Byron Black Workbench [Beginner] Final Submission [Complete]

[ByronBlack]

So, I'd thought I would start of this thread as i'm picking the beech up on saturday and starting work.

I'll post back here later with more details of the design/features (still ironing out a few issues on paper).

I have a quick question though: My worktop will be 3" thick and will have 3" square end-caps (breadboards) these will be fixed on via a 20mm tongue and groove - should I also use a couple of dowels to fix the end-cap on or is that overkill?

 

[Slim]

Looking forward to the build Byron,

I think you should use dowels. with a slotted hole in the tongue to allow for movement of the bench top.

 

[woodbloke]

BB - on my bench I used a couple of 12mm bolts with the bolt head and washer in counterbored holes and the threaded part in a larger hole (say about 15mm) in the end cleat, there was also iIrc a couple of loose fitting 6mm ply tongues as well - Rob

 

[Wanlock Dod]

Byron,

My recently completed bench is of similar construction, a thinner top (2 inches) with slightly bigger end caps (a bit over 3 inches?). I joined them to the top with what I consider to be a complete cheat type of "breadboard" end. A slot routed in each and a ply tongue glued into the end cap. The caps are held in place by two massive coach bolts which (hopefully) pass through pieces of big dowel set into the boards of the top to give them some long grain to bite into. The caps are also held at each end by (the worlds most appalling) dovetails at each end. To be honest I'm not sure that the bolts are necessary, what with the dreadful dovetails and all, but having already let the dowels in I figured I might as well.

I made a wagon vice, and was conscious of perhaps needing to modify things in the future, although to be honest I now feel that my fears may have been unfounded

By the way the top is entirely hardwood and the base is entirely softwood.

There's a pic here

Oh, and I expect that your design will work fine too

Cheers,

Dod

 

[ByronBlack]

Hi Guy's, thanks for the suggestions, I think will go with dowels in an elongated hole in the tongue route..

Here's some pics of the timber and today's progress, followed by some details of the bench:

Some nice 13" wide beech boards, these three will make up the workbench top. All the boards are 2" thick, i'll be cutting them into 3" staves, the top is gonna be a whole lot of woman!




The rest of the stock; also beech - mostly 2" and 1.5" boards of varying widths:




Stock for the trestle feet ripped and cross-cut to over-length:




Face edge and face side jointed:




All stock squared and thicknessed:




Stock cross-cut to just over length, and glued to make a 3" x 3" x 22.5" pair of trestle feet!



So, some good progress today from only a couple of hours in the workshop. I really took my time today to setup my machines for square and make test cuts to ensure I don't make any silly mistakes.

The beech has come out very well from the P/T its a real joy to plane. Also, the new festool ripping blade makes very easy work, even in the 2" thick boards. Crosscutting is not half-bad either from a 12t blade.

So, the details for the bench:

The worktop is going to be 24" x 48" + 3" breadboard endcaps on each end. The staves that make up the top will be 2" x 3" deep and will be laminated together.

The bench will stand about 36" high and will feature a tool placement area at the back in the form of a series of cutouts and holes in which to place chisels, gauges, mallets etc. I'm opting for that instead of a tool-well.

The entire bench will be made from Beech and i'll be using Black Walnut as a contrasting wood in the joints, the doweling and any other small feature that I feel would add something to the design.

Initially, i'll only be having 1 vice at the front of the bench, although i may eventually have a second at the right hand side end.

There will be two rows of 20mm bench holes running the length of the workbench, I favour round holes over square ones as I feel they are more versatile in terms of work holding accessories available - and this will be compatible with my festool table that also uses 20mm holes.

Another small feature i'll be adding is a workstop that will come through the worktop on the left hand side of the bench - it will be attached to the front left leg and will have a threaded knob to lock in place - this will be used for most planing requirements.

The base will be made up of two trestles and 4 stretchers (2x5). The bottom row of stretchers will have a base added to make it into a handy shelf that will carry my waterstones, shooting board, cutting board, mitre-box etc..

Well, thats about it for a week - i'm off to the norfolk broads to stay on a house-board for 5 days, i'll start work on the legs the following weekend.

