Workbench build

[memzey]

Hi gang, smee again.

Like a number of fellow forumites I recently finished a workshop build at the back of my garden. I have, for the past couple of months, been trying to commission it while steadily moving my tools, materials and equipment from the old shed into the new (aka the workshop). I had a pretty poor bench setup in my old shed and promised myself I'd build a proper bench once my shop was up and running. Little did I know quite how frustrating having no bench at all would be - it even made me miss my old contraption - a 9' length of old kitchen work top on spur shelving with metal tube legs. It wasn't straight and wracked if you so much as looked at it with a plane in your hand. Anyway I've become frustrated with this situation and decided to build the bench before I do anything else. This serves a dual purpose as it also utilises the wood I have squirrelled away for this purpose but keep on tripping over in the meantime.

So onto the design; I really like the classic English bench as recently repopularised by Paul Sellers but think it's probably a bit ambitious for someone with my currently meagre level of woodworking competence. Having looked at most of the books on this topic I've settled on a fairly basic design that has a bit of Roubo about it (laminated slab, flush legs and stretchers) but none of the fancy sliding through dovetails or a leg vice. I'm also going to make the top in two sections with a 2" gap between them (just big enough for a cramp head to fit through). I'll maybe post a pic of my plan a bit later if anyone is interested but it's back of a fag packet stuff so nothing to write home about. In any case, if I find it's not fit for purpose I suppose having a bench should at least make building my next bench easier.

Onto the progress:
Over the past week or so I have sorted and rough cut all the stock (45 minutes)

Jointed, planed and thicknessed it all to final dimension (3 hours)

After the planing up I also sawed the wood for the top to final length + 1 inch (45 minutes).

With all the stock ready and today a day off from work and kids I braved the cramps and went for it as regards the glue up of the top sections. I'd previously built some sturdy and straight trestles upon which I attempted this. Before starting I did cover the tops with packing tape to prevent accidentally gluing them to the laminations. Glue was applied using a 4" roller (I'm using titebond extend as I need all the help I can get). On to the evidence:


Glue up one was a panicky affair I'm not entirely convinced by as I have some small steps that will need planing out. The top is 3 1/2" thick and I really don't want to loose too much of it. Ho hum. After a smoke and cup of pop I attempted glue up two which was much more satisfactory- a good sign I suppose as it indicates my feeble mind might have learnt something useful:


That's as far as I managed to get today. I'll leave the laminations in the cramps for a couple of days while I work on the base. Actually they might stay like that for a bit longer as I probably won't be able to work on them until Wednesday or Thursday but I feel like that's no bad thing. If you've managed to stick with it this far thank you very much and please accept my profuse apologies for all the ramblings above - yes I know I can go on a bit. I'm sharing this as I have greatly enjoyed a number of bench build threads by others on these boards and thought it would only be right to share my own mishaps for your amusement. Happy as always to receive insight and pointers (and mickey taking) from interested parties.

 

[Hot stuff]

Looking good so far and I've got serious clamp envy!

Look forward to seeing the next bit.

 

[memzey]

Thanks hot stuff. Watching some of the things people build and post pictures of on these boards I get serious skill envy. Take my word for it; clamps are easier to acquire.

 

[Bradders1960]

As a newbie looking to learn yet another hobby I look forward to following your progress on the build..

 

[Wizard9999]

Got the makings of a jolly nice thread this one. Nice start Memzey, looking forward to more of the same.

Terry.

 

[memzey]

The pressure is on now! I'll have to make some progress and share on here as soon as possible. That's part of the reason for making the post in the first place actually. I find that my motivation levels are higher when I'm not the only person involved so thank you all for taking an interest. One small update is that today I had my holdfasts delivered delivered from workshop heaven. Great service it has to be said (thank you Matthew and Suzanna). Ordered midday yesterday. Arrived 1pm today. Top notch.

 

[MusicMan]

Those are terrific holdfasts. I got them this time last year from WH, and use them almost every time I am in the workshop. (70 mm thick beech bench, 3/4" dogholes).

 

[Copes]

Ah looks good man, I also have clamp envy, but more than that thicknesses/planet envy! I've made no more progress on mine, just the thought of trying to plane and square my legs fills me with woe

I'll get around to it, planes needs a good sharpen first.

Looking forward to seeing more!

 

[memzey]

Cheers Mark! You know that this place is full of genuine and helpful people. You never know, perhaps a nice neighbour of yours (cough) wouldn't at all mind you coming round with some stock to plane up. Just sayin

 

[Adam9453]

Looks good, you may need to organise a meet up at yours to lift it into place

 

[memzey]

February is already booked up my man! I hope to see you then if not sooner!

 

[Adam9453]

Sounds good, be nice to see the finished bench :wink:

 

[memzey]

Some progress! After yesterday's seven hour Christmas shopping marathon (I kid you not lakeside has never been so thoroughly shopped by a wife and her walking card holder a.k.a me) I managed an hour in the shop. First thing I did was remove the cramps and rack them up again so I could take a good look at the slabs:

Pretty good I thought. The glue seems to have cured well enough and there are no obvious signs of wind in the laminations:


If there is a bit it doesn't seem enough at this stage to make planing for square too arduous a task. Before I did that though I wanted to take the worst of the squeeze out off to save the planer knives a bit of agro. For the show faces, from which I had already removed most of the glue when it was tacky, I did this with the iron from a block plane and a paring chisel:

Lovely.
Now to flip the slabs over and see the state of the undersides, which I did not remove any squeeze out from during glue up. I mean, how bad could they be, right?

