
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
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    Loveland, CO
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    418
    Ken and David, thanks for your feedback!

    I do have a workbench book from Chris Schwarz. I'll pull it out again for another read to see if there are any things that can help me out.

    I had considered the idea of a split top. I definitely like the extra clamping options it brings. How wide of a split between slabs would be ideal? Splitting up the top like that would definitely make it easier to disassemble in the future. And I've wanted to try the double through-tenon/dovetail that is typical of many benches. So, that could be a fun way to accomplish both goals.

  2. #17
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Perth, Australia
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    9,469
    Hi Eric

    My bench build is here, if it helps promote questions, rather than answers ..

    http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/index.html

    Unless you are 6'6" tall with gorilla arms, I'd advise a bench about 21-22" wide. More than this is difficult to reach across.

    For reference, the top is 3 1/2" European Oak.

    Bench height also creates much controvesy. I followed the thoughts of CS, but in retrospect I think he is incorrect, and have raised it 2". The added height is better on the back.

    Keep us posted.

    Derek

  3. #18
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    Jan 2014
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    Loveland, CO
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    418
    Thanks, Derek! I'll have to read through your bench build. It's different than my basic design, but I'm sure I'll find many helpful tidbits in those pages.

    A little bit of searching later and it sounds like a 3-4" gap in a split top is pretty good. Since my bench will be in the middle of the room, I'm not too worried about depth. So, I could go with a symmetrical split. Maybe a pair of 10-11" slabs, 3-4" thick, with a 4" gap in the middle for clamping. I'd also likely make a small sliding tool tray that can sit in that gap to hold a few items while I'm working, but still slide out of my way when I need to clamp something.

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
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    Essex, MD
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    I wouldn't try to rip something that thick with a table saw unless it was a beast of a saw - not only would you likely bind the blade while trying to muscle the wood over it, but the wood may move (twist, warp) as it's cut - even a little and the blade is pinched. I've had success ripping 6x8 and 8x8 treated lumber using a handheld 7 1/4" circular saw with a rip fence attached and a rough cut blade (about 3/16" kerf). Thick wood loves to move as you cut it, especially wet treated lumber- you need to be ready to lift the blade out when you hear it start binding, and don't have your face/ leg right behind it in case it kicks back. I did have to rescue the blade once with a wedge... and the 8x8 lumber had about an inch left between cuts which I took care of with an unpowered rip saw.

    If you don't have a circular saw, you can rent one at HD or other rental place - just make sure it has the rip fence in the box. I recommend you screw a 1x4 about a foot long to the fence to keep the blade as straight as possible as you go -and use the same side of the wood as your reference side when you flip the beam to cut from the other side. Don't try to cut the max depth at once -depending on how dry your wood is inside, take 2 or 3 passes (the dryer, the faster). No need to rush - this bench will be with you for a long time.

    Or, make friends with someone who has a large bandsaw... like Brian, I tend to work alone, so this was my solution
    good luck
    Karl

  5. #20
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    Sep 2008
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    N. Idaho
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    +1 on friend with a bandsaw. Or a local cabinet shop may be able to do the rips for a nominal cost.
    "You can observe a lot just by watching."
    --Yogi Berra

  6. #21
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Loveland, CO
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    418
    Thanks, Karl. We do have a bandsaw at work that I could likely use, but we only have metal-cutting blades, so that's not a good choice... I do have a circular saw with a new-ish blade that should do fairly well. It does not have a rip fence, though. However, I can clamp a straight edge onto the surface to use as a guide.

    My main concern is that I live in a townhome that has other units attached and nearby. I really don't want to annoy my neighbors by cutting outside. Plus that means having to move those heavy hunks of wood upstairs again. Even though our homes are pretty well-insulated from noise, I also don't want to use the saw inside and spray sawdust all over our basement (and consequently, around our home as it's pulled into the HVAC system). I'm thinking I may have little choice but to rip these by hand.

    Oh well, it'll give me some experience with ripping large boards, and also help with getting down my sawing technique. I have a couple of hand saws that should work fine for this job. TPI may be a bit fine for this size of log (maybe around 6-8tpi), but that's fine.

    On a side note, I spent a couple hours last night sharpening up some plane blades to prepare for surfacing all of the lumber. I now have a couple blades for my #4 and I finally sharpened up my #7C.

