My First Workbench Build - A Journal

[Eric Schubert]

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.

[Karl Andersson]

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

[Christopher Charles]

+1 on friend with a bandsaw. Or a local cabinet shop may be able to do the rips for a nominal cost.

[Eric Schubert]

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.

[Tom Bussey]

Why not put a stretcher a crossed the top of the legs also. The put two cleats on the underside so they are touching the stretchers at the top. Screw the cleats on . you will have to elongate all the holes except for the first screw. That way the top just sets there on the legs. To move the bench all that is needed is to lift the top off and if you make the legs knock down you can mode it very nicely. Most benches are never built with moving to a different location and or fasten it to a wall also and then they have a mess.

This is just my personal opinion but I feel a person should be able to work on all four sides of a workbench.

[Eric Schubert]

Tom, I was actually planning to put a stretcher across the tops of the legs so that I could lag screw the top slabs down to them, making a split top. I might still do the double dovetail/tenon joint on the outer edges, just because I'd like to try it. But, the top slabs will rest on the stretchers, and I'd still use lag screws to hold the slabs down.

I also plan to put the casters on the legs such that I can lift and roll the bench around, if I need to. That way I can keep it in the center of the open area and work on all sides (I very much agree with you on this!), but I can also roll it out of the way if I need more room for some other reason.

I've also poked around a bit on bench styles, and I like the concept of the Roubo and 21st Century benches. I want to be able to clamp through the center of the bench. But, I also was intrigued by making a box or two to sit in the gap for holding items, or so I can flip them upside down and use them to fill the gap and make a full work surface without a gap in it.

[Eric Schubert]

So, managed to get just a bit more done on the final leg of my bench. Unfortunately, the second side I'm working on is significantly convex, so it's going to take some time to get it flattened out. It's getting there, but I tired out before I could finish it. I'd say I need to take the center down by somewhere between 1/4" and 1/2" to get it flattened out.

[Eric Schubert]

Really just updating my journal here, not much exciting. Finally got back to it a bit. I put in a couple of hours working on flattening the convex side of that board again. It's nearly there, but I just ran out of gas. Next time I should have that side flattened and squared.

[Eric Schubert]

I finally got off my butt and started working on my bench again. I've been sidetracked by various other projects, traveling, and so on. It feels good to make progress again. The final leg of the bench needs some serious flattening and squaring. I managed to get the second side flattened (the first side was already done). Then, I went back and checked the first side again and it was twisted. I'm not sure if moisture released and the wood moved, or if I just hadn't checked it for twist, yet. In any case, I'll need to go back and redo that face again.