Crapola. I need a bit more help with this or a lot more patience I think. That's ok though as nestled away on the shelf under my outfeed table was a willing helper:

I did about half a slab then succumbed to my shopping endeavours of the day (seriously how can anyone enjoy that experience - wives are made of funny stuff). Will pick up the rest this morning and hopefully make a start on the base as well.

 

[memzey]

With a small bank of brownie points earned for good behaviour during shopping, I was able to spend a few hours on the bench yesterday. First things first I trued up the slabs and thicknessed them down to an even 3 7/16". They are dead straight and a joy to behold:

This took 15 minutes of which about 10 was spent setting up the roller stands so they were perfectly in line with the in and out feed tables of my P/T.
I then turned my attention to the base. There will be A frames at either end held together by 1/2" thick tenons that are 1 1/2" long. The frames will then be joined by two long stretchers also using the same spec of mortice and tenons. The first thing I did was to cut the short stretchers and legs to their final lengths. To do this I used the sliding table on my dimension saw with a stop block to to ensure consistency:

One of the great things about vintage, heavy duty equipment like my old Wadkin is that all that solidity and mass help to give the user levels of accuracy and repeatability that is beyond the range of most modern machines (unless you are into spending many thousands of pounds). Each of the legs and stretchers came out exactly the same (which is probably more important to me than their actual length).
I spent a good hour and a half marking the joints out before cutting any joinery. I used three gauges and a combination square so each device could keep its setting:

As a side note I have to say that I'm spending faaaar more time measuring and marking out my stock than actually changing bits of wood. I suppose this is normal but a good thing to point out to anyone tackling woodworking for the first time.
With the joints set out I then cut the mortices using my bench top HCM:

It's the only machine I have that isn't vintage and made in England but for mortices of this size in softwood it's perfectly capable of good work. Here's how I do it:
First I define the ends of the mortices with two, full depth plunges:

Then I remove the waste between them whilst leaving a small web of stock (less than the thickness of the mortice chisel) between each hole:

A single plunge then clears up each left over piece of waste. I'm sure there are other ways of doing it but this my way. It ensures that the pressure on the chisel and bit is equal for every plunge therefore reducing the risk of deflection. The eight mortices I cut in this operation took about 15 minutes.
With the mortices cut I moved on to the tenons. I cut the cheeks on my bandsaw using this depth stop device that's part of the fence of my particular machine:

It really is very handy. When the bandsaw is set up well with a good quality and sharp blade, the cuts can be spot on.
With the cheeks cut I the turned to the shoulders. again cut on the dimension saw with the sliding table and a stop block, this time clamped to the fence:

As every piece of stock was machined to the same dimensions each machine only required one set up making this a relatively quick process.

Checked for fit and they were snug from the saw.

That's as far as I managed to get yesterday but hope to cut the tenons on the tops of the legs and mortices for the long stretchers at some point today. If you're still reading after this mammoth post - thanks for sticking with it!

 

[AndyT]

It's looking good and must be very satisfying.

From my very limited experience of working on that scale it's easy to underestimate just how much time and effort you spend picking wood up and putting it down again, especially if you don't have much space.

On a positive note, you won't need to waste money on a new year gym subscription! :wink:

 

[Adam9453]

Looks like another good chunk of progress.
Its important to note how much time you save by standardising dimensions and particularly mortices/tenons etc. I try where possible to keep everything the same (unless theres a good reason not to) as setting machines precisely does take some time, patience and understanding.
Love the saw by the way but the guard police will be on soon to slap your hand for not having a crown guard fitted [-X

 

[memzey]

Yes I sense the saw guard gestapo readying their plans! To be fair this saw is a fairly rare 1963 model and does not support a riving knife (it uses a splitter). It may look pretty now but it was a mess when I bought it 18 months ago. I did a full restoration job on it which I chronicled on this thread on the Canadian site https://forum.canadianwoodworking.com/f ... estoration
I do have the crown guard for it and I will fix it on once I've got an appropriate piece of metal for the splitter. In the meantime I just use it very cautiously with a little sprinkling of terror every time I push its green button.

 

[El Barto]

Great thread and work so far. Seeing you cut your mortises in 15 minutes fills me with a certain envy/rage/hatred :twisted:

And thanks for mentioning those holdfasts! Been looking about for some...

Looking forward to seeing more progress.

 

[Stanleymonkey]

Great thread - enjoying the progress.

You do realise you're not allowed to take the 25th off? We are all expecting photos an updates ready for Boxing Day!!

 

[Adam9453]

I love a resto thread so just enjoyed reading through all 11 pages of it. Looks like a sterling job you did, you certainly earned the results you achieved.
I'm seriously tempted to restore my machines properly but I'm very much a novice when it comes to mechanical stuff.
I might start by doing some simple vanity mods polishing bits up etc to improve its looks and better understand how it disassembles.