Workbench finished....

[Dave Redlin]

Great Job!!! Hope you don't mind but I saved the picture. Now, make the envitable first scratch in the top and get the heartbreak out of the way. It wasn't a matter of hours before I nicked the top of my bench. Almost cried.

Can I ask why no tool tray?

Dave

[Allen Bookout]

Can I ask why no tool tray?

Dave

I don't know what Alex will answer but I have had two workbenches. One with a tray and one without. The one with the tray just collected stray tools, sawdust and stuff and decreased the work area. No more trays for me but I suppose it depends on how you work.

[Alex Shanku]

Yeah...what Allen said. I tend to leave all my tools out until the end of the day anyway, and having another place to stick them wouldnt help me much. I suppose those that use a tool, put it back, etc might benefit.

Also, I wanted as much of the 24" wide top to be used as a work surface.

[Mark Blum]

The sycamore tears out very easily so I did alot of the smoothing with a scraper and sand paper. I am just getting into hand planes and didnt feel confident enough to try using them, yet.

How did you go about flattening the top (I'm assuming from this comment that you didn't use hand planes)?

[Evan Authier]

Very nice, I have a stack of maple drying for this exact purpose.

Not being skilled in the art of bench making, could someone explain to me the purpose of the lag bolts holding the (breadboard?) end board to the top of the table? Could this piece have been mitred to the edge board on the long side? Are the bolt hole elongated or is expansion not a concern?

I also would like to see photos of the bottom of the bench.

[Dennis Hatchett]

Love it, interesting choice in sycamore. Think I may have to steal that idea.

I'm also right behind Evan. Just need time to pull my 8/4 maple planks down from the rack and a gallon of glue. They've been drying about 4 years and it's almost time to start.

Great work!

[Mark Blum]

Very nice, I have a stack of maple drying for this exact purpose.

Not being skilled in the art of bench making, could someone explain to me the purpose of the lag bolts holding the (breadboard?) end board to the top of the table? Could this piece have been mitred to the edge board on the long side? Are the bolt hole elongated or is expansion not a concern?

I also would like to see photos of the bottom of the bench.

The endcap is long-grain and runs at a perpendicular angle to the top. That means the top will contract and expand with humidity while the endcap doesn't. The endcap could have been mitered to the edge board on the long side to anchor it, but it still would have needed the lag bolts to account for the expansion of the top. It appears that Alex made the recesses for the lag bolt heads oversized to allow for that movement.

I handled this issue a bit differently with my bench, and used draw-bored dowels in the endcap through elongated holes in the tenon. My top is designed to expand into the tool tray and I see about 1/16"-1/8" movement throughout the year.

[Bill White]

Well darn! I thought that the mayonnaise was gonna be some sort of a new finish.
Great job Alex.
Bill