 

[lurker]

Byron,

Have you seen this:

http://www.woodworking-magazine.com/blo ... lable.aspx

 

[White House Workshop]

Just one possibly daft question - why breadboard the ends on a workbench? What's wrong with leaving them squared off as end grain? It's not as if it's going to be in your dining room is it!

 

[Paul Chapman]

although i may eventually have a second at the right hand side end.

If I were you, Byron, I would ensure that the design took into account the likelihood of fitting an end vice. Personally, I would build in an end vice at the outset. Either a Record 52D or a traditional-style wooden one - I don't know how people manage without one. I reckon I use my end vice more than the front one.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Gary]

I have a quick question though: My worktop will be 3" thick and will have 3" square end-caps (breadboards) these will be fixed on via a 20mm tongue and groove - should I also use a couple of dowels to fix the end-cap on or is that overkill?

Is there such a thing as overkill? :lol: :shock: :lol: :shock: :lol: :shock:

 

[Benchwayze]

Just one possibly daft question - why breadboard the ends on a workbench? What's wrong with leaving them squared off as end grain? It's not as if it's going to be in your dining room is it!

Well WHW,

Breadboards should be a part of the 'frame' around a cabinetmaker's bench. The long rails at front and back of the top, are dovetailed into the ends of the 'breadboards', and along with bolts/coach screws/threaded rod, etc. etc, the breadboards help stabilise the bench top and prevent slitting along the joints. (Doesn't always work, but that's the general idea.)

Oh, and they also look nice, in contrasting timbers. Like your tool box, your workbench, if you make it yourself, is one of the best adverts you can have.

All that said, you can do a lot of perfectly acceptable work on a Black & Decker Workmate! I suppose it's all down to taste and how ambitious you are with your projects.

Stay Lucky WHW.
John

 

[White House Workshop]

I take your point John. Each to their own and I admire the effort people put in on their benches and toolboxes. My toolboxes came from Hechingers (DIY store in Maryland) and my bench is 2 strips of 2x12 pine. It works for me and I'm not worried about marking it badly. One day I'll turn them over if and when the surface gets too gouged! Meantime it gets a good smoothing about once every 5 years (I made it in 1993) and a good clean after working on car parts on it :shock:

 

[Scrit]

Is there such a thing as overkill? :lol: :shock: :lol: :shock: :lol: :shock:

Definitely! I was in a professional workshop yesterday where they make £40k and upwards kitchens. The assembly benches were MDF. Solid, well-made, beautifully fitted, accurate and immaculate with snazzy maple edges and lacquered MDF doors which looked better than a lot of the stuff you can buy in MFI - but nonetheless, MDF. This is a place with an eye-watering selection of equipment (including a hauncher with a special head just for doing mitred inframe middle rails!) and the benches were made from the material "most fit for purpose"...... Still a beech bench looks nice.

Scrit

 

[ByronBlack]

This project is equal parts function with equal parts form for me. I've had an 'idea' floating about my brain for sometime and this is why I'm going to a lot more effort than is necessary for a workbench.

I see this as more than just a workbench. It's a learning process, a project I can really sink my teeth into and achieve the best product I can given my abilities or lack thereof.

I could quite as easily knock something up quick smart with cheap softwood and composite material top - but where's the satisfaction? Where's the pride of a job well done, where's the item that will outlast me and be passed on to the next generation?

In this day and age, society is obsessed with short-term and throw-away culture. I want to build a fine piece of working furniture that will last and a be a throwback to how we used to be in this country; resourceful, not just simply consumers and buyers.

And they look bliming gorgeous!!

 

[Dave S]

Byron, I think those of us for whom this is a hobby have very different priorities from professionals in many areas. We can afford to. Of course you could make a cheaper, simpler bench, which would be 'fit for purpose'. But as you say, this project is not just a means to an end. Your reasons for wanting to build your bench this way make perfect sense to me! Overkill maybe - in the sense that you don't need something that good in order to do the work you like to do. But I think you'll get great satisfaction not only from making the bench itself, but also from everything you make on that bench. And I think if you make a good job of the bench, it will inspire you to a higher standard in all that you make with it.

