# YAWN - Yet Another Workbench Newbie



## MarkDennehy (27 Jun 2016)

So after enough time to use up all the swear words on a Workmate, I figured enough was enough and it was time to buy a workbench.

Then I saw the prices for hand tool friendly workbenches and vigorously revisited that notion, and came across Paul Sellers' videos and the Stumpy Nubs 2x6 Roubo build and all the other builds out there, and like every newbie ever, decided to do something slightly more complicated than was strictly necessary (because hey, it's fun). 

This was the initial design: 







Originally, I wanted a bench that could - with a chunk of effort - be knocked down for moving because we'd have to move house at some point in the next few years and leaving it behind seemed silly. But the more I looked at the joinery and the compromises and the complexity, the less I liked that idea, so the final design loses the wedges for drawbores. The tool tray still attaches on to the back as a seperate piece because that way I can have the main body of the bench built and use it to build the tool tray. The long complicated sliding dovetail arrangement for the legs got seriously revised thanks to advice from here, the legs still slot into the apron but in a much simpler way - no dovetailing, a much shorter length of joint, and the joint itself is an unglued friction fit rather than being all glued up, so that any expansion in the aprons doesn't try to push the top off the legs. 






There's a dado cut in the underside of the bench between legs that the top stretcher will fit into, but again it won't be glued, it'll be a friction fit; the idea is to take some of the stress off the leg's tenons when planing on the bench and absorb that sideways force in the stretchers, but without actually having the top rest on top of the stretchers (my thinking being that the tenons will be drawbored so if the stretchers were just glued into that dado, they'd put stress on the drawbore pin when they expand).






I'm hoping to use the method in the Stumpy Nubs build for the leg tenons and cut them with a saw before glueing the whole laminated top together. The core would get glued up as one chunk; then the leg tenons get cut in the outer boards and everything's fitted and assembled, and then the aprons go on after that. At least, that's the plan...






There'll be a row of bench dog holes and a space for a veritas inset tail vice that can be added later on; I'll have some more holes for holdfasts as well. There will be a planing stop just to the left of the left leg, and a record 53A is sitting here waiting to get attached to the right of that leg. I'm thinking of an inset hardwood face in the outside of the bench for the vice (the inner jaw will be set behind the apron and the outer jaw gets a hardwood face and suede). The tool tray boards are loose so you can remove them and use clamps on the far side of the bench as well. If it turns out to be useful I'll put some dogs in the hardwood face of the record vice and corresponding dog holes in the benchtop in a line towards the back of the bench, but I'll think about that after I get to actually work on the bench for a while. 

The whole thing is rather small by most people's standards I guess - about 60" by about 32" (24" of bench plus 8" of tool tray) by 40" tall (the bench height I usually prefer to work at when standing) - but it has to fit into an 8'x6' shed with enough room to reach underneath to the screw on the record 169 plane stop holder on one end and for the handle of the inset tail vice on the other. And I drew up the plans with the intent that they could and would be tweaked and fudged during the build as required because stuff never goes according to plan. It seemed reasonable enough (stop laughing) and I figured I could build it in a week using only hand tools (seriously, stop laughing, you need to breathe). 

Then I started hitting the fun speed bumps. Timber yards in Ireland, for example, are... not hen's teeth but aren't far off for newbie amateurs. Okay, but Paul Sellers' bench is made with B&Q timber and the Stumpy Nubs one is the same. Irish B&Q and Woodies prices are... somewhat higher than is pleasant though. Okay, onto the builders merchant website and ordered some RWD timber (I'm not sure if there's different UK terminology, it's the really god-awful pine-ish stuff they eventually turn into the planed god-awful stuff in B&Q). I figured I could save some money getting it rough-sawn and that the handplaning would knock all the it's-so-special glow off the idea of hand tools and convince me to just use power tools for everything forever. Of course I don't have a truck or a trailer, so I have to pay for delivery (you can't fit 4.8m lengths of anything other than rope into a Citroen C4) and that's all the cost savings out the window before I've even clicked on "Pay now". But sod it, needs must. It would have nice if the delivery man hadn't dumped it all into my neighbour's parking spot mind you...






And okay, most of the work's going to be done with hand tools, but for the initial rough cuts to get the timber down to a stage where I could store it in my shed while waiting for it to warp, cup and twist, I just ran it through the mitre saw.










I need a larger back yard. But, it got it done. Stacked and stickered the wood in the shed to let it acclimatise for a week or three.


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## monkeybiter (27 Jun 2016)

You should write comedy, very entertaining write-up. 
Good design change decisions, I would think that by the time you move house you will be ready to build a new bench based on your accumulated experience, so I wouldn't worry too much about future proofing this one.
Watching keenly.


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## MarkDennehy (27 Jun 2016)

There follows a few weeks of waiting and gathering up a few tools I didn't have and was going to need (yes, I _need_ a #7. For a given value of need. Oh come on, look at all that lovely cast iron...).
Then after that, once the moisture content was more or less stable in the wood, I hauled out the 2x3 lengths I had and knocked up some quick sawhorses because I was not about to plane an entire workbench on a workmate that did more dancing than I did at my wedding. 






Nothing fancy, but so much damn nicer than planing on the workmate. Next up, planing the glue faces of the leg pieces.






I'd taken a week's holidays (mainly because work had been a bit insane for the previous few months and I needed either downtime or valium and the holiday was cheaper), and the idea was to do all this during that week. I spent most of the first day grinding and sharpening a few dozen plane blades and chisel blades and other prep stuff and the legs were day two.






Glue-up was done for all four legs at once (I do love those cast iron clamps).






The next morning, I undid the clamps, everything looked grand, I cleaned up the outside faces with the #4½ but didn't bother making them square yet, and put them back in the shed, planning to start on the top after lunch. 


And then the heavens opened and the rest of the day was spent watching rain from indoors. 
And then it rained all the next day. And the next. And for the rest of the week. By Sunday I was about ready to spit. An entire week with nothing done. Fudge. 
And then the next few weekends were either taken up with family stuff or rained out as well. By this point, I was starting to think the weather had it in for me...


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## MarkDennehy (27 Jun 2016)

I managed, one or three boards at a time, to get the glue faces of the benchtop boards planed smoothish (from rough-sawn) over assorted weekday evenings in the hour or less that I had free. Hell, I even managed to paint the sawhorses out of sheer frustration (and to test the colours of the paint intended for the shed).






Then this weekend I finally got a sunday to work on the top (I was waiting for a full day because _everyone_ says that with pine, plane it flat and glue it the same day or it'll warp on you out of spite). Out came the boards...






Got all the grains lined up to help with planing later on, picked out the most awful looking boards for the back of the bench - if I can arrange for the lighting in the shed to be bad enough I won't even see the knots - and then clamped everything to see where the worst gaps were. Noted them on the boards and then started working through the boards a pair at a time, holding them together with hand pressure, noting the high points on the glue faces, planing them down, re-holding them, swearing, planing some more, rechecking, reswearing... you get the idea. Eventually I got it to the point where the gaps in any pair of boards was eliminated under hand pressure and the clamps eliminated them over the whole top.






That's not the _entire_ top of course, it's just the core - there are four more boards, two which will have the mortice for the leg tenons cut in them and two which will be the top apron boards. They'll get added on later. 

One more dry rehearsal and then out with the titebond. And all of the clamps.






Seriously, I know you can't ever have enough clamps, but I'm running out of wood to put the clamps on. 
I did initially put the two ends into cauls to keep them as flat as I could while taking up the pressure on the main clamps, and then removed the cauls and added the clamps I had used on those to the main boards. I'll probably wind up regretting that at some point but the RWD wood not being planed meant all the 2x4s weren't 2x4s; they were 2x4s, 2x3.9s, 2x4.1s and so on, so I was never going to get away from lots of planing to flatten the top. Might as well just accept that now I guess. 

Besides, tidying up the mess from the squeeze-out is going to be the more painful part...






Still though, good squeeze-out top and bottom. That's good. Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself repeatedly while wondering where a full litre of titebond went to.

And then I threw a tarp over the whole thing and five minutes later the heavens opened, again. And we're forecast for a week of rain. Bloody Irish summer weather. I'll take off the clamps in a few days, see how bad the result is. Oh matron, the suspense!


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## MattRoberts (27 Jun 2016)

Great progress, thanks for sharing and giving us a good chuckle!


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## Phil Pascoe (27 Jun 2016)

As said above - if you can simplify, so much the better. It's your first bench and ultimately it will be wrong. You'll look at it after a year or so and think I wish I'd made that narrower, thinner, thicker, wider ... I wish it was higher, lower ... I wish I hadn't glued that and screwed it instead ... I wish I'd made so the top can come off ... You'll have done a lot of work for nothing. I did my second base last year (I kept the top) and sometimes I still think I could have something a little differently. One observation I would make is that I would end the apron at the legs - I've always found unrestricted access to ends handy. You could do that afterwards, of course (but that's a suggestion from someone who doesn't like aprons at all).


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## dzj (27 Jun 2016)

MarkDennehy":eu60pr7z said:


> There's a dado cut in the underside of the bench between legs that the top stretcher will fit into, but again it won't be glued, it'll be a friction fit; the idea is to
> take some of the stress off the leg's tenons when planing on the bench and absorb that sideways force in the stretchers, but without actually having the top
> rest on top of the stretchers (my thinking being that the tenons will be drawbored so if the stretchers were just glued into that dado,
> they'd put stress on the drawbore pin when they expand).



An interesting design. A kind of Roubo/ Nicholson crossbreed. 
Although I don't see why you didn't throw out the top stretcher completely.
With a benchtop that thick it serves no purpose and the expanding top will put unnecessary strain on the pinned tenons
(even with the stretcher not being glued into the housing)


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## MarkDennehy (30 Jun 2016)

dzj":2p0ui8uq said:


> An interesting design. A kind of Roubo/ Nicholson crossbreed.


Doesn't every newbie have to do that? Take a solid, simple working design and overcomplicate it so they can learn how bad an idea that is?


> Although I don't see why you didn't throw out the top stretcher completely.
> With a benchtop that thick it serves no purpose and the expanding top will put unnecessary strain on the pinned tenons
> (even with the stretcher not being glued into the housing)


The thinking was that the bench is a box, made up from the four legs on the vertical edges, the four stretchers on the bottom as the bottom edges, the aprons as the two long upper edges, and then the stretchers as the two top short edges.
And that we need the top short stretchers because otherwise all the stress they take up when you push the bench from the face vice side towards the back would be taken up by the leg tenons; and since the shoulders of those tenons have to 
be large - they take the full weight of the bench onto the legs - the tenons won't be 2x4 in section. So the stretchers have the bulk to take that force in compression and cut down on the shear forces on the tenons. 

The thinking may have been the result of a blank sheet of paper, a year or two of structural engineering, and several beers however...


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## MarkDennehy (30 Jun 2016)

So today I was a bit under the weather (which is a polite way of saying that I was having a philosophical dispute with something I ate and was conducting a brexit poll of my own) and working from home (which is a polite way of saying that if you work in IT, being confined to where the king goes alone is not enough to get you out of work because we invented both the laptop and wifi). So over lunch I took the clamps off the core of the benchtop glueup to see would it immediately fall apart (because as we all know, a litre of titebond II regularly fails to hold wood together). Happily, the glue held the wood together. Slightly less happily, the glue also held some of the clamping blocks to the bench, but a few wallops with a mallet convinced them of the error of their ways. 
Then I lifted the top onto the sawhorses to get a good look at it. Pro tip: if you have a dodgy tummy, don't try to pick up a freshly-glued up benchtop and use your core abdominal muscles to pivot it to put it on sawhorses. 
So a half-hour or so later and somewhat lighter, I went back to take a look at the benchtop, gave it a pass or two with a scrub plane to clean off the glue and let me see how bad it was and it's... well, it's not as bad as I was worried it might be. 






The ends are aligned to within a millimeter or so on the far end, and only out by a few millimeters on this end, and I still have to cut somewhere around 100mm off the overall length anyway, so that's grand. There are still one or two small gaps at what will be the the far back right of the benchtop when it's done, almost a half-millimetre wide, but I can live with that. The area to the front where most of the work gets done is absolutely fine. 






There is, however, a minor issue that I mentioned last time. This stuff is all rough white deal, and instead of being 2"x4", it's everything from 1.8"x3.9" to 2"x4" to 2.2"xScrewYouBuddy, so there wasn't any way to clamp it to give me a flat face.






