# Workbench build (WIP)



## PaulO (25 Nov 2008)

Just took delivery today of 1/4 tonne of three inch beech






It is going to be turned into a whole pile of shavings and hopefully a Charlesworth style bench.










I have selected a few boards from the crown, that will be ripped into 4 inch strips and joined to make a quarter sawn top.

Tommorows job is cutting it into rough sizes and planing/thicknessing to about 4mm from final dimensions. Then it will be left in the house for a few weeks / months.

Should be fun as my handheld circular saw that I use for breaking down rough stock only has a 2.5 inch depth of cut, and the boards are currently 3.25 inches.


----------



## TheTiddles (25 Nov 2008)

PaulO":2eygl22h said:


> Should be fun as my handheld circular saw that I use for breaking down rough stock only has a 2.5 inch depth of cut, and the boards are currently 3.25 inches.



You do have health insurance, right?

Given that you've got the cash for all that lovely wood and a nice planer might it be an idea to get it ripped up by someone or perhaps invest in a table saw more suitable? If I tried to do that lot with my portable saw I would expect it to burn out (cheap Black and Decker mind)

Aidan


----------



## wizer (25 Nov 2008)

I concur, it won't be fun. Maybe there is a kind member local who might lend you a bigger saw? Or perhaps buy yourself a bigger one? Or even rent?


----------



## PaulO (25 Nov 2008)

Thanks for your concern. I have considered renting a 330mm circular saw, I may still do it. I have made a few cuts in it with my Makita circular saw and it works fine. I always make sure the work is supported on sticks so that the joint opens as it cuts.

I have a table saw with a 3 HP motor that would happily cut through it, but I don't consider the table saw to be a safe way to cut rough sawn timber. The consequences of a bind in a table saw are much more serious. If I had a large enough bandsaw I would use that for ripping, but would still need the circular saw or a RAS for cross cutting.

I always break it down with a hand held circular saw, then get a face edge and side on the planer, followed by a rip on the table saw and then thicknessing.


----------



## wizer (25 Nov 2008)

I don't think it's dangerous on the TS. You would fix up a straight edge to run against the edge.


----------



## woodbloke (25 Nov 2008)

wizer":5k5kkaj9 said:


> I don't think it's dangerous on the TS. You would fix up a straight edge to run against the edge.



It's not dangerous provided that one face is reasonably flat. If the wood is twisted then as the timber goes through the saw and hangs off the far end (if there's no outfeed table) the saw cut will become twisted and will bind on the blade giving kickback. I always cut rough timber with portable c/s into managable lumps, machine a face and then use the table saw to cut it into more accurate sizes. I reckon that a biggish c/s is needed to go through the beech or the motor will get burnt out which is what I did when I tried to cut 75mm elm with a small saw with a depth of cut of about 50mm...very smelly workshop  :shock: - Rob


----------



## PaulO (25 Nov 2008)

Well I did all the cross cutting tonight and my c/s is still alive, as am I. :lol: 

My c/s is a well made Makita with a 2 1/2 inch depth of cut, a 1 3/4 hp motor, and a Freud blade. It breezed through the beech, but having to turn over the board to complete the cut was a PITA. Think I'll probably pop into the local hire centre to get something a bit bigger for the ripping, so I don't have to flip the boards. It also means that if the brushes get a hammering, they are their brushes. :twisted: 

Must get that 18" bandsaw I have had my eye on, but I am running out of workshop space. [Baldrick] I have a cunning plan to extend the workshop though.


----------



## ByronBlack (25 Nov 2008)

I had the same problem when I made my beech bench. I had a festool CS and was 20mm shy, in the end, I ripped as far as the blade would go, and then used a hand-saw to go through the final small bit, with a coarse handsaw it didn't take that long and was much safer. (Although on a few I did cut from both sides, but didn't enjoy doing that too much).


----------



## woodbloke (26 Nov 2008)

My c/s was an industrial de Walt with a doc of about 60mm and it didn't take long for the motor to burn out. Lesson learned for me there...always have the timber to be cut less that the doc on the saw - Rob


----------



## OPJ (26 Nov 2008)

How much did you pay for all that beech, out of interest?

This looks interesting, so I'll be keeping my eyes on this one. :wink: 

I'd like to start making a new bench myself in the new year, where I'll be using 3" beech on the frame at last. I was planning to rough out any shorter lengths on the bandsaw but, I guess 6ft would be a bit too much to man-handle on your own... :? 