Go for it!!

Dave
Edit: ps - meant to ask - how was your trip to the Broads? Quite nice up here, isn't it?

 

[lurker]

Everything us hobbists do is overkill!

I made a hop up stool last week - cost me more for the wood than one from IKEA and to be honest was not as good - but its mine!

Go for it Byron, make a heirloom - "My great grandfather made this back in '07, he was a daft as a brush (kept chuntering about El Rusto), but its a loverly bench to work on!"

 

[Sawdust]

Something has always puzzled me about these lovely benches - aren't you scared to use them?

At the end of the day, it's a bench. I quite often nail or screw things to mine but then I don't care what it looks like. If I had one that was built out of expensive timber and to the standards of a piece of furniture, I would be tempted to treat it like a piece of furniture.

Lord Nibbo's is a case in point - don't get me wrong, I think it's absolutely brilliant and one of the best threads there has been on here but I wouldn't dare touch it!

Cheers
Mike

 

[White House Workshop]

Byron said it in his last post - he's making a lovely piece of furniture that will be an heirloom. That's great!

 

[ByronBlack]

Dave: The broads were lovely. We stayed in a houseboat in Stalham just off Wayford bridge. Each day we would travel down to either Wroxham or Poter heigham. We didn't hire a day boat, but instead went on a boat-tour to wroxham broad, and sailhouse broad down the river Bure - very nice trip!

My dad recently bought a boat and has his mooring up in Stalham, so i'm hoping he'll be generous in letting me up there sometime Well worth a visit for anyone looking for a UK break!

Mike: There's no worry in using it, all the gouges, slips, marks etc will eventually be a part of the pieces character and patina, besides I have the MFT for particularly messy jobs such as assembly and glue-ups.

This bench is really solely for handwork, a solid place where I can take my time and perfect the dovetail and mortice & tenon joint amongst others - I get more joy out of handwork than any other form of woodwork, so this will be a little oasis where I can work sans power!

 

[ByronBlack]

Day 2 of the workbench project.

Not much to see/say really, other than i've ripped all the material to rough size, and will be leaving for a couple of days to settle. Tuesday should see me planing/thicknessing down to a few mm of final size and laminating the inch and a half boards to give me the 3" board for the legs and trestle components.

Here's a couple of pics of the festool in action doing the ripping using the MFT:

Board to be ripped placed on a sacrificial board:

Rail placed on top and ripping started:

Nice finish of cut:

I went on to cut all the boards using this method except for the wide 13" boards which were ripped using a rippng guide attached directly to the tool (didn't take a picture of this).

All this work took about 4 hours on and off with a little planning here or there to take out some defects. Here are all the staves for the worktop:

And the boards for the rest of the project:

And while I was at it, I finsihed the deck area in front of the workshop:

So, 6 Hours of total work so far, and I have all the rough sized components ready for jointing and planing. I'm hoping by next weekend I'll have the finished components ready for joint cutting.

 

[ByronBlack]

Day 3 of the project.

Todays task was quite a boring one: machining! Yawn, feed, clean, Yawn feed clean. That was about it. Spent 2.5 hours feeding wood through el-rusto, stopping every 5 minutes to clean out the chippings (no extractor) and lather, rinse repeat.

So anyways, I've got to about half-way with the initial prep, all boards today have been face edged and face side(d) and then thicknessed a few mm over final size which i'll bring down with the hand planes.

A couple of the boards that I ripped yesterday were quite banana like, so it took a fair while bringing these back into square, i'll be leaving those for a few days to see if they continue to move.

Some pics:

A nice stack of creamy square buttery loveliness (Beech to everyone else):

The various sized boards:
The bottom two are the lower stretchers, the middle two are the top stretchers, and the top two will be laminated and cut to length to make the trestle tops.

So, 8.5 hours of total work so far, I still have all the staves for the worktop to machine, aswell as the pieces for the laminated legs - hopefully i'll get those done tomorrow and thursday, ready for a weekend of mostly laminating and smoothing.