Hooooooooboy...
I'm going to have to refettle my scrub plane I think (well, it is a POS £10 #4)






I'm also probably going to drill out that huge knot in the fourth board from the left and call it a holdfast hole. Instead of a _goddamnit-why-wasn't-I-wearing-my-safety-glasses-I've-just-sprayed-myself-in-the-eyes-with-pine-knot-splinters-screw-you-knot-I'm-getting-rid-of-you_ hole, which is what it really will be.


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## MattRoberts (30 Jun 2016)

Nice progress! Do you have a router? You could either spend a day with a full set of planes to flatten that top, or you could spend a couple of hours with a router and flattening sled. I know which I'd prefer!


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## MarkDennehy (30 Jun 2016)

I do Matt, I have a bosch one (one of the green 1200w ones), but I'm going to use the planes instead. It'll take longer and I'll learn more swear words, but I'm still slightly wary of a tool that can remove all my fingers faster than I can turn it off  I'll be a lot happier using that thing when I have it bolted into that Aldi router table and I can safely run away from it.

Also, I might have accidentally bought a #6 today (common accident, can happen to anyone, you just slip on the soap in the shower and fall onto your laptop and accidentally click bid on ebay) so if I don't start using them a lot more, questions might get asked...


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## MattRoberts (30 Jun 2016)

More power to you. I'll reserve my 'I told you so' until you've posted the next update with your blistered and bloody fingers


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## MarkDennehy (30 Jun 2016)

Heck, if my blistered and bloody fingers are all you're waiting for, you should post away now  Turns out all my calluses are in the wrong places from using chef's knives, garden spades, rifles, soldering irons and other non-woodworking-tool-things, and I'm now having to grow a new set. Which is fun.


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## DTR (1 Jul 2016)

MattRoberts":3csmodep said:


> More power to you. I'll reserve my 'I told you so' until you've posted the next update with your blistered and bloody fingers



I hand-planed 1/4" of twist out of my 7' ash bench top, it's not that bad 

Good luck with the bench build, Mark


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## MattRoberts (1 Jul 2016)

I think it's more my fear of hand planing. Whenever I do it, I just seem to tear large chunks out of the wood


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## Adam9453 (1 Jul 2016)

great build thread, very amusing.

A little tip i picked up some where, if you use scraps of greaseproof paper between your clamps and the wood, the glue doesn't stick them together. I think it was a veneering tip but it applies universally.

I'm looking forward to the next instalment


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## Roughcut (1 Jul 2016)

MattRoberts":tikh5ana said:


> I think it's more my fear of hand planing. Whenever I do it, I just seem to tear large chunks out of the wood



Yeah that can happen if the timber is laminated together without thought given to the right grain orientation.
Don't ask me how I know this.


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## Grawschbags (1 Jul 2016)

Loving the thread, following with interest...

I'm about to undertake a similar project. Picked up all my wood this afternoon, cut it to length with a circular saw at the timber yard, and shoved it in the boot.

Do you mind telling me what the different clamps are and where from?

Clamps are the next thing on my list!


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## MarkDennehy (1 Jul 2016)

Three kinds of clamps Grawschbags: two kinds of sash clamps, the big-ass 1200mm cast iron T-bar clamps which cost £124 (for eight) from midlands tools on ebay, and the smaller 600mm as-seen-on-the-paul-sellers-show aluminium sash clamps which cost £68 (for eight) from ppretail on ebay - but try aliexpress.com for those as well because I'm pretty sure they're all coming off the same chinese extrusion works - and I got a few of the aldi clamps as well but they're only 450mm so they're not long enough for the larger glue-ups, but I had another one bought from woodies ages ago that gets occasional use (mostly though, they're just used for quickly clamping something I'm working on to the sawhorses, and they're damn useful for that). 

If I was doing it over, I'm not 100% certain I'd get eight of the t-bar clamps. They're way better in terms of clamping pressure than the aluminium ones, which I still need to stuff with wood, but they're quite expensive, bloody heavy and awkward as well. I'd see them mainly being used for clamping carcasses of larger bits and pieces in the future, I think the smaller aluminium ones are more likely to be used more often to be honest. That said, now that I have them, I'm not sorry either, it gives you a bit more confidence when setting up the glue-up and besides, you just _know_ that if you only had four of them you'd run into that one job that needs five...


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## Grawschbags (2 Jul 2016)

MarkDennehy":1vprx70x said:


> Three kinds of clamps Grawschbags...



Thanks for the detailed reply mate. 

I had read a fair bit on here about the t-bar clamps being awesome, but unwieldy like you say. I think I would only use t-bar clamps for the bench tops, not for any future work...

I like the idea of the aluminium sash clamps. I've also seen Paul Sellers stuff them with wood. Probably got some wood in the garage that will do the job. Probably much more useable for me in future as well. Good to hear your thoughts that t-bars may not really be necessary.

Must have watched the Paul Sellers YouTube series on building a workbench about 4 times, so should really go and crack on rather than just talking about it...


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## MarkDennehy (2 Jul 2016)

I'd recommend watching the Stumpy Nubs workbench video (and part two) as well, if only just for kicks (though the way he puts it together is a good lesson in "good enough" I think). Graham Haydon's bench videos were also fantastic for the "here's how you get on with it" lesson, but they're not available any more. And if you don't mind shelling out a few quid, Richard McGuire's English Workbench videos are absolutely excellent and I don't regret spending a penny of the price on them. There are a few other videos on youtube that were interesting and might give you a few ideas too: the one on the morovian workbench, Crimson Guitar's Roubo workbench build, and there was a very short unnarrated roubo build here and here which stuck in my mind for some reason (probably the sheer contrast between the boards at the start being so filthy that a yard brush was required to clean off the dust, and the incredibly plane polish on the final benchtop). There are a ton of others (just search for "build workbench" on youtube and you could be watching for days), but those were the ones I kept going back to and taking notes in my notebook about.


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## Grawschbags (2 Jul 2016)

MarkDennehy":1cg1hoey said:


> I'd recommend watching the Stumpy Nubs workbench video (and part two) as well, if only just for kicks (though the way he puts it together is a good lesson in "good enough" I think).



Thanks for the links. Stumpy has convinced me that I need and end vice and storage underneath. Plus lots of holes I don't know if I need...

I've no doubt I'll build another workbench in future once I've figured out exactly what I need it to do. I fell in love with the fancy benches when I first started looking, however I don't have the skill, and fear I'd keep it as an ornament and dust it every day, rather than use it!

I'll possibly start my own progress thread once I get going. Going to let the wood acclimatise for a bit first. Plus, gives me time to scour eBay for even more tools...


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## Phil Pascoe (2 Jul 2016)

A few observations. The tip about greaseproof is sound, but pieces of polythene bag work as well. If you have a mixture of cramps you can use a heavy one to pull something tight then a lightweight one to hold it, moving the heavy one on. I f you use wildly different dimensioned timber for the top, if you are fortunate enough to have a flat surface to work on keep the best (and most likely flattest) sides down - if you're lucky you'll end up with the downward side reasonably flat and the other all over the place. This can then have a router passed over it to flatten it only where it needs to be fixed down, the rest doesn't matter. Also - a scrub plane is used not only to clean timber up, but also to help flatten it, as such a No.4 is a little on the short side if anyone's planning one.


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## MarkDennehy (2 Jul 2016)

phil.p":3lgzouf5 said:


> I f you use wildly different dimensioned timber for the top, if you are fortunate enough to have a flat surface to work on keep the best (and most likely flattest) sides down - if you're lucky you'll end up with the downward side reasonably flat and the other all over the place.


Wish you'd said that a few days back  
But I got a half-hour today (saturdays are mainly the family and prep-for-next-week day here) to attack the benchtop with my little #4 scrub plane, and I was rather surprised by how fast the thing hogs off material. It's damn near flat already over most of the surface, I should have both sides done tomorrow at this rate. Which means I have just jinxed the entire thing and tomorrow it'll rain all day except for the small tornado at lunchtime. 



> Also - a scrub plane is used not only to clean timber up, but also to help flatten it, as such a No.4 is a little on the short side if anyone's planning one.


I built mine from a #4 mainly because (a) Paul Sellers told me to sir*; (b) stumpy nubs told me to sir; and (c) that POS amtrak was _cheap_  
However, I do have another plan - I have a record #5½ that I got as part of the first job lot of stuff I bought on fleabay (_hey, it's the toolbox of someone who worked in shipbuilding_, thought I, _that's not likely to be filled with useless gadgets and uncared-for tools_; and oddly I wasn't entirely wrong that time). The record #4 and record #4½ that were also in the lot both had best crucible cast steel blades, but the #5½ had a stanley blade and a record cap iron that didn't mate properly (and even after ages with a grinder is still pretty awful). I bought a replacement record cap and blade off fleabay a fortnight ago (and best crucible cast steel too, so yay) so the plan is to turn the stanley blade into a scrub plane blade by grinding a camber on it. The idea being that the #4 scrub just hogs off great wodges of material and the #5½ hogs slightly less and flattens (and can have a normal plane blade fitted also to act as a normal jack plane). I'd say that I was being all clever about it, but I stole the idea from about sixty-three other places...

_* Eh, I haven't been doing this for fifty years and I'm old enough to know to shut up and listen at least some of the time  _


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## MarkDennehy (2 Jul 2016)

I was thinking about the design of the workbench again last night and had a thought. Well, stole an idea more accurately. I read the apartment woodworker's blog quite a bit and in his last post he was talking about stealing an idea from Christopher Schwarz who in turn noticed it in a Stent design workbench that someone had sent him photos of. Long rambling story shortened to polite length, the idea is to have the leg beside the vice be bigger than all the other legs in the bench as it's closest to the most load the workbench sees. You can see it here, all the other legs are single-tenon jobs, but on the leg with the vice (in this case a leg vice), it's a much larger leg with a larger tenon and a sliding dovetail: 







The more I thought about that, the better an idea it sounded. And at the stage I'm at right now, it would be very easy to do. Cut one of the spare 63" 2x4 lengths I have down to the 43" of the leg blanks, plane the glue face up and laminate it to the vice leg. Less than an hour's work, even at my level of faffing about. Nothing has been cut to length yet, and the legs aren't even squared off. And the vice I'm using is a record 53A, which is a little bit heavy.

Anyone think of a reason why it'd be a dumb idea?


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## Phil Pascoe (3 Jul 2016)

I won't argue with the esteemed Paul Sellers but it is illogical to use the shortest plane you can lay your hands on to to get rid of high spots - without using a straight edge every minute you're not going to know where they are, let alone get rid of them. I think the other guy was just looking for a use for a bottom end plane, not suggesting it was the best option. Do as you wish - it's only an opinion.


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## Phil Pascoe (3 Jul 2016)

As an aside - don't get to hung up about the weight and bulk of benches. Most traditional designs come from a time when huge sections of timber were sawn and jointed manually, and for modern day purposes they really don't need to be that heavy. As long as they don't fly around when you cut up a 6" x 3" or bounce when you whack a 1/2" mortice chisel into something they're probably heavy enough. The point of diminishing returns is easily reached.


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## MarkDennehy (3 Jul 2016)

phil.p":382vqcsv said:


> As an aside - don't get to hung up about the weight and bulk of benches. Most traditional designs come from a time when huge sections of timber were sawn and jointed manually, and for modern day purposes they really don't need to be that heavy. As long as they don't fly around when you cut up a 6" x 3" or bounce when you whack a 1/2" mortice chisel into something they're probably heavy enough. The point of diminishing returns is easily reached.


See, this is the sort of thing that isn't getting mentioned in all those "how to build a workbench" videos. 
I mean, granted, several months working on a workmate will make the idea of a concrete workbench seem like a good idea, but none of the material out there has ever made the point that the whole_ "four tons of hard maple roubo"_ design might be swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction, at least not directly.


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## MarkDennehy (3 Jul 2016)

What the new design would look like with that larger vice leg, btw:


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## MarkDennehy (3 Jul 2016)

A full weekend day without rain. Wow. I mean. I'd heard legends but... just wow. 
So I immediately took full advantage of the day by sleeping late. Crud. 
And before doing anything with the bench, I hauled out the grinder and reground the bevels on my #7 after an earlier argument with a knot:






And since I was doing that, I reground the camber on my scrub plane to make it a little more aggressive:






I may need to rename that thing Sid. I also reground the stanley blade in my #5½ record to put a less aggressive camber on it than sid's, so that I'd have a second scrub plane but with a longer base. And I cleaned up the bevel on the new record blade I got for the #5½ (the stanley blade didn't match the cap iron so it was pretty awful as a normal jack plane blade; so now it's the scrub blade and the new one's the jack blade). With all that done, I got out the sandpaper and diamond plates and started sharpening blades (and for the hell of it, lapped the sole of the POS scrub plane too, and it seriously needed it). I even tried freehand sharpening for the scrub planes with half-decent results (turns out an eclipse jig does a pretty good job teaching your muscles what the angles feel like). 
And finally, an hour or so after starting, I was ready to start. Bloody hell. I know if you're given ten minutes to chop down a tree you should spend five minutes sharpening the axe, but I'm starting to think whomever said they could sharpen an axe in five minutes was a lying person of questionable parentage.