    I actually had a bit of an "ah-ha!" moment last night when I sharpened up that #7C. I've read many people discussing how certain stones or sharpening methods work better for different steels. And I finally found out for myself how true that is. I was sharpening up a brand new PM-V11 blade for my #4, and it was definitely slower going than other blades I've done. It was already very flat on the back side, and getting a burr was pretty easy, but it took a while to do on finer grits than I'm used to. Then I grabbed the blade from my #7C, which is probably an original blade. Someone had already put some camber on it, but it was a bit rusty and chipped and needed to have some metal removed to get a good bevel again. That steel must have been quite soft, because metal came off easily on my DMT coarse diamond plate. Once I had that cambered bevel smoothed out again, it was easy to get it nice and sharp.

    Now, I also need practice sharpening. (I currently use the DMT Coarse for rough work, then have a 1K Naniwa SS, and honing/lapping film for the rest of the finer grits.) I'm learning to sharpen freehand, rather than using a guide. Though I do have flat and cambered rollers for my Veritas MKII honing guide I can use in a pinch. So my camber isn't a perfect radius. But it should be sufficient to get the job done so I can move on to my smoother.

    Anyway, just a little anecdote. But I finally got to see and feel what others were saying for myself. Might be time to get a coupe good stones, like the Sigma Power ceramics, to take my sharpening to another level.

  7. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Schubert View Post
    Ken and David, thanks for your feedback!

    I do have a workbench book from Chris Schwarz. I'll pull it out again for another read to see if there are any things that can help me out.

    I had considered the idea of a split top. I definitely like the extra clamping options it brings. How wide of a split between slabs would be ideal? Splitting up the top like that would definitely make it easier to disassemble in the future. And I've wanted to try the double through-tenon/dovetail that is typical of many benches. So, that could be a fun way to accomplish both goals.
    Eric,

    The split on the current bench is 55mm, the one before 65mm. Of the two I prefer the 55mm split.

    ken

  8. #23
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    Jan 2014
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    Loveland, CO
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    418
    Thanks, Ken. That will give me an idea of how large I'll need to make my base.

    I did start working on smoothing out and squaring the rough lumber for the legs. I have to say, working on such large pieces is quite a bit of work! I thought the Douglas fir would be pretty easy to work with, but it's actually been somewhat the opposite. The boards have a few knots in them, which refuse to plane down. The iron will just glide over the top of them without digging in, leaving them higher than the rest of the surface. I ended up needing to try my scraper for the first time to see if that would knock those areas down. (It did, albeit slowly.) I now have two of the legs fairly square and straight. I don't plan to completely flatten the surfaces that will face the inside of the bench, unless that would be a wise idea. But, I did smooth all sides of the boards and put a radius on all the corners. I also marked which sides were parallel so I make sure to have them facing outward to line up with the edge of the top.

    I'm sure I need to sharpen my irons again, but is this pretty normal for knotty areas to be difficult to get the iron to take shavings? Other areas of the board seemed to plane just fine.

  9. #24
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    Mar 2015
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Schubert View Post
    I'm sure I need to sharpen my irons again, but is this pretty normal for knotty areas to be difficult to get the iron to take shavings? Other areas of the board seemed to plane just fine.
    When I am doing the initial work to flatten or square something, I am usually looking to take fairly coarse (thick) shavings. You will probably not be able to do take thick cuts over a large knot, but a sharp plane should be able to take a light cut over a knot with no problem. Here is a photo I just took from a a bench (for sitting, not working) I recently built. It is a nameless "white wood" (spruce I think), and this is the kind of knot I am talking about. It will degrade your iron pretty quickly to plane that sort of thing, so touch things up frequently. A scraper is not really a good tool for flattening or squaring, it is more for finishing.

    image.jpg

  10. #25
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    Apr 2013
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    Stone Mountain, GA
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    751
    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Schubert View Post
    Thanks, Ken. That will give me an idea of how large I'll need to make my base.

    I did start working on smoothing out and squaring the rough lumber for the legs. I have to say, working on such large pieces is quite a bit of work! I thought the Douglas fir would be pretty easy to work with, but it's actually been somewhat the opposite. The boards have a few knots in them, which refuse to plane down. The iron will just glide over the top of them without digging in, leaving them higher than the rest of the surface. I ended up needing to try my scraper for the first time to see if that would knock those areas down. (It did, albeit slowly.) I now have two of the legs fairly square and straight. I don't plan to completely flatten the surfaces that will face the inside of the bench, unless that would be a wise idea. But, I did smooth all sides of the boards and put a radius on all the corners. I also marked which sides were parallel so I make sure to have them facing outward to line up with the edge of the top.

    I'm sure I need to sharpen my irons again, but is this pretty normal for knotty areas to be difficult to get the iron to take shavings? Other areas of the board seemed to plane just fine.
    I've worked a bit with Douglas Fir and it is quite a bit more resistant to planing than something like white pine. Some boards seem tougher to plane than an average piece of oak or cherry.

