# My workbench Project



## markturner (3 Apr 2011)

Hi, I would like to share with you some pictures of my first major project, a workbench, so I can work on learning furniture making. I have based the design on the David Charlesworth style, with removeable tool tray, although mine is made of Corian, leftover from a job. ( I run a construction business www.getturner.co.uk is our site)

The top is from steamed beech 3 inch thick. I am going to make the frame from iroko, and it will have 2 drawers under in between the legs, with a space above to give clamp access and to store stuff on out of the way while working. 

Comments and questions welcome




























Cheers, Mark


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## adidat (3 Apr 2011)

is it possible you could shrink your pictures please?

adidat


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## Chems (3 Apr 2011)

Picture automatically resize once loaded, did you wait for the page to load fully before responding? 


Looks like a lovely bench. And that little MFT below looks like a very sturdy frame!


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## adidat (3 Apr 2011)

i only have 0.3mb internet. so big things take a long time to load. 

adidat


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## barkwindjammer (3 Apr 2011)

Wow, that looks amazing so far Mark, makes my bench look like an old fire door  
hey wait a minute, my bench is an old fire door (homer)  , cant wait to see the rest of the build


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## markturner (3 Apr 2011)

The next big hurdle is the mortices for the legs and frame. I have got 4 x 4 iroko for the legs, so it will be a bit of a mission to machine these, as i have no morticing machine. Does anyone have any tips on the best way to do these? i was thinking of machining as much material away as possible with my trusty OF2200 then squaring it by hand. Do you think i will need some mortice chisels? i need an excuse.......!!!

cheers, Mark


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## Chems (3 Apr 2011)

If you make a hig and use a guide bush you can either round the corners of the tenon or use a corner chisel to square it up. Or if your after an excuse a full set of Mortice chisels will probably work better to square the corner.


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## Orcamesh (4 Apr 2011)

markturner":19q7n85g said:


> The next big hurdle is the mortices for the legs and frame. I have got 4 x 4 iroko for the legs, so it will be a bit of a mission to machine these, as i have no morticing machine. Does anyone have any tips on the best way to do these? i was thinking of machining as much material away as possible with my trusty OF2200 then squaring it by hand. Do you think i will need some mortice chisels? i need an excuse.......!!!
> 
> cheers, Mark



That's looking lovely Mark, excellent work.

For the M&Ts, when I made my bench from Ash I had 75x75mm legs with 19mm mortices. So I bought a 19mm forstner bit to remove most of the waste before getting in there with a mortice chisel. I had 12 M&Ts to do and each of them were massive!

Builds up the muscles nicely! :lol: 

Looking forward to seeing the finished item...

cheers
Steve


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## markturner (13 Apr 2011)

OK, I am now ready to consider the design of the frame and underneath. One problem that I did not consider in the design is that to make the legs symmetrical from each end, they will give a large overhang ( 400mm ) at each side, due to the size and construction of the front vise . I am thinking it would be better to have the legs about 6 inches wider and have them offset to the bench top, what do you think? Its already a bit more utilitarian than beautiful, next time I will spend more time on the design and try and think further ahead......

I am realising that the design and planning is more important than the execution, but it is tricky to cover everything in advance.

Cheers, Mark


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## CarZeeLee (14 Apr 2011)

That looks very well made, I like it.


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## MickCheese (14 Apr 2011)

I don't understand exactly what you are saying and cannot easily work it out from your photo's but I would say go for function over form on this. It just has to work even if it is not visually what you strive to achieve.

Although from the look of what you have done so far you could rest it on a couple of saw horses and it would still look fantastic.

Mick


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## bugbear (15 Apr 2011)

Chems":xne44kjs said:


> Picture automatically resize once loaded, did you wait for the page to load fully before responding?



Yeah - but they're scaled in the browser - the whole multi-mooglibyte-monster has to be downloaded first.

To OP - clickable thumbnails would be preferred.