_Anyway_, this was where the benchtop was on Friday: 






And after a half-hour or so with the scrub plane on Saturday, I got it to here:






So I got out Sid, and had at it. Ten minutes of cross-grain hacking with Sid and twenty more with the #5½ scrub plane, the last few of those being stop-check-plane-curse-recheck minutes, and I got it to here:






And then I put the #5½ back into jack plane mode and gave the top some smoothing to take out the gouge marks from the scrubbers (phnarr, phnarr) and even ran the #7 over it for a minute or two: 






I was just about to cheer and then I remembered that the benchtop has two sides. #-o 
Yeesh. Flip it over, and let Sid loose on it...






Then tidy it up with a lot of cross-scrubbing with the #5½...






And then, right when I'm about to start cheering, check for twist.






OH COME ON!!! Stupid wood. 
Out with the #4½, set to a heavy cut and started hacking. And hacking. And checking. And how the hell did that high point become a low point? SOD! Hack some more. And check again. And on and on and finally have something that's as straight as I can see...


...and then flip it back over and the other sodding side is twisted too. AGHHHHHHH. Back to the hack/check/hack/check/curse/hack/check cycle. But eventually, more due to exhaustion overwhelming perfectionism, I get to here and call it done...










I think it's flat enough for now....


So I still have some daylight left and that idea about the vice leg was still rattling round in my head, so I got one of the spare 63" 2x4 lengths I had left and the vice leg; planed the glue face on the spare length; and marked off one against the other (dodging a large knot in the process):






Out came the marking knife, the chisel to do the Sellers knifewall thingy, and the HOLY CARP WILL YOU LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT THING ryoba japanese saw I got from Dictum to do the trimming end cuts on the benchtop and legs: 






I'll admit to using a small set square to watch the vertical orientation of the blade initially, but mainly I was just too busy being blown away by how much easier this is on top of a robust benchtop with firm clamping of the workpiece and at a height that was comfortable. I can't saw to a line to save my life on the workmate; I've tried enough times to convince me to spend money to buy a mitre saw. But the very first cut on the benchtop with a brand new saw and without even having the bench assembled or the vice attached?










I am _waaaay_ too happy about that one cut. I mean, this is the point where I say something that starts with_ "Booya"_ and ends with HR having a discussion about inappropriate words for the workplace. But I'm a nontrivial amount of cash into this project so far and this was the first indication of what the bench would be like to work on and WOW is it ever worth it. 

Anyway, finished cutting the new board to length - by the way, the most difficult thing about using a large Japanese saw is resisting the urge to swing it round your head, scream lip-synced gibberish and attack Godzilla by trying to saw through his ankles. If you can avoid that, they give great results pretty readily. Then I set up the clamps and got out the greaseproof paper, did the dry run and then did the actual glue up, making sure to not let the unplaned edges line up with the planed edges of the leg (so now both the unplaned edges are proud of the planed surface on the leg so I can plane them all down more readily).






Then tidied away all the tools, wrapped the glue-up in one tarp and the benchtop in another because OF COURSE it's forecast to rain for the next week, and went in to sit down to have a cup of coffee. Which was when I realised that my arms weren't working anymore...


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## Phil Pascoe (3 Jul 2016)

Why plane the underside? or are you just a masochist?  It only needs to be flat where it meets other woodwork.
By the way - if you decide to use holdfasts (excellent things) that top is too thick for them, you'll need to counterbore the holes. Don't drill 19mm holes first and then discover the holdfasts won't grip.


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## MarkDennehy (3 Jul 2016)

phil.p":2m3t9a8o said:


> Why plane the underside? or are you just a masochist?  It only needs to be flat where it meets other woodwork.


It was pretty terribly rough, and there's some joinery where the legs meet it and around the stretchers. But yeah, I think that could get filed under "rookie mistake"  



> By the way - if you decide to use holdfasts (excellent things) that top is too thick for them, you'll need to counterbore the holes. Don't drill 19mm holes first and then discover the holdfasts won't grip.


Crud, are you sure? I was looking at the Simon James ones, they were supposed to work in benchtops 4" thick. I guess counterboring the hole from the underside of the bench would be simple enough; how much does it need to be counterbored by though, or is this one of those cut-test-cut-a-bit-more type of things?


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## Phil Pascoe (3 Jul 2016)

Yes, it does say 4", doesn't it? Maybe there's a bit more spring in the actual holdfast than there is in some others? I don't know. My top is about 2 3/4" and they're perfect on that, and I have read here somewhere that people have had to counterbore the holes after drilling them as the holdfasts didn't grip properly and iirc the tops weren't much over 3". If you already have the holdfasts you could do a test run on some scrap - it could save you hassle, as counterboring is easy but trying to counterbore when you've lost the centre isn't great fun. I believe most designs are meant to work best between about 2" and 3" so you'd need to leave about that - someone with the experience of thicker tops will hopefully be along.


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## mikefab (4 Jul 2016)

I have a couple of the gramercy holdfast (from Dieter Schimdt). My bench top is 75mm and they work just fine.

Mike


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## Phil Pascoe (4 Jul 2016)

Yes - iirc that seems to be about the cut off point and much over that diminishes the grip, a bit of research would probably throw up the original posts. I think if it were mine I'd counterbore to about the 3" rather than risk needing to do it afterwards, although of course if they advertise them as working at 4" they'll work at 4" (but may not work at their optimum, of course). Another thing to consider is if you have a drill stand, a bench drill or even a bench top morticer that needs bolting down on occasion, you can space the holdfast holes to suit. I can bolt my drill stand so it can swing over the vice, which can be very useful at times. Before my morticer had its own bench that would bolt down as well.


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## MarkDennehy (4 Jul 2016)

Oh, the joy of coming home to an inch of rain and finding that the tarp over the glueup had been blown off despite being tied down.
Fudge. The mdf sheet I was using as a flat surface is toast, I'll have to dry and reoil those cast iron clamps, and I've no idea if or how badly it'll affect the vice leg. Gah. At least the glue had dried.


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## MarkDennehy (9 Jul 2016)

Well, the vice leg glue-up seems to have been unaffected by its shower, and it's now a suitably beefy leg (by which I mean, it's now large enough to look comically too large for the benchtop. Oh well, it won't be the only thing that'll look funny about this by the time I'm done I suspect). There wasn't much time for the rest of the week to do much work (so I occupied myself by buying more tools. Why did nobody tell me this was a sickness you could catch? What the hell did I need a #6 for? Well, other than for preparing smaller boards that didn't really need the #7, and for filling the space in the tool cabinet between the #5½ and the #7.... though maybe a T5 would help with the symmetry... Oh, for pete's sakes!). 

Today was dryish in defiance of a forecast for thunderstorms and drowning pets, so after the chores for the week and a visit from family were done, I managed to get two or three hours in. I spent a bit of that staring at the top, the remaining boards that will have the leg tenons in them and which aren't laminated up yet so I can cut the joints with saws rather than chop out the mortices by chisel, the four legs and the boards for the aprons, assembling and reassembling them in my head to walk through the sequence looking for a lazy-ass shortcut. Not finding any, and finding to my disgust that the bench didn't assemble itself in reality by magic while I was imagining how it'd go together in my head (stupid physics), I opted to assemble the aprons today and cut the leg mortices tomorrow. So I cleaned up the four remaining apron boards (the top two of each were already planed clean) and picked my sides and oriented them to have matching grain directions, and then edge jointed them. Which sucked the north end of a southbound donkey the first time, but by the fourth I was starting to get the hang of it. I guess having fifty-four different planes has at least one upside. Though I may need to ease off on the carnal feelings towards my #7, I don't think the RSPCA would approve. 

Got both the aprons prepped for glue-up, planning to glue them both up at the same time. Got out the cast iron clamps and laid them out, all grand, then got out the aluminium sash clamps and prepped them....






pipper. I knew this was going too well. Okay, so the options are to either clamp up one apron at a time (yeah, no, this is falling behind already); open the cast irons a bit more and put spacer blocks between the aprons in line with all eight of the clamps, then put the aluminium clamps into the gaps that created (except that I don't have enough space blocks and that's a nice big fiddly panel glue-up job that I can see taking one turn of pressure and then bursting upwards like a juggling trick gone wrong); _or_ just use the cast irons. 

Did I mention I'm a lazy pineapple at the best of times?

So the aprons are now clamped with the cast irons and curing under a tarp, and tomorrow I'll cut the legs to length and start the joinery by marking out where the tenons will go in pencil and then assembling the leg frames with the short stretchers as two units. Glue those up, and while they're curing, start marking out for the record 53A and figuring out how and where to mount that exactly. When the leg frames are made up, it'll be time to cut the mortices and tenons at the top and the housing dado the top short stretcher will sit into, then the joint with the apron, then the long stretcher, and then it'll be the final assembly. 

Ah, sure that'll be easy, right?


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## n0legs (9 Jul 2016)

Keep it going Mark =D> 
Really enjoying this WIP, I'm taking notes ("north end of a southbound donkey", made me chuckle) :lol:


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## MarkDennehy (10 Jul 2016)

A nice dry-ish day for most of today (for which I know karma is going to exact vengeance) so after breakfast, out to check on the apron glue-up. 






Not bad. No daylight between the boards. A bit of bowing and twist though, so out with sid...






Did I say a bit of twist? I'm sorry, I meant an entire 40-foot container full of pineapple worth of twist. The front apron wasn't too bad, it only took the one pass with sid on either side - about 20-odd minutes in total - but the back apron's middle board was a few mm higher than the other two boards and it ate the rest of an hour getting that down to even reasonably flat. But I got it done and then got out the faithful #4½ to do the smoothing away of sid's furrows. Front apron board was less than ten minutes and there wasn't any twist in it at the end of that, and okay there might be a mm or two of bow over the full length of the apron, but I'm okay with that, I just need the parts around the legs to be flat and the rest to be reasonable. Then I changed over to the back apron board, and in the middle of moving boards around, caught the #4½ full in the side and knocked it off the 40" tall work surface onto the paving stones. 

You know that moment when you run a boning knife through your finger and the pain hasn't hit yet, but you can see how bad it was and you know it's going to hurt? Yeah, that moment. I was fully expecting to see cast iron bits go flying in all directions. But I seem to have gotten off lightly, it landed on its lovely crucible cast blade instead of the body of the plane and it acted as a crumple zone: 






Well, tiffin. 
I knocked it back to straight with light and delicate adjustments with the appropriate tool (ie. a few belts off a hammer), but the edge took a hit off the cast iron when it got shoved through the plane on impact. So I'll have to resharpen (or regrind) the edge in the next few days. I got out the #5½ and got on with it with that, and they didn't look terrible afterwards. I mean, they don't look good either, but I'll accept "not terrible" for now.
















And at that point, it was time for a slightly late lunch.

To be honest, it felt like time for a liquid lunch followed by a sunday afternoon spent inspecting my eyelids for pinholes, but unfortunately the maid said it wasn't her job to finish the bench off. Can't get the staff these days. So after some coffee and sandwiches, I got back to it. I checked the plan, but it called for the aprons to have taken 20 minutes to fully complete, which in hindsight was probably a little fragile as a plan. So I figured I'd try to get a leg frame done, only to realise I'd forgotten to plane the stretchers yet and the legs weren't S4S yet either. Le sigh. So out with the try square and the planes, squared up the vice leg and the matching back leg, then went to cut off the top centimetre to get a reference face. And the knife lines all lined up, so that was okay.






I'd been using a japanese marking knife up to now, but it's one of those only-cuts-one-way asymmetric ones, and damn near impossible to store in a toolbox (I wind up having to keep it in my chisel tool roll). And it _looks_ wrong when you look at it when cutting a line (it's an optical illusion caused by the curve of the handle, but it always looks like the tip of the knife is bent over). So I figured I'd try out the stanley folding knife Paul Sellers used (since it's the same one my father used to have in the toolkit when I was a kid). 