You must have a decent sized planer to want to attempt something like this? :wink:


----------



## PaulO (26 Nov 2008)

OPJ":3qby5kjy said:


> How much did you pay for all that beech, out of interest?
> ...
> You must have a decent sized planer to want to attempt something like this? :wink:



£28 per cu ft. plus VAT, from Interesting Timbers. In all there was just over 13 cu ft, and the design requires just over 7. Quite a lot of wastage as you are ripping a lot of 4" components out of 12" boards, and the kerf / edge means you can only get two wide. I should have quite a bit of usable stuff left.

I have a JPT 310 planer, which is coping just fine.
http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp?pf_id=365313&name=jpt+310&user_search=1&sfile=1&jump=0

Today I ripped the boards to very approximate widths, and I have planed face sides. This planing alone has filled two bags on my ADE2200 extractor. Tomorrow I shall plane face edges, rip to nearer width, and thickness (providing real work doesn't get in the way  )


----------



## OPJ (27 Nov 2008)

I know what you mean about wastage - when you take in to account the waney-edge and possible sapwood (is that really a problem on a workbench build?), you end up with a lot of waste already.

I hope you didn't take _all_ the 3" beech from their yard, I was planning on buying some from them for my own bench fairly soon! :shock: :wink:


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

Been a while since I updated this.






Back in November I finished planing face sides and edges and thicknessing to final dimensions + 4mm, left the parts much longer than needed.

The planing of this rough stock filled over four large bags on my ADE2200 extractor.

These parts where then placed in stick in the house until February.

In mid Feb I started work on the bench frames. The parts where machined to final dimensions plus just under 0.1mm for hand planing. I was not going to hand plane until I had finished cutting the joints, as they invariably get the odd dent in the process.




I was very careful to make sure that the planer fence was set bang on 90 degrees, and the result was near perfect square edges.

I was quite pleased that the parts hadn't moved much at all, although some checks had opened out. The ends of these thick boards hadn't been end sealed and I think they would have benefited from it.

The parts were also cut to final length. This left me quite a few off cuts that matched the thickness for me to use when setting up for cutting the tenons.


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

I clamped the parts together to mark for the mortices. 




The location of the edges of the mortises were made using a marking gauge. For the through tenons I added a layer of masking tape to the gauge, meaning the entry of the mortise should end up about .2mm larger than the show side, with a slight taper between.

The mortices were cut on my Sedgwick morticer. I set up length stops, and clamped a reference stick to the bed so that each component could be set up identically. For the stopped mortices I cut all the way up to my scribed marks, but for the through mortices I left a small bit to finish with hand chisels. The morticer doesn't leave a perfectly clean edge, and I didn't want that to show on the faces of the through tenons.




There was an awful lot of material to remove, so to reduce wear on the auger, I predrilled most of the mortices using a forstener bit in the pillar drill. I also had to touch up the morticing bit a couple of times during the process, which I did using one of those cones and light passes on my water stones to remove the burr.


The ends of the mortices were cleaned up by vertical chopping.





The cheeks were pared with the aid of a reference block. I made two of different depths to allow the entry of the through tenons to be slightly larger than the show side.




Having pared the cheeks I checked that there wasn't a bump in the mortice by using a six inch rule from the from to back and checking that it didn't rock.

The bench frame consists of two end frames joined by knock down cross rails. The through mortice for the cross rail needs a taper on the top edge to accept the wedge.





I did some maths and cut a block of the right height and angle to place on the morticer bed, then cut the taper. This was refined using the same spacer block and a chisel.


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

Next I moved onto cutting the tenons. The shoulders were cut on the table saw. 





I also cut shoulders on a scrap piece so that I could set up the bandsaw fence to cut the cheeks. Some fine adjustment of the bandsaw fence and I got the tenon to a tight fit for a corner. The tenon cheeks were then cut for all similar parts. 




The top and bottom of the tenons were cut in a similar way, but with a looser fit. The fit on these surfaces isn't so critical as they won't have much glue strength, and in some cases the gap will be take up by the wedges in the tenons.

Final fitting of the tenons was done symmetrically with a router plane until I was satisfied with the fit.




Being careful to remove the same amount from each side so that the components remain centred.

Some of the tenons have shoulders that are too deep for the router plane to reach, for these tenons I tuned the fit with a shoulder plane.





Up to this point all of the joints had been labeled with pencil numbers. Before glue up I would have to plane all the interior surfaces, so these marks would be lost. So I used the method suggested by Rob, and used a chisel to mark the tenons and matching mortises. Marking the tenons was easy, but the mortises were a bit trickier, I used a skew chisel to gain access.