BugBear


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## markturner (17 Apr 2011)

Sorry, this next batch of pictures should be much smaller. I have started doing the mortices in the legs for the cross members. For the top ones that are open on one side, I used a bandsaw and my pillar drill to remove the big chunk of material then cleaned up with a chisel. One is perfect, the other slightly loose, which I am hoping to be able to correct on assembly with some judicious packing. The through tenon mortices were a bit of a challenge, I was going to use the pillar drill again, but decided to make up a jig and rout them, less clean up... However the challenge was to make up a jig that enabled me to accurately work from both sides so the slots lined up perfectly. I am happy to say the first one was spot on!!!! here are some pictures:





















I am currently trying to decide whether to square off the sides of the mortice or to have rounded shoulders on the Tenons. What do you think?

Cheers, Mark


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## woodbloke (17 Apr 2011)

Tidy looking job thus far. The only thing I would want to see included is a row of dog holes down the front (edge) apron as well as down the centre of the top. My bench also has removable trays which make it easy to cramp stuff from the other side as well as the front - Rob


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## markturner (22 Apr 2011)

OK, little update, I have had a pretty productive few days and the legs and frame are almost finished. As you can see from the pictures, i went with the rounded shoulders on the mortice and tenons, I am going to dowel the top frame members through the legs with birch 10mm dowels and the bottom tenons I will probably go with wedged tenons, using birch again. 
I cant tell you how satisfying it was to dry assemble the frame today and get that amazing little pneumatic pop as you pull apart a really tight fitting joint. I made all the mortices very sligtly undersize, so I had a good excuse to plane in all the tenons. I used my number 7 bailey type 15 with a new Hock iron and it was sheer bliss shaving off the excessto a perfect fit. 

Anyway, here are some pictures of the frame and legs as they are now. I am going to add beech veneered MDF side and back panels , that will slot into routered grooves in the legs and there is a shelf of solid beech which I have yet to make, that will sit in level with the top of the top cross members.
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Cheers, Mark


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## markturner (5 May 2011)

Ok, guys and girls, here is the next bunch of pictures. I just need now to make up the drawer boxes from birch ply and fit the solid beech frontals. You can see the storage shelf in the photos.





















Hope you enjoy looking at them as much as i have been enjoying making it

Cheers, Mark


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## Mark A (5 May 2011)

Thats great - much better than my plywood monstrosity!


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## goldeneyedmonkey (6 May 2011)

Trés Jealous [-( ... Great bench mate. Looks solid as the proverbial rock.

Cheers _Dan.


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## markturner (6 May 2011)

Actually, using it yesterday, I noticed some movement when planing using the front vice, planing along the front of the bench. I had originally planned for the legs to be wider, but found when i came to do them, that the position of the front vice made this impossible, unless I had them offset and off centre, which I thought would not look so nice ( lesson number one - think the whole project through before forging ahead..!!) I think the movement is in part down to the fact that the frame is taller rather than wider and also that I used no glue to assemble it. I am currently looking at ways of adding some discreet bracing pieces to reduce the twisting movement. It's only very small, but it's there and I don't like it!!

The next bench I make will incorporate all these lessons.

Our of interest, I wonder what someone would pay for something like this, complete? maybe I could sell and make mark2 version? 

Cheers, Mark


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## Paul Chapman (6 May 2011)

markturner":1vu66bzs said:


> Actually, using it yesterday, I noticed some movement when planing using the front vice, planing along the front of the bench. I had originally planned for the legs to be wider, but found when i came to do them, that the position of the front vice made this impossible, unless I had them offset and off centre, which I thought would not look so nice ( lesson number one - think the whole project through before forging ahead..!!) I think the movement is in part down to the fact that the frame is taller rather than wider and also that I used no glue to assemble it. I am currently looking at ways of adding some discreet bracing pieces to reduce the twisting movement. It's only very small, but it's there and I don't like it!!



You could increase the width of the base by adding some 'feet' - fit a couple of horizontal pieces to the legs so that the base in effect becomes almost as long as the bench top. I'm sure this would help with the overall stability of the bench.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## markturner (6 May 2011)

Hi Pete, as far as I can make out, the flex is a movement in 2 directions, and 2 planes - as I push along the length of the bench, from right to left, when the plane digs in or encounters a bit of resistance, the whole thing moves very slightly to the left and rear at the same time, so the flex is a kind of diagonal movement. 

I wondered wether some kind of diagonal; brace between the 4 legs, immediately under the benchtop and bolted through might help. I was also going to brace from top left of the rear to bottom right diagonally, inside the drawer frame so you dont see it. The legs themselves seem very stable.