Works pretty well actually. It's not terribly pretty or flash, but it does get the job done rather nicely. And you can fold up the blade and stash it in the toolkit a lot more easily. Well. More accurately, you can get it _out_ of the toolkit more easily, there's less stabbyness, blood and cursing. Anyway, normal chisel & knifewall crosscut routine, out with the giant Japanese ryoba saw and the little set square and it's blind woodsman time. 






Didn't go too badly. Got the reference face cut on the vice leg, then measured off 40" (which is the benchtop height I want) and cut off the leg at that point the same way (and then chamfered the corners of that end). Did the same on the matching back leg, got the reference face cut and the knifewall done for the other end and the chiselling done, and then it started to rain, so there was lots of cursing and running about with tarps. The rain let up for five minutes a little later on, so I ran back out and finished cutting the bottom of the leg before getting everything back under wraps. So one day of work, two aprons and two legs. At this rate, and with our weather, I might be done by November.

So over the rest of the week, I've got to fix the blade on the #4½, plane and S4S the short stretchers and maybe the long ones, S4S the remaining legs, and then I think I really would be able to start on the joinery next weekend.


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## memzey (10 Jul 2016)

Really enjoying this thread Mark, great job. Once I get my workshop sorted a bench is first on my list of things to build. Hope it goes as well as your build has so far.


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## MarkDennehy (16 Jul 2016)

No rain today, but lots of errands in the morning and afternoon, so only got to work on the bench around five pm. Oh well. At least one of the errands was picking up a new mallet from the post office. Hand-turned lignum vitae from an old lawn bowling ball and a nice oak handle (this seller in case anyone's interested). 







Isn't it pretty?  And it works nicely too (_"works nicely? It's a mallet, not a fire control computer, it's a lump of wood wot you 'it things wit', wot's e on about?"_ and so on, but it's lovely and well-balanced and solid and the weight's just grand). Anyway...

I did manage to get the legs squared up during the week, and cleaned up the stretchers though I didn't get a chance to square them up (but they weren't far off from it) so I started off by cutting the remaining two legs to length. 






One of the legs has a rather odd defect - a small patch about two inches by eight inches was hollow-sounding on the face, as if there was a void inside the wood a few millimetres below the surface. I cut away the worst of it, and now I know which of the legs is going to the back right position and how it'll be oriented  Not sure what caused it though. 






With that done, I wanted to see what kind of width the overall table would be to get an idea of what size the stretchers would be, so I put the loose leg tenon boards, the center laminated section and the aprons together and clamped them up:






And then clamped the legs on:






That front leg is too far back - its front face will be flush with the apron, there's a long joint to cut out there. I was looking at that for a while and thinking about it and realising that if I did that on the vice leg, there's a 4"x4" post supporting the tabletop there, which is fine, but on the others there'd only be a 2"x4" support for almost the full depth of the apron. Which struck me as a bit weaker than it had to be, so if I leave the back legs inside the apron and just have the front legs flush up, only one leg has the 2"x4" weakness problem. I'd have to dado the back legs into the apron to get the cross-bracing effect from the aprons, so it'll be a Paul sellers bench on the back side. 

Hm. There's a joke in there somewhere. But nevermind, on we go. Have to get the thickness of those leg tenon boards handled first though...






Out with sid, hog off most of it, then the #5½ and #7 to clean up. Didn't take more than ten minutes for each one.






And now, need to cut the benchtop to final length, more to get a reference face to measure off for the leg tenon positions than anything else. *That* job rather sucked.






Cut the knifewall line around the bench, as close to that end as possible (the other end will get a bit over two inches cut off, which will take care of a knot or two). Then got out the giant japanese saw and proceeded to hack away, but unlike the last few cuts, this one wandered a little (well, it's a larger cut I suppose, it'd show up a klutz wielding a sharp bit of metal more readily). I flipped the board over half-way through so the cuts met in the middle and left a millimetre of a step between the two, and then went at it with a plane to tidy it up. It's still a bit ragged, but by that point it was after sunset and I figured mucking about with sharp edged metal things in the dark was possibly not the best of ideas, so I drew a line under it at that point. The forecast for tomorrow is for dry weather, so I might make actual progress, assuming that the world doesn't end. I mean, the way things seem to be going every time I look at the news on twitter, I'm half-expecting aliens to arrive just after President Trump and the Queen are assassinated at their first official meeting by Prince Philip...


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## Phil Pascoe (16 Jul 2016)

Nice work. Reminds me of all the years I wanted a bench with no apron, though.


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## MarkDennehy (16 Jul 2016)

phil.p":c4zg3rim said:


> Nice work. Reminds me of all the years I wanted a bench with no apron, though.


Oh you rotter


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## MarkDennehy (17 Jul 2016)

A lovely sunny day without any rain today, so obviously I made huge amounts of progress and am nearly finished. 
And if you believed that, I have a bridge to sell you. I finished tidying up the end cut on the benchtop and started on the layout of the leg tenons. I started that by checking the mating between the leg tenon boards and the benchtop center section. You might remember that I had the great idea of leaving those two edge boards seperate from the center laminated section so as to make cutting the leg mortices easy. The problem was that some eejit left the two edge boards seperate from the center laminated section so that marking out where the mortices would go was nearly impossible. In the end, I gave up on the mortices and decided I'd glue the boards to the center section and do the mortices then; and in the meantime get on with cutting the tenons. The back legs should be a relatively straightforward tenon, about a half-inch shorter than the benchtop is thick (there'll be a dado on the underneath of the benchtop). But the joint on the front legs is a tad more irritating.

Front right leg:





Front left (vice) leg:










Cutting those joints proved... difficult. I mean, it'd have been easy, if I had a bench, but... well, you see the problem. In the end, I resorted to cross-cuts through the waste and splitting the tenons by chisel, then clamping the leg to the edge of the benchtop as it sat on the sawhorses and cutting the notch while kneeling in a bloody awkward position driving splinters into my knees. Yay?
















I wasn't happy with that machete-work and there followed a lot of paring and planing to get things more square than circular and a little tidier, but I don't think Doucette and Wolfe are quaking in their boots. 
After that, I spent a half-hour working on the mating joint between the center section and the leg tenon boards and tried to get them to mate a bit better, because frankly the mating I initially had there was more reminiscent of a cross between a great dane and a pug. But I was able to get it to a so-so state and glued up - and then spent ten minutes swearing and running about with a mallet beating the extenstial angst out of the edge boards trying to get them to line up with the center section of the benchtop because the clamps kept shoving them out of alignment. Whose stupid idea was it to leave these things out of the benchtop glue-up in the first place? That silly person needs his head examined. 

In the end, managed to get them kindof aligned (there's going to be a benchtop flattening in my future anyway I suppose, oh well) and they're clamped up and under a tarp as we speak. 

Next week, unfortunately, I'm on-call at work (which isn't as bad as it would be if I was a doctor or something, but it does pretty much guarantee at least one night spent working on something that breaks as the US guys wake up), but I might get a few hours during the evenings if I'm lucky. First order of business is either to cut the mortices for the stretchers or to cut the mortices and dados for the legs in the benchtop; either way, the idea is to try to get the leg frames made up and ready to plug into the benchtop. Then I can work on cutting the joints in the aprons so that they can get attached to the benchtop - one at a time I think, after today's fun and games - but before I glue those on, I'll have to remember to do the mortice for the planing stop and the mounts for the vice. 

Actually, on that point, I must see about getting some lag bolts to attach the vice _with_. I don't think I can superglue or duct tape the vice in place, it's a record 53 and I'm starting to wonder if even lag bolts will hold it well in this crappy pine...


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## Roughcut (18 Jul 2016)

Would of been easier to cut the joints in the legs before laminating the sections together......wouldn't it?


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## MarkDennehy (18 Jul 2016)

Foresight, hindsight, a bandsaw, a bench to build the bench on, a CNC milling machine, any/all of the above would have made it easier you rotter


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## Bm101 (18 Jul 2016)

Roughcut":2x1zxzng said:


> Would of been easier to cut the joints in the legs before laminating the sections together......wouldn't it?


Evil.


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## Roughcut (18 Jul 2016)

I apologise if it came across smug, it wasn't meant to.
It's just that I experienced a light bulb moment after having a similar hard learned task in the past. #-o


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## MarkDennehy (18 Jul 2016)

No, I had the same idea in the middle of it; but markup would have made it a pain because the individual 2x4's are not all 2x4 and are all slightly different in size because they were all rough-sawn. 


Why no, I hadn't priced planer thicknessers and jointers, why do you ask?


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## Bm101 (18 Jul 2016)

Really enjoying the thread Mark. Keep up the good work mate. Much as I enjoy reading the wips of the masters and so on its great to read about your trials and tribulations because I can relate so closely. Fitting it in between real life. Messing it up, learning, doing a little better each time. Looking at it after and thinking 'it didnt end up like this on that youtube video.'
Great stuff. You also do it in a style that has me chuckling away in a way that has my Mrs casting me odd looks and wondering what I'm looking at on tinternet. Looking forward to the next update fella.


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## MarkDennehy (19 Jul 2016)

So anyone looking at the Irish weather forecast knows by now that the dead have risen and dogs are lying down with cats and everyone is complaining about being a little bit melty. Still though, it wasn't so bad after sevenish, so last night I took the benchtop out of the clamps to check the glue-up.






Soooo many clamps, and still this happens:






And this, but at least I could fix this with a mallet (and remembering the greaseproof paper trick for next time):






That void aside (and thankfully it's on the extreme far back right of the bench, so like the BNP, you can mostly ignore it, I hope), the overall glue-up wasn't too terrible. The difference in heights was expected because of the different board sizes:











And the other glue face was fine:






So I got out the #5½ and planed the edge boards down to the bench surface on the underside. The top will need proper flattening later, but I was overheating after only two boards so I stopped there because melting would have ruined the finish on the wood. Instead I got out my widest chisel and some shoulder planes and started tidying up the leg tenons a bit more, I wasn't happy with them still. 

Also, these arrived ahead of the inset tail vice -- there's no room for a repurposed face vice and a wagon tail vice seemed a bit complicated to start with, whereas with the veritas one, you just cut a hole and drop it into it. So I had fun playing captain hook and terrifying the four-year-old.






I must drill a test hole in the bench for these at some point; it was mentioned up above that it might be too thick for them, so I'll need to check that. I'll do it when I start drilling all the dog holes and the like rather than drilling a hole now before the benchtop's even close to being done.

Need to start marking out for the leg mortices tonight if the weather holds off. Could cut one already, but I want to tidy up the other front leg tenon before marking out for that one.


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## MarkDennehy (19 Jul 2016)

BTW, €6.84 in total including P&P for these: 




Yeah, they're not all agreeing to within a gnat's eyebrow of one another, but that's not bad for five digital humidity meters to scatter about the shed, the place I've stashed some hardwood, and anywhere else I can think of...


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## Bm101 (19 Jul 2016)

When I was gluing up the top on mine I had a little bit of a brainwave regarding the excess glue and clamps. I cut a roll of clingfilm down into 3-4 inchisssh bits. Don't go too many Inishmore though unless you have a good boat. 
(See that!?!  Irish pun 'specially for an Irish built bench). 
Works pretty well. Bit faffy tbh. In the end I got irritated and found it was easier to just clean the glue up after. You have to clean it up anyway so unless you want to keep your clamps shop new I kinda thought why bother. Especially when you you make your own clamps anyway. Cos you're tight like me. 8)


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## MarkDennehy (23 Jul 2016)

Another day, another few hours learning why I'm an engineer instead of a carpenter. 
No rain, but on-call at work, so I no sooner had the tools out and the tarps off in the back yard than the phone rang, and that was three hours gone before I'd gotten started. But on we go. 
I'd planed one of the stretchers out of twist during the week and tidied up the leg tenons a bit more till things at least looked square, so I started off planing the other stretcher out of twist. I've been using a clamped spare offcut as a planing stop on the benchtop to now, but during the week I came across an article by Chris Schwartz which led to both another article by Chris Schwartz and a Richard McGuire video, so out came the saw and I cut myself a notched batten: 











Works like a charm. Still putting in a tail vice to have the option (and because it's already ordered, so strap in, we're committed). But I can see how people could get along without one using one of these things and a holdfast. 
Got the second stretcher out of twist, then picked a back leg to match the front vice leg, and cut the (much simpler) tenon out of it:






Then I cut the tenon out on one end of the stretcher by sawing the shoulder and chopping out the cheeks with a chisel, which is how I've been doing most of the joints so far. 
I think the end result is very reminiscent of modern art, in that it doesn't look anything like what I was thinking of and definitely doesn't look like something someone should be doing for a day job. But at least it'll work and drawboring hides a multitude of cack-handed sins. Speaking of cack-handed sins, I then tried to cut out the top mortice on the vice leg using Peter Seller's method of chopping a mortice. 