A bit of a dry fit to see that I have made to identical frames. At this point I also marked for the holes to be drilled for the top fixing. The front section is fitted with two coach screws on each frame. The rear coach screw is fitted in a slot to allow for expansion. A forstener bit was used on the underside to create a recess for the head of the screws.


----------



## Blister (10 Mar 2009)

Whats the yellow car :lol: 

looks 8) 

nice progress on the bench


----------



## Geno (10 Mar 2009)

Glad to see this project up and running again.

Looking good so far and I hope you can keep up the level of "WIP" detail and images going!


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

Blister":40c0v502 said:


> What's the yellow car :lol:


Ultima GTR with a 6.3 litre small block Chevrolet engine. Here is a picture I took on a trip to the Alps. 




Built it myself back in 2001, you can read about the performance here:
http://www.ultimasports.co.uk/Content.aspx?f=records


----------



## trousers (10 Mar 2009)

Nice work Paul - one Q if I may.

Why condition the beech in the (presumably heated) house if the bench is in the (presumably un-heated) workshop?

Didn't have to worry about that with my mdf effort :roll:


----------



## Blister (10 Mar 2009)

PaulO":l6a8k0tm said:


> Blister":l6a8k0tm said:
> 
> 
> > What's the yellow car :lol:
> ...





8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) :wink:


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

trousers":3iama5u0 said:


> Why condition the beech in the (presumably heated) house if the bench is in the (presumably un-heated) workshop?



My workshop is about the same relative humidity as my house, all be it a bit cooler. Conditioning is about balancing the moisture content of the wood with the relative humidity, and the higher temperature in the house should mean that happens a bit faster than in the workshop.

That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

The tenons are also going to be dowelled, partially for strength but mostly for decorative reasons. The dimensions of the tenons means that they won't be draw bored as I don't think you could get sufficient deformation, especially as I am using ebony for the dowels.

First I prepared a face side and edge on an ebony turning blank. 






I am going to be using 10mm dowels, so I set my bandsaw fence to make about a 10.6mm cut (to allow some margin for error, but not too much for the dowel plate to remove).





I cut two pieces 10.6mm thick, then laid these on their side and cut each into three 10.6mm squares.





I didn't want to be removing too much on the dowel plate, particularly given the hardness of ebony, so I made a little sledge with a stop to hold the squares on edge, a few cuts later and I had six foot long octagons. I only needed eight six inch dowels, so I had a bit of allowance for it going wrong.





I got the octagons a bit closer to round with a block plane, but a trial of putting the octagon through the dowel plate showed this wasn't necessary.





Cut the dowels down to six inches, then whack them through the dowel plate with a soft faced mallet.





I couldn't resist a little test to see how they looked.





When I fit them each one will be cut into a short stub and a long one, with them being inserted from each side of the joint, as whacking a long all the way through might break out the grain on the back side.


----------



## wizer (10 Mar 2009)

Really good progress. I love the ebony dowels.


----------



## Lord Nibbo (10 Mar 2009)

Yes the ebony dowels look really great and will add a touch of class to the finished bench.  =D>


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

The through tenons on the front face are going to be wedged with ebony wedges. When I told my wife that my workbench was going to have ebony accents she almost fell off her perch. She said something along the lines of "It's only an f'ing workbench". That one is filed away for the divorce hearing :wink: 

Given the thickness of the tenons I was concerned that the wedges wouldn't be able to deform the tenon enough as I had drawn them





The wedge needed to be nearer the edge so it was acting on a thinner section of tenon, but I preferred the aesthetic of them being closer to the middle. So I angled the wedge slots. These were cut on the bandsaw with a little wedge jig.

For the wedges I cut a piece of ebony slightly over width for the mortice, then hand planed it to a good fit. Then I cut them on the bandsaw. In this picture the wedges have the same included angle as the wedge slots.





You'll also notice that I drilled stress relieving holes at the end of the wedge slots. I'm not sure this is strictly necessary, but I saw it in Joyce and it looked like a neat idea.

Light pressure on the wedges splays the tenon nicely, but I spotted a problem. As the wedge is driven in the wedge slot included angle increases, which means that it opens up on the show side. So it was back to the bandsaw to trim the wedges to a steeper angle to make sure they maintained contact at the show face.

I also drilled holes through the mortices for the dowels. I would drill the tenons later as the position would move when I cleaned up the inside faces with a hand plane. Drilling for the dowels was a bit of a polava as my Fobco drill has a stroke less than the four inches of the stock and I wanted to drill from both sides to avoid tear out. 