Could you explain a little about your idea? I cant visualise what you mean.

Cheers, Mark


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## Paul Chapman (6 May 2011)

You say that you didn't glue the joints of the frame and I suspect that is causing a lot of the movement. If I were in your position I would cut three pieces of MDF and screw them to the back and sides of the base - that will hold the legs square and rigid and stop them wracking. What I meant about adding feet concerned the problem that the base is much narrower than the top. This will tend to make the bench pivot around the feet. You need to increase the width of the base so that it's somewhere approaching the length of the top. You could do this by getting two pieces of wood just a little shorter than the length of the bench and screwing them to the legs, thereby extending the length of the base. Anything would do - softwood would be fine. 

This sort of idea, but along the length of the bench







However, I suspect MDF and softwood would not be to your liking - but it would make your bench far more pleasant to use.

Hope this helps.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## Chems (6 May 2011)

I'd peg those joints too.


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## markturner (6 May 2011)

I have dowelled all the joints, and there was zero movement in the frame as far as I could tell, before I put the top onto the frame. Hmmm, this is going to be tricky I think. I am going to start with the discreet bracing and see if helps, the problem is, getting the brace in the right place without it obstructing anything like dog holes etc. Paul, I think the feet extension will be a last resort, as you said, I think it will spoil things. Thanks for the advice so far , 

cheers, Mark


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## Chems (7 May 2011)

markturner":dpi9nau4 said:


> I have dowelled all the joints, and there was zero movement in the frame



I was looking back through and couldn't see any holes for the pegs. I'm surprised your getting racking really its a pretty solid looking frame and all and those tenons are properly huge.


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## Benchwayze (8 May 2011)

Hi Mark, 

To solve the problem of large overhang at the ends, put in diagonal braces from the legs up to the underside of the top. 
Chris Schwartz's new book has an example inside. I am sure the public library has a copy if you didn't want to buy. 
HTH

Regards
John


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## markturner (22 May 2011)

Well guys and girls, its finally finished!! John's advice re the diagonal braces was taken and has proved remarkably effective in stopping the flex, so I am very pleased about that and they dont look too bad actually, in fact, i think they add to increasing the "rightness" of how it looks.. 

I made the drawers from birch ply with walnut lippings , one drawer for my planes and the other for other hand tools, its double layered, with a nice little sliding tray for my chisels and hammers. I rebated some 6mm strips of iroko into the drawer slides for the smaler drawer to slide in. Drawers were lined with some nice rubber grooved mat I think came from screwfix, and the whole thing was finished off using the new Festool Surfix oil system, which i can certainly recomend, very easy to use, the oil is nice and waxy and does not dry out like danish oil. 

Anyway, here are the pictures:
































Cheers, Mark


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## Orcamesh (25 May 2011)

Mark, that is a fantastic looking bench. Just out of interest, what are the top dimensions?

I ask because my current workbench (homemade, but badly), I think is too big for my small room. I also don't have a tail vice currently and make do with alternative holding methods.

So I am thinking of eventually making it smaller, adding a tail vice, and maybe redesigning the top too (currently a single very thick MDF board).

cheers
Steve


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## markturner (25 May 2011)

Thanks Steve, I am very pleased myself at the way it turned out, there some mistakes, but as a first major project of this kind, I am very happy with the result. Usually, I am building houses and fitting kitchens, so this is a different direction for me. I am looking forward now to using it to make my first real piece of furniture by hand. The dimensions are 1600mm x 760mm. I was going to have the bench at home, but I think that I dont really have the room in my workshop there. It's better at our warehouse unit, where i have more space, easy to clean floor, and all my other power tools like the bandsaw etc. However, long term, i would like to extend my workshop at home and have all my gear there, so i dont have to go back to work to carry out my hobby!!

Cheers, mark


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## South (8 May 2012)

Wow the bench is great the closes design I have seen to what I intend to build as soon as I have finished my pillar drill stand and taken it off my make shift bench.Oh and of coarse as soon as I find some silly person plans I can follow to build one lol 
Excellent bench love it


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## Benchwayze (8 May 2012)

Nice Job Mark. 
Compact and neat. Should last you a while. Like the tool storage too. Helps with the weight a little I should think. Unless you haven't got enough tools yet! :lol: 

Regards
John


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