I might as well have tried using Bob Seller's method for all the good it did me. 






I damn near split the leg down the side with one tap on the chisel while taking out that haunched bit at the top, and I still wasn't far into the leg. So I dropped that idea and cheated.






Well, sod it, if Douchette&Wolfe can cheat with morticing machines, I can cheat with a bit and brace 






I think it's quite likely that they cheat better though. 
I got the mortice holes drilled out, then spent fifteen minutes trying to get the inside to look like a smooth-walled rectangular hole. This proved impossible and I settled for leaving it roughly the right size and looking like someone had emptied a double-barrelled shotgun into it at point-blank range. But again, drawboring, a method which is going to have to do some very, very heavy lifting over the next few days...

And then while sitting down and having a cup of tea, I realised that while I'd cut the first stretcher to the right length (with a few mm of excess to trim down), I had cut the second stretcher to match it in length. 
Only the second one was meant to be the bottom stretcher, and that one has to be two inches longer because the apron cuts into the front of the front leg but not the bottom part of it... Oh well. Made a start on that, cut one of the two remaining stretchers to the right length and started to plane it out of twist. The other remaining one will get the same treatment and the one I cut to the wrong length will do as the top stretcher for the other pair of legs, it's the right size for those. Worked through till dark, still made not a whole lot of obvious progress. I'm starting to gain an appreciation for people who can do this stuff fast. I'm kindof hoping that by the time I get to the last mortice on the legs I'll have gotten the hang of it and then I can fit the legs to the top and mark out and cut the tenons for the back part of the stretchers, trim everything to fit, glue up and drawbore. And then I'll probably find the drawbore will drag the legs that half-millimeter closer together, ruining my alignment. 

Should I wait until everything's fully assembled and never needs to come apart again before driving home the drawbore pins?


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## Phil Pascoe (24 Jul 2016)

I see Schwartz's advice to get holdfasts made in 1" bar - but I can imagine the face of my blacksmith friend if I asked him to make the bar seven thou undersized. I would think that especially on a thicker bench top they would work well if the bar were 25mm and the holes bored an inch - that's nearly 16 thou difference.


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## MarkDennehy (25 Jul 2016)

This weekend's been that point where all those lovely square CAD sketches and notebook sketches and watching youtube videos and so on has been translated into a set of really scruffy joints in really low-class timber. I notice that this point is not covered very well in most of the youtube videos out there. Mainly because you could just write "yeah, don't bother, save up for a mcguire bench instead" and it'd be less unpleasant!
Anyway...

Not a full day, but a good four or five hours at least. Started by tidying up the mortice and tenon on the leg joint a bit more. 











And there's a shedload to clean up. Those are the _after_ photos. I'm starting to believe that no matter how sharp your chisel (this was just after taking the 1.5" off the 1200 grit diamond plate and stropping it), you just can't chop through pine from the side of the grain like that without it being incredibly messy. At least this bit gets hidden away behind the apron. 






Honestly, that's embarrassing. On the upside, it at least is a snug fit over most of the tenon and it's hidden, but still. Yeesh.

Anyway, I then planed the bottom stretcher out of twist, and marked out and cut the tenon on one end (I marked for both ends but I've left the other ends untouched on both stretchers for the moment), and drilled out the mortice through the bottom of the vice leg. Today, I learned that drilling through six inches of even crappy pine is hard work with a bit and brace (though I don't have an electric drill that could have even managed it and there's no way I could have chopped that with a chisel neatly), and I then learned that if you drill through six inches of crappy pine with a bit and brace, the bit gets _hot_. A bit of swearing later, I finished the drilling and chopped the mortice to something that could be called rectangular if you were blind and had had all your fingers removed and were in a generous mood, and at least the joint fits and works, but damn if it isn't ugly. Maybe I need to wedge the tenon just for aesthetics to close up that unsightly gap at the top and bottom. 

Then I finally stopped fapping about and marked out for the leg mortice in the benchtop, got out the japanese saw and cut the sides and then chopped out the waste with the chisel, in as small a bite size as I could manage. And it's better than the first two mortices at least. And it needs a shoulder to take the shoulder at the top of the leg.











Next was to cut the dado for the shoulder, and I don't really have any tool that's quite up to the task (the edge is too far away and too irregular to use as a reference for the fence of a #50 or #778 or any other plane I have, though I'll be using those to clean up the dado later), so it's knife-line and chisel time.











And after chopping out the bulk of the central waste there with the chisel, I got out the #71 and cleaned it a little bit (it's still scraggly, but cleaning jobs are weekday evening fodder because you can grab one plane from the box, go out the back, lift off the tarp and spend twenty minutes doing something simple before dinner, instead of needing half the toolbox for laying out and doing something larger). 






It was too tight a fit for the stretcher, even after cleaning some obvious irregular bits in the wall, so I planed down the stretcher a few shavings and that gave a nice snug fit.






At this point the not-quite-our-pet cat decided it was looking too much like a small gallows and legged it.






Gaps abound, but when drawbored, some of that should go away, and it's still all loose and the end of that mortice is missing because the apron's not in place. And besides, there's waaay uglier things to point at elsewhere. I can live with this.






This bit, though, I'm not so sure. 






Can this be wedged _and_ drawbored for both strength and not having cack-handedness-induced gaps?
If anyone has any tips, now would be the time, because I've got to repeat this all over again a few times...


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## Phil Pascoe (25 Jul 2016)

I'm sure the finished product will be great, but I'm also sure you'll look back and wonder why you did so much work unnecessarily.


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## No skills (25 Jul 2016)

I've not seen anyone sink a stretcher into the underside of a bench top before.

Don't fuss over less than perfect joints in pine on your first workbench, if the assembly feels good when it's dry fitted together then it will be plenty good enough by the time you have glued or draw bored everything together.


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## MarkDennehy (28 Jul 2016)

Another day, another hole.






Getting slightly better, but it'd help if I didn't manage to mark out the mortice gauge lines against the wrong face, giving me four lines for the mortice edges instead of two and confusing the carp out of me when carving it out...


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## BearTricks (29 Jul 2016)

Didn't want to start a new thread so thought I would hijack a post on here.

I'm building a workbench next week, and I have a lot of very good pine from the spare room bed. It's one of those low beds that's about 6" off the floor, which would look alright in a modern house, but we've decided we don't like it. The pine slats are really good quality, however, and I'm sure the pine under the painted headboard etc is the same. I was thinking of ripping the slats in half to give lengths that are about 2.5" wide, turning them on their sides and laminating them together for the bench top. They're (I'm guessing) about 18mm thick so will laminating that many thin pieces together give the bench top performance issues, compared to laminating thicker chunks as Mark is doing?

Now back to the scheduled content. I'm really enjoying this thread, I keep finding myself checking for updates.


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## MarkDennehy (29 Jul 2016)

Well I cut the mortice in the top of the second leg last night (it's about as cack-handed as that post just above), and cut the tenon on the other side of the bottom stretcher between the two there this evening and it all fits together; looking at how it looks in relation to the benchtop though, I'm going to have to trim down the shoulders of that tenon to trim the overall length of the stretcher and get the back leg positioned correctly (so that the outside face of the tenon on the top of that leg is flush with the outside face of the back of the benchtop - which is a lot simpler of an arrangement to show than to describe, so I'll grab more photos in the morning). 
In the meantime, the midges have drilled several mortices in my forearms and scalp, the little gits. One of the problems of woodworking in the back garden beside a large flowering bush that has more bees than a hive and even more smaller insects at this time of year...


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## MarkDennehy (31 Jul 2016)

Nice dry day this morning, so back to the bench I go. I managed to cut one mortice an evening during the week in the back leg, so this morning I started by cutting the matching tenons on the stretchers and then cutting the mortice in the benchtop for the leg tenon. A bit of fettling and everything was looking acceptable...

















(it fits! properly!  )






(this one not so much! But it'll do!)






("who cares, it's just a workbench")

I then assembled the leg frame, which came together well enough to tell me that the front leg and the back leg centerlines aren't even in the same ballpark, but it's stable enough to stand on its own and it fits the table...






So then I put a scrap piece of wood between one sawhorse and one side of the benchtop and let the other side freestand on the legs...






And it looked grand! Until I realised there were gaps everywhere, so there followed an hour of disassembling the whole thing, finding the one pair of surfaces that weren't mating right, planing the wrong one, reassembling everything and seeing one gap close and two open up, swearing and repeating the cycle until everything at least looked _consistently_ loose, and then I slapped a clamp on the legs just under the table and as if by magic (but really by clamping pressure) all the gaps closed up at once and the whole thing fitted and stood stable and level. 

I damn near pineapple'd myself at the sight of it. Then I had a little strut about the place (_Look at me world, I have taken one of your trees, killed it and carved it into something that... well, kinda works! Take that universe!_). 

Then I remembered I had to do another leg frame and more stretchers and the aprons and fit the vices and the planing stop and the bench dog holes, and at that point I opted to take a small break for a cup of tea and a little cry. 

Then back to action, and I started cutting the second bottom short stretcher to length, marked out the tenons but didn't saw them out, and marked up the mortices in the legs as well, got out the brace and drilled out the mortices on the front leg. 











Knots are right pineapples. That mortice _sucked_ to cut. 

I'd say I was getting better at morticing, but... 






Oh well. Repeat after me, _"It's just a bench..."_

Tomorrow I'll cut the mortices in the other leg, cut the stretcher tenons and the mortices in the benchtop and try to get the second leg frame fitted. 

If I manage that, I might tackle the vice mounting and the planing stop on monday; a family holiday is coming up and I can't take the bench with me so I'd like to get it to a decent state before the hiatus.


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## Bm101 (31 Jul 2016)

You're doing it that's the thing. I think I had a hiatus but the hospital removed that stuff with my tonsils back in the 70s. I'm pretty sure of that. I remember the doc saying summat about it.This patient can no longer contract tonsilitis or haitia. Fair play to the NHS. Ive never had one since. In fact I struggle to _spell_ it.


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## MarkDennehy (31 Jul 2016)

No bm, that's halitosis you're thinking of. A hiatus is a group of badly spelled japanese poems.


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## Setch (31 Jul 2016)

No, you're thinking of a Narnia. Thats when a bit of your intestines pop out the back of your wardrobe and go on adventures with a talking faun.


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## Phil Pascoe (31 Jul 2016)

Narnia? That's my wife's name ... face of a witch, hair of a lion and body of a wardrobe.


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## No skills (31 Jul 2016)

Why can't you take it on holiday?


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## memzey (31 Jul 2016)

Loving this thread


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## Bm101 (31 Jul 2016)

No skills":1g5c46nd said:


> Why can't you take it on holiday?


You're onto summat there Noskills.... Lay the legs out on top of the car, whack the worktop over them, some baling twine. Free roofrack.


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## MarkDennehy (31 Jul 2016)

Took nowhere near as many photos as normal today, because I kept getting ten-minute bursts in between rain showers to work in in the morning. But I got some work done - the stretcher tenons got cut, the mortices in the second leg got drilled out in the top mortice and half-drilled out in the bottom mortice, and then I spent twenty minutes cursing and swearing, chopping at an inch-thick knot right at the edge of the mortice, stropping the chisel every few minutes to try to keep it as sharp as possible. 






Git of a thing.

I'm actually learning how to freehand strop and sharpen reasonably doing all this, but it's bloody rough - I wouldn't trust myself to freehand anything more than stropping and light touchups on the highest grit diamond plate. I did see an interesting jig idea for sharpening on CloseGrain - it's basically a guide block that lets you set the right angle at the start of the stroke, then you freehand through the stroke. Or, to explain better, look: 






See, for someone like me who's both cack-handed _and_ doesn't have anyone to look at what I'm doing and go _"ah, *there's* your problem..."_ (because yes, a child can learn this in a half-hour if taught by someone who knows what they're doing -- but how many amateurs have _that_ kind of resource to hand?), this kind of thing seems like a brilliant way to learn. On the to-do list for immediately after the bench. 

Anyway, got through that PITA of a knot and assembled the leg frame. And then realised that the frame was a pronounced A-frame rather than rectangular, because the lower stretcher was over an inch too wide. So a bit of fettling to the shoulders and...