    The plane riding over knots sounds like a sharpness issue. Hitting the knots can dull the edge, and then the dull edge rides over the knots and cuts inconsistently - a vicious cycle. I wonder what shaving thickness you are using. When your blade is lacking some sharpness, it can actually be easier to take thicker shavings than thin.

    I like to use two planes when I'm doing a lot of flattening work- a #7 with a moderately cambered blade to take medium-thick shavings, and a #8 with a barely-cambered blade to do final passes with thinner shavings. I also have a jack plane with a heavily cambered blade for hogging off wood if necessary. The jack and #7 will cut for a long while without re-sharpening - especially the jack. If the #8 is set for a fine shaving, then I have to sharpen it more often or else it starts behaving badly, not taking shavings where I think it should, etc. But having the different planes means I can do the bulk with the #7, which saves me having to sharpen as often during a flattening session (the flattening also gets done quicker using thicker shavings).

    I guess what I am saying is, sharpen your irons, then consider using a heavier cut. You may need to put a larger camber on the iron to facilitate that heavier cut. Consider dedicating one plane for this.

    Also, I'm not sure exactly what you mean about the inside surfaces not being fully flattened, but if you have any joinery on those surfaces then you'll want to get them pretty flat. They don't need to be pretty, but you'll want to get rid of twist, make sure its parallel to the outside face, and get rid of any bumps. You can probably live with some hollows on that inside face as long as they don't occur where you want to place a mortise or something.

  11. #26
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
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    Lafayette, Indiana
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    Skip the through Tenons on the Top

    To your question about options for attaching the top in a way that is strong and secure, I pretty much took an approach similar to what you were thinking and it has proven to be quite stout and yet avoids being semi-permanently attached to the frame. Rather than chopping the mortise all the way through the top, I just made them 1 3/4" deep. The top is then dry fitted over the legs and one lag bolt at each end of the bench is used to draw the top down a bit. As you noted this requires an additional stretcher running from your front legs to the back legs along the top of the base frame. Note: one implication of adding these stretchers is that it impacts the clearance for an end vise or tail vise, depending on the design of the vise and how much your bench extends beyond the legs. For instance, I think the Veritas Twin Screw needs 16" of clearance, and if you design your bench with 12" of overhang, the upper stretchers wind up reducing your clearance to 12".
    Attached Images Attached Images

  12. #27
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    Aug 2013
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    Eric, I would recommend a try plane for 95% of the roughing work, short of heavy stock removal. Set it to a moderate cut and keep it sharp and slightly cambered.

    Are you you setting up reference faces at this stage?
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  13. #28
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Loveland, CO
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    418
    Brian, I've found the faces of these large boards to be mostly straight and square, which makes my job a lot easier. But yes, I'm smoothing them out and setting up reference surfaces.

    I'm of the assumption that the kegs don't need to be perfectly smooth or flat, but I do want the faces pretty square so that everything comes together correctly during assembly.

  14. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Schubert View Post
    Brian, I've found the faces of these large boards to be mostly straight and square, which makes my job a lot easier. But yes, I'm smoothing them out and setting up reference surfaces.

    I'm of the assumption that the kegs don't need to be perfectly smooth or flat, but I do want the faces pretty square so that everything comes together correctly during assembly.
    Would be my approach....

  15. #30
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    Jan 2014
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    Loveland, CO
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    418
    Didn't make a ton of progress tonight on the workbench. However, I did discover a serious issue with how I sharpened my plane irons that hampered my previous session of planing: I sharpened my irons too steeply.

    I tried sharpening freehand, but wasn't paying enough attention to my sharpening angle. Because I sharpened so steeply, the irons bottomed out on the top edge of the bevel and were just gliding over the surface of the wood. That's why it was so difficult.

    So, tonight I resharpened a couple of my irons using my Veritas MKII honing guide. I first did my PM-V11 blade for my #4, then I took on the wider cambered blade on my #7 after switching to my guide's cambered roller. And, boy did those irons ever turn out sharp! And being at the proper angle, they actually took nice shavings, too! Now I can breathe a sigh of relief, since this project won't be nearly as arduous as I was anticipating after my first couple of boards. (I may go back and smooth them out again, now that I know why they were so difficult...)

    Anyway, I did manage to smooth out one side of my third board tonight. This one I tried to get nice and flat, and I kept it pretty square to the neighboring face. Now I have a solid face to go from next time.



    Notice the nice, curly shavings..? Much better than last time!


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