The process was to insert a scrap tenon, then drill through one side. I used a lip and spur bit as they give a nice clean entry hole. Then remove the scrap tenon and prop the work up with a packer. The depth stop was set so that the point of the drill just touched the packer. Continue drilling to the stop. Turn the work over then drill from the other side using the through point as a reference. That way you avoid any break out on the back side.


----------



## Lee J (10 Mar 2009)

I can't wait to hear how you attach the bench top to the legs. I'm at that stage now and I've spent 3 days scratching my head figuring the best way to do it.


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

10mm coach screws, the top is in two parts. The larger front part is attached with two screws per frame. The rear screw is in a slot to allow the top to expand and contract. 

The smaller rear top is fitted with one screw per frame.


----------



## Lee J (10 Mar 2009)

ok thanks. sounds about right to me. 

thanks

oh and good job on the bench!


----------



## Lord Nibbo (10 Mar 2009)

Lee J":3v46j5ah said:


> I can't wait to hear how you attach the bench top to the legs. I'm at that stage now and I've spent 3 days scratching my head figuring the best way to do it.



The weight of the solid top will be more than enough. Here is how I did mine.

Every is thing upside down, with bench base sitting on the tenons on the legs. 






I marked around the tenons, then the base was removed. Next cut the motices. Then using a block plane the tenons were slightly tapered to make it a loose fit for easy future removal of the top from the base.






Tenons cut and everything back the right way up.


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

I applied a chamfer to most edges, to make them a bit more robust. This was done on the router table, and finished of with a block plane to remove any undulations or burning from the router. The end grain was done first, followed by the long grain, so any tear out was lost in the long grain passes.

Before gluing up I needed to plane and finish all internal surfaces. Prior to planing I like to steam out any dents. If you plane and then steam, what was a dent becomes a bump. I don't borrow my wifes iron any more. Lie Nielsen don't sell irons yet so I splashed out on this charming model from Argos, which cost 2.99.




The iron is applied over the dent with a damp rag in between.

Then I planed all of the interior surfaces (that can't be planed after glue up). What was satisfying was that this only took two sets of 1 thou shavings per surface to remove all the planer and pencil marks. So the planer obviously got them pretty flat, and they stayed flat.

The planed surfaces were hand sanded with 400 grit, vacuumed, then tack clothed.

I applied two coats of Osmo Poly-X matt, after which the surfaces where as smooth as a baby's bottom, in fact they made a baby's bottom seem like a badgers a**e.

I then dry fitted the joints again to mark the dowel locations on the tenon. If I was draw boring I would drill the holes slightly closer to the shoulder on the tenon, but I think these tenons are too large to warrant that. I marked the location using a lip and spur bit, but a transfer punch would be better.









I'm going to be attempting the first part of the glue up tonight.

I'll be using Aerolite 306, which is a urea-formaldehyde adhesive with a long open time that was invented in 1934 and used in deHavilland Mosquitos, so should be good enough for my bench.


----------



## woodbloke (10 Mar 2009)

The bench seems to be coming on very well...nice to see someone using my method of marking joints with Roman numerals, just remember that 9 is IX not VIIII  - Rob


----------



## Paul Chapman (10 Mar 2009)

woodbloke":156qo9t2 said:


> just remember that 9 is IX not VIIII



And four is IV, except on a clock face where it's IIII :? 

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


----------



## OPJ (10 Mar 2009)

I'm pleased to see this build is back up and running again, Paul. Look foward to seeing more progress - keep those photo's coming!


----------



## shim20 (10 Mar 2009)

awsome, nice build, nice car to, belive it or not ive been in one of them, there crazy cars very rapid the wheels were spining in most gears :lol: .


----------



## PaulO (10 Mar 2009)

woodbloke":1olvono7 said:


> nice to see someone using my method of marking joints with Roman numerals, just remember that 9 is IX not VIIII



Doesn't really matter as long as you are consistent, and no one can see it after glue up.

The double line was to signify the bottom, as IX could be confused with XI, except they were different joints so wouldn't fit together anyway.

Just finished the first part of the glue up, with the legs to the bottom rails. All went to plan. I made sure I laid all the clamps, blocks, wedges, dowels and glue spreaders out in advance. Even though I had about 25 minutes of open time to play with.

Well I say it all went to plan, I won't really know until I take the clamps off, but it is pretty unlikely to go wrong then.


----------



## Tierney (10 Mar 2009)

simply stunning, what angle did you use for the wedges?

DT


----------



## Escudo (10 Mar 2009)

Very professional job Paul, well done. 

That is going to be a cracking bench when it is finished.

Great, Tony.


----------