All squared up and level on the spirit level (and they're level the other way up when standing on the ground too). I marked out for the inner mortices for the leg tenons and then shut down for the night. In the morning I'll cut the inner mortices (the ones that go right through the benchtop) and that'll let me mark out the outer mortices (the ones that just go down a half-inch or so to seat the legs) and the connecting dado to accept the top of the top stretcher. Then I might finally get to see the bench free-standing, which would be neat. It'll still need the long stretchers, the aprons, the vice and planing stop hardware and the mounts and mortices for all that (and I need to go buy lag bolts at some point for the face vice) but I reckon if it freestands reasonably level tomorrow I might just owe myself a beer.


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## MarkDennehy (1 Aug 2016)

What silly person ordered this weather?
/mope


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## Phil Pascoe (1 Aug 2016)

Yup. Right down the bottom end of Cornwall, I've just lit the stove.


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## MarkDennehy (1 Aug 2016)

It's not even heavy rain here, it's just that we're inside the cloud (we're on a hillside) and the wind is driving the water everywhere. I've gotten the inner mortices cut this morning (oh, and there's a tale of woe) but now I'm staring at wet moving fog and a bench taunting me from under a tarp


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## MarkDennehy (1 Aug 2016)

So got an hour in in the morning before the moving cloud arrived. Started with the marked-out inner mortices for the second leg frame, sawed out the parts that could be sawn out and then started chopping away at the waste...






And then with one tap, half the mortice fell out on the front leg mortice, in one chunk, which looked suspicious so I checked and sure enough, it had split back past the intended knifewall (which I'd tapped with the chisel to deepen but that didn't help) and there's a quarter-inch wedge missing. I recovered the wedge and I'll glue it in at the end, but why did... 






Oh, I see. Hit the portion below that knot line, split along it and took a chunk from behind the glue line as well. Brilliant. Pineapple-ing knots...

As to the rest of the day, total loss. Forecast looks okayish for tomorrow, we'll see...


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## MarkDennehy (2 Aug 2016)

After yesterday's tour of the inside of a cloud, today started with mild drizzle but dried out to good working weather around noon and since I'm on holiday at the moment, some progress got made...






Hooray! It stands up and it's level in both directions! Rather pleased with that  

There then followed a period of confusion with what step came next and some checking of notes, and then some testing to see if the aprons still fitted...






Well, poop, the front apron's bowed out away from the bench by up to 5mm in the middle of the bench. Yeesh. Out came sid, and a half-hour of hogging off wood later, the 5mm was down to just over 1mm. I didn't push it any further because I'm worried about the leg tenons pushing the apron out until I get the stretchers and frames drawbored. 

Also, when I went to cut the aprons to length, I figured I'd use the bench to see what it was like in terms of height (and it's pretty sweet), but that meant I needed a way to hold the board in place, so...











And it grips nicely  Though holy carp, the noise when you belt the holdfast with a metal hammer is painful and that's out in the open - I think the rubber mallet's going to have to be the holdfast hammer especially in the shed or I'll go deaf. 

And I marked out the dados for the back board as well... 






...and then I cursed a bit and re-marked for the dados on the correct face of the board. Sheesh. 

And then some fettling and fitting for the vice. 






There'll have to be a 15mm-ish spacer between the bottom of the bench and the vice, and a mortice needs to come out of the apron as well (that face is going behind the apron), and I _still_ have to go find those lag bolts. 
But still. 
It stands up! Without tilt!


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## Grawschbags (3 Aug 2016)

Good job mate. Great to see how you're progressing.

I've started mine in anger too. Laminated the two bench tops. Really need to make me a scrub plane for hogging off material... On to the aprons and legs laminations next.

Look forward to the next update!


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## MarkDennehy (4 Aug 2016)

Not progressed much at all in the last two days - some marking up and such, but mostly I've been doing family stuff (it's a family holiday) and I'm probably not going to get much done until next week either because of that. I also need to pay a visit to a local timber yard here and source some walnut and poplar (and maybe some maple) for a few projects I have on the to-do list for when the bench is done; if I get those in nowish, they'll be acclimatised by the time I'm ready to start.


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## MarkDennehy (9 Aug 2016)

Still in holiday mode, but I've picked up the lag bolts and hardware I needed to mount the vice, and I managed to get to the builder's merchants to get some OSB to line the shed the bench is going into as well as some plywood to make bench hooks and the like, and then I got to the local timber yard and picked up some walnut, poplar and ash (and a few slats of cedar for a drawer lining) so that's the next few projects all sorted once the bench is finished 
















Yet another place I can't bring the credit card


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## MarkDennehy (9 Aug 2016)

Oh, and suffering cats. For fun I planed a small piece of the walnut to see what it was like. I've only used pine and whitewood before. 

Does the church know about walnut? Because I'm sure they'd want it banned, it's too much fun for a catholic...


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## Bm101 (10 Aug 2016)

MarkDennehy":1mq32yez said:


> Does the church know about walnut? Because I'm sure they'd want it banned, it's too much fun for a catholic...



Strange you say that, I have a beautiful antique walnut veneered phone I use purely for speaking to old girlfriends. (It's in my shed and the Mrs doesn't know it exists). I bought it from a local house clearance sale of a catholic priest. It was about two quid. Beautiful thing and an absolute bargain. Or it would be. For some reason it won't work as a general phone, it only works when I phone old girlfriends. No idea why. Shame really.

On the plus side, I have to say, its_ great_ for excommunication.


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## memzey (10 Aug 2016)

=D> 

Still loving this thread! Looking forward to seeing the completed bench as well.


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## MarkDennehy (12 Aug 2016)

So I started this morning by finishing off the mortice for the plane stop. This did not go well. First of all, despite my dead fancy wooden carvers mallet, the old footprint half-inch chisel split right down the handle...







Only the ferrule is holding it together now  Time to go ebay a new handle. But that wasn't the only disaster, because like an silly person, I cut the mortice from the back side, thinking the sawhorse was giving enough support to the top of the benchtop that when I broke through it'd give me a clean hole and I could then cut down from the top to complete the mortice. 

Nope. 






Not quite sure how to fix that. I'm thinking I could cut the mortice out of the divot itself, then glue the remaining two pieces into the benchtop fore and aft of the mortice, as it's a clean breakout; titebond II is meant to be stronger than the wood, right? So would it hold up when I flatten the benchtop? Or am I just hosed? Anyone got any ideas? 


And then, as I was feeling sorry for myself, a nice man pulled up with a flatbed truck...






Some plywood for bench hooks, a diamond plate holder, a jig for steaming some walnut for an xmas gift I want to build, and assorted other things; and also some OSB3 to line the shed the bench will be living in... and that was what I spent the rest of the day doing instead of the bench (I don't really have the ability to store 2.4x1.2m sheets of anything here, so I halved the plywood and started lining the shed with the OSB).


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## MattRoberts (12 Aug 2016)

Ouch. Glue the shard. Drill a large hole in it, then flush trim with a router. It looks quite deep, so should be ok when flattening


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## Roughcut (13 Aug 2016)

I never seem able to get away with short cuts when mortising with hand tools either, and breaking through all from one side always ends in disaster. 
Although it's laborious and repetitive I've found that marking out with knife lines and mortising half way and then flipping over and finishing to final dimensions by paring back to the knife lines is the only way that works for me.
And as frustrating as it can be to see something go pear shaped these experiences do serve as a learning experience.
Onwards and upwards Mark!


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## morfa (13 Aug 2016)

I used a similar method for putting the legs in on my bench. But my grooves were not as deep. It's worked well. Also in a soft workbench 4" is fine for a holdfast. I did have to file the back of mine to get them to grip well after a while as the holes have gotten a little bigger especially in the key areas.

As for that shard, bad luck. I reckon it should glue back in ok and in the long run will probably be fine.

I also enjoy using hand tools for most things. Took me a lot longer to flatten my bench than it did you, so well done there. 

Really good write up so far, very enjoyable. I'm going to take a guess based on the use of 'Yet Another' and non-trivial, that you're a Linuxy IT guy?


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## MarkDennehy (13 Aug 2016)

For the last twenty years, so yes, good guess


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## morfa (13 Aug 2016)

MarkDennehy":3v2pjv2p said:


> For the last twenty years, so yes, good guess



It's the sysadmin version of a secret handshake.  I'm also a Linux sysadmin, as you might have guessed.


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## MarkDennehy (21 Aug 2016)

ARGH. 






Days of this. But it's okay, the bench and the nice ash, poplar and walnut I got for a project is all under waterproof tarps.
You can see where this is going, can't you? 











The tarps weren't waterproof. They had small leaks. So the timber's not waterlogged, but there was standing surface water on it in places. Gah. Well, screw it, I'll just get as much done in the six hours I have before the storm is forecast to get here and I'll move everything to the shed afterwards. So off we go cutting the dados in the back apron for the legs with chisel and tidying up with the #71.






Well, it was loud and took a while, but that's pretty good and even. Cool. Even fits the legs well. Now, what's next... well, let's cut the joint at the bottom of the front apron that fits into the front legs. It's just a dado, so same approach. 






That's not too bad. Okay, so on to the vice mounting. Maybe I should cut a mortice into the back of the front apron for the record 53's rear jaw?






Er. That looks terribly complex. And the edge of the mortice is close to the edge of the dado joint on the opposite side, which seems a bit weak (more for when cutting the mortice rather than in use). So instead, just cut out a smaller, simpler, rectangular relief in the bottom of the benchtop so the edge of the vice face is flush with the bench face inside the apron:











That worked pretty well, for something that was just chopped out with a wide chisel and a lot of percussion. 

Anyone else hearing the "oh pineapple" moment coming yet? No? Newbies 

Next, let's finish off the planing stop, so I tidied up the mortice, planed down a spare chunk of pine as a temporary stop to see what it'll look like (maybe I'll make a better one later) and drilled through it with a cordless drill and a 10mm brad point (first time I've used a power tool on this since the chop saw, but it's for a bit I'm going to redo later so I'm saying it doesn't count  ), then counterbored on one side with a fostner bit to give room for the bolt head (because the bolt's not long enough to get through the stop and the record 169 holder) and assembled the whole lot (hole lot?  ):






Yes, you're not supposed to put your thumb over the lens, I know...

Maybe I should try a bit of a dry-fit of the bench, see how it's holding up. That's kindof complicated by the wood having gotten wet, so it's more a damp-fit, and it's tight because everything's swelled a bit. But okay...











Wait, what?
Why.... what the.... 


Oooohhhhhhh. Pineapple. Under the pineappling sea pineapple. Dammit. 


Remember this? 



> And I marked out the dados for the back board as well...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



When I re-marked for the dados on the correct face, I just transferred the lines around with a square; but the legs are not _exactly_ the same distance from the bench ends on either end. One's a centimeter closer to the end than the other. So when you transfer the marks around like that, you get a perfect fit for the mirror image of the legs. Argh. Well, I could trim another centimetre off the dados and figure out some sort of wedge system to ensure that the whole thing... oh pineapple it. 






It's the back apron. I'll trim off a centimetre from it. Nobody's ever going to notice, right? 

Yeesh.






So that's where we are now (I didn't fit the short stretchers for this because with the wood swelling from the rain I figure they won't fit anyway. 
What's left to do: 

Plane and cut long stretchers and the tenons at the ends of those
Cut mortices in the legs for the long stretchers
Final fitting of everything
Drilling for drawbores for the M&T joints -- the joints with the legs and the short and long stretchers, and I'm wondering if it's possible to either drawbore the tenons at the top of the legs or wedge them somehow. 
Final glue-up assembly: 
Glue and assemble leg frames
Glue in long stretchers to leg frames
Glue leg frames into benchtop
Drawbore M&T joints in leg frames (have to do this with some speed to get from assembly of leg frame to drawboring within the open time of titebond II)
Let glue cure
Mount vice rear face
Mount planing stop
Glue on front and back aprons
Let glue cure

Assemble vice (including front jaw, which I'll just make from an offcut of 2x4 for now, I can make a hardwood face later on)
Chop out mortice to fit end vice
Fit end vice
Drill holes for bench dogs and holdfasts in benchtop and legs
Chamfer dog/holdfast holes (though I'd have to do this with the router, which I don't like)
Drown it in 3-5 coats of BLO
Strut


Yeah, that should only take a few hours... so with the kind of weather we're predicted to have, I should be done somewhere around October. 2023. Yeesh...


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## MarkDennehy (21 Aug 2016)

Meanwhile, I managed to get all the bench pieces, spare offcuts and lengths of 2x4 and all the walnut and ash and poplar into the shed out from the tarps. So give it a few days and it might have dried out enough to be able to fit.


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## MattRoberts (21 Aug 2016)

This is like a movie. 

One Irish man, battling the elements, the forces of nature and swollen mortises... It was a time for freedom. It was a time for heroes.

Benchheart. Coming soon.


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## memzey (21 Aug 2016)




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## Phil Pascoe (21 Aug 2016)

Aye ... Benchheart and his faithful servant Pigsticker ...


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## morfa (22 Aug 2016)

Glad to see it's coming together nicely. Also good that you've got it all inside. Be a shame to see all that work wasted by leaving it out in the rain.


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## MarkDennehy (22 Aug 2016)

Not to mention the ash, poplar and walnut boards that were under a similarly leaky tarp!
Also, how do you get an 8' board into a 6' deep shed? 
Answer is: you damn near can't and you leave a hell of a mess...






But at least the expensive stuff's out of the rain for now.


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## MarkDennehy (25 Aug 2016)

Long stretchers planed yesterday evening. Four mortice and tenon joints to cut and then we're into final fitting.
Realised yesterday that I'd better do the final assembly on the decking just outside the shed because I don't think I'd be able to lift and carry the fully assembled bench up the steps from the patio, across the ten feet of garden and into the shed. So add "trim hedge out of decking" to the to-do list


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## MarkDennehy (30 Aug 2016)

After the fun of hacking into my finger while making a board to hold the sharpening plates (and losing a day or two to other stuff), got the M&T joints laid out tonight, then dry-fit the legs into the benchtop to check if the long stretchers were aligned and marked okay. Hm. Turns out the length of the stretchers and the tenons are all fine... but the stretcher is not at right angles to both legs simultaneously. Somehow - probably due to the front edge of the bench not being a perfect reference surface - the two leg frames are not parallel. 

Crud. 

Not sure how to fix that. Going to dry-fit the leg frames up fully with clamps tomorrow and check again, it's too dark outside to check now (and I'd get odd looks off the neighbours if I started percussively encouraging the leg frame joints together at this hour, as small children's bedtime has just hit).


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## Bm101 (30 Aug 2016)

Are you using waney edge plywood? :shock: 
Legend Status '_enhanced_'. 
*kneels
'There can be only one.'


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## No skills (30 Aug 2016)

Waney edge ply  

Bet nakashima never had that


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## MarkDennehy (31 Aug 2016)

I'll have you know that waney edge had to be made by hand. We don't have the _sheer luxury_ you Northern types have y'know, with your many choices of plywood and all those fancy wood dealers. Half the time we have to make our own by peeling the bark off twigs and boiling down the cat to make the glue to laminate it up!
But you tell that to kids nowadays, they won't believe you!


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## MarkDennehy (31 Aug 2016)

Got home with about a half-hour of daylight this evening, and got out the rubber mallet to knock the leg frames together and dry-fit them into the benchtop again to see how badly misaligned the frames were in daylight. 






I may have built a vampire bench, because they're perfectly fine in daylight but they were several inches out last night (maybe the short stretchers are playing a role here...)






So yeah, cut the tenons, chop the mortices, knock it all together to dry-fit and then drawbore and glue and away we go. 
The thing that was bothering me a little (and you can see it there if you look) was that the tenons in one leg frame were not a tight fit at the shoulder at all; I have some trimming to do on one benchtop mortice (and I suspect a bit of wedging after to make up) but I want those drawbored in tight for the strength so I'll accept the patch job at the far back right leg. 

The thing that might be more serious is that I stood it upright with the frames to see if it was tippy.






It's not terrible - and it still has more weight to gain through the aprons and the vice and the benchstop ironmongery - but I think I may have to consider stealing an idea off the little john bench Richard McGuire uses and retrofitting it - so at the back of this bench there'll be a tool tray as a sort of bolted-on afterthought thing, but that means there's ten inches between the wall and the back leg of the bench, so I could drop a lap-jointed third leg down on each frame as a sort of prop against tipping:






After checking that, the dinner bell went and after _that_, I went back outside to use the last five minutes of light to cut the tenon cheeks on the long stretchers, finishing the last two by torchlight in the dark. So next time, I just have to saw or split the cheeks and tidy up and then I can do the mortices and the fitting. But that darkness is a warning...


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## Phil Pascoe (31 Aug 2016)

Just think how good your next bench will be!


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## MarkDennehy (31 Aug 2016)

And how easy - I saw 4"x8" slabs of red deal the last time I went hardwood shopping. If I'd seen them before I'd started this, the benchtop would have taken about six minutes to make instead of letting me plane 220 feet of 2x4...


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## Phil Pascoe (31 Aug 2016)

Yup ... it happens to us all ...


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## MarkDennehy (4 Sep 2016)

Rain yesterday, rain tonight, but for a few hours, no rain. So, time to cut the last mortices (got the tenons for the long stretchers cut during the week). 







This time, chopped the first five mm or so using a chisel the paul sellers way, and did that on both sides, then used the auger to remove the waste and cleaned up by chisel. 






It's not going to win awards, but it's at least cleaner than when I started this and it'll do for now.






Rear stretcher fits...






...and so does the front stretcher. Grand. 

Next step was to drill the drawboring holes for the M&T joints on the stretchers. All will be using ½" pegs except for the thinnest part of the front right leg (which is only barely 2" thick at that spot, so I'll use a ¼" peg for that one). And I just managed to get the holes drilled with the auger for all twelve joints before this hit...






All back under the tarp now, and we're due a few dry evenings this week. I need to make up some drawbore pegs, and then I think it's time to start on assembly...


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## Bm101 (4 Sep 2016)

Crackin' on Mark.
That Weather map makes North Wales look like a greedy toddler reaching for a biscuit btw. Just pointing that out.


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## MarkDennehy (5 Sep 2016)

Well, as drawbore pegs go, those are nice bananas. 
Sigh.


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## MarkDennehy (10 Sep 2016)

Right. Sunny morning, most of the last few days torrential rain dried up by the time breakfast was done, so out with the bench parts from the shed and onto the sawhorses and away we go. First thing to do is the finish making drawbore pegs, and then on we go with finally putting this thing together.






Hm. Help required here...






Mental note, hide the hammers from now on for the sake of the cat. 






Okay, nothing split out, that'll do. Finished up both leg frames and clamped them up (not needed with drawbores, but hell, if you have them, why not use them?).






Now, while I leave those for an hour or two to cure slightly, time to drill the hole in the front apron for the vice bars.






Damn but that thing takes it out of you. But it's quick, and a few moments cleaning up the inevitable breakthroughs with a chisel gives a nice, neat, minimalist hole. 











Experienced record vice fitters have by now no doubt spotted the deliberate mistake.






/sigh

Out with the auger and chew away the required chunk for the quick release bar and then tidy up with the chisel...











Man, that Record 53A is a big honkin' beast of a thing. In fact... er...






Er, phew? Half-inch of clearance at the back when that casting at the back of the rods is reattached. _Totally_ planned that. 
Little more trimming of the mortice on the benchfront was needed in fact, so it's not a half-inch anymore, but somewhere around 3/8ths or so. Good times.

Broke here for a ham sandwich and about three litres of water. 'Twas a bit warm out there. At this point, figured the leg frames were ready to go into the benchtop and to get the long stretchers, so I took them out of the clamps, test fitted them in the benchtop mortices, trimmed one of the mortices a bit (but I knew that was coming - and there'll be a bit of a gap to fill with an offcut, but it shouldn't compromise the bench), and then glued up the long stretchers and drawbored them at one end. Glued up the benchtop mortices as well, and realised at this point that the fully assembled undercarriage of the bench is pineapple-y heavy, so I drowned the mortices in glue because I couldn't properly paint the tenons with glue, and then slid them all home. Once that was done I drawbored the other side of the long stretcher and everything seemed solid.


























Messy as a pineapple in a blender with a hamster though. I cleaned up most of the squeezeout with shavings, and then stood the bench on the ground to be sure the glue didn't cure with the joints not settled right. I needed some weight to settle the bench onto its joints though, and didn't have any large bags of cement or sand to hand so I made do:






Test fitted the front apron to be sure the dados line up right now the glue-up's done:






The tenon on the top short stretcher is pushing on the back of the apron so that needs a trim, but it looks okay (it'll be glued on while the table is upside down so it won't be hanging down like that - there'll be an expansion gap in the joint it's currently sitting on, so the top will be level. Ish. 

And with that, the aprons went back in the shed, the tools in the box and the bench got put under a tarp till tomorrow (assuming the weather's okay tomorrow, that is). 

What's left to do: 

Flip bench upside down on the sawhorses again
Trim pegs flush (and tenon ends where appropriate)
Mount vice rear face
Mount planing stop
Glue on front and back aprons
Let glue cure
Assemble vice (including front jaw, which I'll just make from an offcut of 2x4 for now, I can make a hardwood face later on)
Flip bench off sawhorses for the last time
Chop out mortice to fit end vice (I got that veritas inset vice - damn but they make nice shiny stuff)
Flatten benchtop (why did the hair on the back of neck just stand on end and why did the room suddenly seem cold?)
Fit end vice (remembering to put some small shims under it as per Richard McGuire's notes)
Drill holes for bench dogs and holdfasts in benchtop and legs
Chamfer dog/holdfast holes (though I'd have to do this with the router, which I don't like)
Drown it in 3-5 coats of BLO
Strut

I think that might actually be one day's work for a competent woodworker, so say 2-3 for me. Almost there!


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## MarkDennehy (10 Sep 2016)

BTW, it's a hair under 40" tall when standing on the ground, and so far, that feels just perfect...






Wrist angle is natural when hands are on the bench and my back is straight, and I know from the kitchen that I can work on things at that height comfortably for ages. Planing might be more tiring depending on the thickness of the stock though. I still have three or four inches I can cut off the legs if necessary though.


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## MattRoberts (11 Sep 2016)

Coming along well. I've just got myself a record 52 1/2, so I know what you mean about the weight of these things! 

Looking forward to seeing it sanded and oiled - although you don't have 'Sand for approximately three days solid' in your bullet list


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## MarkDennehy (11 Sep 2016)

...sanding?


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## MarkDennehy (11 Sep 2016)

Not quite a sunny day, but at least bright and reasonably dry. So got started after breakfast and flipped the bench back up onto the sawhorses. Holy pineapple but that thing's getting heavy. Took the flush-cut saw to the pegs and a few of the more excessive tenon ends. 











I do like the look of drawbored tenons. I'm not as fond of the surface after my flush-cut saw proved its manufacturers didn't quite understand the concept of a flush-cut saw...

Time to mount the vice now.






One last coating of PTFE lube to the quick-release nut and then sealed the vice back up again. 






A light coat of glue on the underside of the packing scraps, then sit the vice in place. Time to drill the pilot holes for the screws through the face of the vice (because they're there and there'll be two inches of wood between them and the work so why not?). My eggbeater is in need of a bit of a cleanup - I didn't get round to the vinegar bath and restoration on this one yet, I've been working on the workbench instead. Still, it should be fin...






Well, pineapple. Take everything off, pull out the failure of a drill bit with pliers, put everything back, and then it's time to sully the bench with power tools. Specifically a cordless driver. Well, sod it, it's been all wood and glue and joinery and hand tools to now, but even Sellers uses drill drivers, and the lag bolts to come are even nastier...






And if we're sullying the bench, let's keep on sullying for one more thing, the fitting of the planing stop...






And that's the last time I need to use a power tool to make the bench I think...






...thought not perhaps the last time I want to  
Still, this is why they invented ratchet mechanisms. And when driving the lag bolts, that'll be even easier because of my ratchet socket driver.






Well, pineapple. My ratchet socket driver doesn't have a socket head large enough for the lag bolts. We're back to hand spanners. /sigh






Well, it's not the prettiest because the packing shims rotated, but sod it, it's done and it'll hold. Next, test fit the aprons. 

After that, curse a little, trim the dados on both sides a little in different spots, re-fit and figure sod it, it's close enough, it'll do. And then glue-up the aprons and much cursing and struggling with clamps. Until my common sense overtook ego and asked Herself Indoors for a hand holding the far end of the heavy-duty clamps in place while I got them tight enough to hang on. And then checking that the aprons were not below the level of the benchtop and tightening each clamp in turn till it wouldn't clamp more, and then adding more of the lightweight aluminium clamps on what will be the bottoms of the aprons to avoid them splaying out excessively from odd clamping. 











And now it's all covered in a tarp curing away in the back yard. I've got an offcut of 2x4 set aside for the vice face, but I figure I can best get that planed up and fitted when the bench is on its feet again. I'm not sure when exactly I can move the bench to the shed in the steps though; I'm betting it'll be easier to plane it flat outdoors, but I'm wondering if I'd want to apply the BLO/turps finish outdoors as well? 

What's left to do: 

Flip bench off sawhorses for the last time
Flatten benchtop
Chop out mortice to fit end vice 
Move bench to shed (?)
Make front face of vice from 2x4 offcut and suede.
Assemble face vice.
Fit end vice (remembering to put some small shims under it as per Richard McGuire's notes)
Drill holes for bench dogs and holdfasts in benchtop and legs
Chamfer dog/holdfast holes (though I'd have to do this with the router, which I don't like)
Drown it in 3-5 coats of 50% BLO 50% Turps (the Richard McGuire bench finish)
Strut


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## Bm101 (11 Sep 2016)

Keep cracking on Mark. You're doing a great job fella.
I'd get it in the shed asap if it was me. Humidity and all that. Maybe sit it on some bin bags for the finishing. I'm guessing you want it as dry as you can before that.
Can I ask why you're chamfering the dogholes? Could you use a file and leave the router alone if you don't like using it. I just bought a couple of new ones and they have been a bit of a revelation tbh if you've not used them before. No advice being given! Just one beginner to another.


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## MarkDennehy (11 Sep 2016)

Chamfering them just to take off the sharp edge right at the benchtop Bm, just so it doesn't break so easy. Same as running a plane along the arises or chamfering the edges of the feet, nothing too dramatic either, just a mm or two. Didn't think of the file, I have a half-round here that might do the job and a test hole to test it on. May need to tweak my augering technique as well, I'm seeing small chunks of wood relaxing back into the hole from the sides at the moment, it's a bit ragged looking (and makes using a holdfast a bit of a faff). 

Soon as we get a dry day, I'll have it off the horses, flatten the top and cut the end vice mortice, and then I think I'll move it to the shed and do the rest there.


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## MarkDennehy (13 Sep 2016)

Rather high winds over the last day or so, so I pulled off the tarp and clamps today.






No leaks in the tarp, glue seems to be gluing. Cool. 






There seems to be a small void in one side, but it looks localised. I think it might be fine. 
So I rolled it off the sawhorses for what I think will be the last time.






And it's pretty solid and stable, which is nice, but I can get it to tip and rock if I really put some welly into it trying to rock it back and forth. I may need to revisit that brace idea at some point. But not today. I hope. 
I slotted in the front face of the vice just for fits and giggles. 






It's a bit beefy  
In fact, at full extension, I think I could almost get the bench itself into the vice...






And then I took the front face out and put it back under wraps, put the bench up on spacers, and wrapped it in a tarp again to wait for whenever I get a dry evening or day to take sid to it to get going on flattening the top. 
I might want to fix that divot that broke out near the planing stop if I can first though.


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## memzey (14 Sep 2016)

Great progress Mark! Puzzled me a bit with your edited image of wonky laminations though - looked like something I might have lashed together!


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## MarkDennehy (14 Sep 2016)

Ah, sorry, it's the four corners of the glue-up aprons. Bit of a void on one side at the corners, but the others seem solid.


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## MarkDennehy (17 Sep 2016)

Nice dry day today, and only had to work for an hour, so it's benchtime again!

You might have noticed that the benchtop's lamination didn't go as smoothly as it could have and the surface was a tad irregular as a result:






And indeed, you'd be right. I was not expecting a fun time flattening that out. And I was not wrong. 
Started off by sharpening up the scrub plane's iron, and then let sid at it, planing across the table and gouging divots out of it like I didn't like it. It was rough going - I had to stop twice to screw sid's front handle back on and once more to reattach the frog - but I eventually go to where I could put sid back in his box and switch over to the #5½ to smooth out the worst of the divots, and then up to the #7 to do the actual flattening. 






It only took about twenty passes in the end before I could start planing along the grain...






But eventually, I got to the stage where I was too tired to keep trying to get out the imperfections I was having trouble seeing.











Flat, not really in twist, level according to the spirit level, not rocking, can't get a flat planed board to spin or rock - I'll take that. 

Which is not to say it's perfect. There were gaps in the two back mortices and despite chamfering the edges with a chisel, the tenons took a lot of abuse.











I have some 2-part epoxy to fill the gaps, I'll do that later. There are a few other voids I have to fill as well, from where knots broke out during face planing for lamination and also for a gap between the front apron and the main benchtop right over the vice - I didn't put glue on there for fear of getting glue into the workings of the vice (lets face it, clean is not the word to describe what happens when I get near wood glue). 






I'm consoling myself with the front tenons, which came out reasonably well (and the repair to that massive divot that came out when chopping the planing stop mortice went reasonably well too): 






Mind you, to show how much I had to hack off that benchtop, this is the planing stop in it's lowest position, where it was flush with the benchtop before I started all this: 






That's a lot to hog off by hand...






...and there it is all over the floor. (Herself is not a fan of this btw, there will be a bit of a cleanup job tomorrow. When my arms are working again). 

The last job I wanted to get done outside was to fit the inset vice. That involves cutting a mortice into the benchtop an inch deep and just over two inches wide, then another extending that mortice a half-inch on either side but only an eighth of an inch deep. Everyone else uses their router to do this because they're sensible. I cut the mortice using Paul Seller's morticing method and it didn't go too badly this time (still about as neat as the plot to _Primer_ mind you). 






Doesn't matter, the vice covers it up...






And there's a through-hole at the end of the mortice away from the bench for wood shavings to be pushed out through by the vice, that got cut using the bit and brace and was the easiest bit. 






Next time, power tools. 

But that's it. That's the last job that had to be done outside. I can move the bench into the shed pretty much anytime I want to now. So of course the next thing to do is to start the finish  






50% BLO, 50% turps. Painted on in great messy sweeps. 






If I could embed music here, you'd now be hearing O Fortuna playing with the volume turned up to eleven.

What's left to do: 

Move bench to shed (at some point, probably tomorrow night)
Make front face of vice from 2x4 offcut and suede.
Assemble face vice.
Drill holes for bench dogs and holdfasts in benchtop and legs
Chamfer dog/holdfast holes (though I'd have to do this with the router, which I don't like)
Drown it in MOAR coats of 50% BLO 50% Turps (the Richard McGuire bench finish)
Strut

I think this thing might be finished tomorrow. I mean, I'll keep painting it in BLO, but that could keep going for a week, the actual _bench_ part of it would be done...


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## memzey (18 Sep 2016)

I've enjoyed reading this thread so much I'm actually going to be sad when you finish the build! Great going though Mark and I much admire your fearless attitude in tackling this project. I've been working more on the shed to house my eventual bench than the bench itself but when I do build one I hope it comes out as well as yours.


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## MarkDennehy (18 Sep 2016)

Forecast says dry till the afternoon, the TDL is short and Herself and Junior are off for a skite in the big schmoke, so time for the last push...

Got the inset vice and sullied the bench once more with power tools using a drill/driver to screw the vice into the bench. Then got the offcut bit of 2x4 that I'll use for the jaw of the face vice (for now at least, I might replace it with hardwood later) and used the holdfasts and inset vice to chamfer the edges and clean it up a bit (holy carp, but woodworking on a proper bench is just night and day from fighting with a black&decker workmate).






Put the jaw in the vice, leveled it up roughly with the benchtop and marked off where the vice face met it, then chopped out a half-inch mortice in it to let the vice slot into it. Then got out the suede I've been saving for this since... wow, way too long. And if you're putting suede on one thing, might as well do everything so I got the other holdfast and the end vice dog as well. 






...and just like that, it's done. 





















Even the little fiddly bit in the veritas end vice.






I'm showing that in all it's prettiness for a reason, bear with me...

Also, that's a monster of a face vice. And I love the sawdust shield for the screw. Gotta hand it to the lads who built this thing, they knew their stuff. 






The overall bench dimensions wound up being 60" long by 21½" wide by 39¾" tall, and the benchtop is 3⅛" thick, which is 2½" narrower than I'd originally thought it'd be (I'm blaming the so-not-2x4s I wound up getting from the builder's merchants), but it's spot on otherwise. Damn sight simpler than the original plans - and if I was doing it over, it'd be simpler still. In fact I wouldn't even bother with the laminations, I'd just buy 4" thick red deal and go with that. Oh well, it won't be the last bench I build. 

Mainly though, that's luck - once I'd gotten it to this point I tried to move it to the shed on my own. Got underneath the bench, put my shoulders to it and lifted, being sure to keep the heavy face vice in front of me... which is when I learned that the vice isn't that heavy compared to the wood and most of the weight was _behind_ me... and over it went, absolutely no stopping it. I had just enough time to remember to keep my arms and legs inside the frame to avoid awkward snapping noises and with a rather depressing bang, it was over and I was sitting on my rather surprised buttocks in the middle of a still-intact bench. My next-door neighbour poked his head over the fence to ask if I was still alive, and offered to help move it to the shed to avoid further girly screaming, which kind help I accepted (thanks again Ken!) and we got it into place without further fun and games.

The veritas end vice took the full impact - something like 250lb of wood and metal given a four-foot run-up to the ground - and it still works. I mean, perfectly. No extra slop or play, no funny noises, no cracks in the screw, nothing. The sole evidence is that the last inch of the screw shaft is now bent by about 10-15° and the aluminium handle is a bit scuffed up. 






Honestly, my shorts had more damage than the vice. I'm very impressed. With the vice, not the shorts. 







And there it is, the culmination of a few months of spare hours here and there and about six full saturdays in total. €175 worth of wood (which gave the sawhorses and the bench), €40 worth of suede leather (only half of which was used), €20 for the record 169 planing stop holder, just over €100 for the record 53A vice, €50's worth of titebond II (because I hadn't learnt yet that every single woodworking thing you buy in Dublin has about a 100% markup), €90 for the veritas inset end vice, €40 for the holdfasts and wow was it a mistake to tot all that stuff up  I am so not going near the total I spent on tools before getting free of the tool-collecting bug  I'm just going to focus on how this bench cost me around €500 and a Little John goes for around €1500 (plus the requisite arm and leg for shipping). That's my story and I'm sticking to it  

Thanks everyone for reading and commenting on the thread, it was handy to keep me honest with getting off the couch on lazy saturdays and getting on with things. 

Now... time to actually get to _using_ the bench...


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## Bm101 (18 Sep 2016)

One of the best threads I've ever read on UKW Mark. Thanks for all the laughs along the way. And you have a good bench to show for all that effort. It's been a genuine pleasure keeping up with your updates and the Irish weather. I'm a little sad you've finished it tbh.
slainte.
next stop Guild of Bench Makers.

Best regards Mark,

Chris


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## bucephalus (18 Sep 2016)

Congrats Mark on a great thread and a great bench, you must be well chuffed and rightly so. =D> 

As you say, now time to use it - any projects lined up?

Cheers

Gavin


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## MarkDennehy (18 Sep 2016)

Yup, my sister's expecting her second at christmas and I have a few feet of ash and walnut to make a sidecar cot with. And I'm looking to get some oak soon to try to make that Maguire end table. Looking forward to it


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## MattRoberts (18 Sep 2016)

Awesome work Mark - really enjoyed the journey and all the detail. Congrats on the bench, I'm looking forward to starting mine now!


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## n0legs (18 Sep 2016)

Well done mate =D>


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## MarkDennehy (20 Sep 2016)

So. I was kindof impressed with the veritas vice for surviving the wallop the way it did. I mean, "Must survive having 500lb of bench and silly person dropped on the handle by the silly person" can't have been on the design specs after all, and yet it managed it. So I wrote off to veritas to say nicely done lads, that's a nice bit of kit. 

They're posting - unasked for and free of charge - a replacement screw shaft thingy for the vice, so it'd look its best. 

I mean, I know, cheap marketing and so on, but still. Deserves a bit of a thumbs-up I thought. Can't see Bosch doing that because I dropped a drill and the casing survived the impact. And it's kindof, not to be too much of a leftie pinko commie hippie about it, but it's kindof _nice_ when a manufacturer does that sort of thing. 

So there it is. A nice little postscript to the build.


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## Adam9453 (23 Sep 2016)

Really enjoyed following your thread Mark, Its great to watch the honest trials and tribulations of someone attempting something for the first time.
Its also re-inforced why I love power tools, I respect your perseverance with the hand tools but my patience would have worn out much quicker than yours.
looks a good solid bench that should give you years of good work, Looking forward to your next project thread, admittedly more for your amusing writing style than anything else.
Thanks
Adam


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## MarkDennehy (23 Sep 2016)

There might be another thread in a few weeks Adam, or there'll be a tale of lament and woe.







Be a shame to go to all that trouble and then not use the thing after all


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