English Workbench Build

[sundaytrucker]

the instagram chap did a brilliant job - I wish I hadn't looked now

I know sickening isn't it?!

However your trestles are looking great too, I am really looking forward to seeing the next stage of your build when it all starts to look like a bench.

 

[nabs]

back to the bench at the weekend - I was feeling a bit under the weather and made more gaffs than really necessary, but the end result is at least starting to look like a bench.

I am glad I did the wedges - it has added an hour or so (most of which was spent making the wedges - a top tip is to make the the recess for your legs the same depth as your wedge material to avoid some work preparing the wedges. I didn't do this, naturally!).

One benefit of the wedges that I see for fellow learners who are worried about creating the odd sloppy joint is that the wedges make the leg joints (which have to be a tight fit) a bit less worrisome as it only takes a couple of strokes with a plane to adjust the wedge to a good fit and it is a small job to make a replacement if you go wrong.

Blunders:
1. When cutting the first notch in the bottom of the apron to fit over the half dovetail on the leg I forgot that the recess I made for the leg was wider than the leg (to accommodate the wedge) and measured the notch wrong as a result. sigh. Luckily I had the forethought to make this mistake on the rearmost leg so it will not be on view.

As far as I can tell these notches are basically decorative and I found they added a fair bit of work since there isn't a way to mark the notches from the respective legs - measuring and adjustment are needed to get them to fit. I think you can dispense with them if you are in a hurry.

2. The brace did not fit the apron properly - I spent an hour of hapless fiddling with the joints to get them to fit only to realise that the source of my problem was I had used material for the brace that was thinner than the aprons. The brace is attached by two lap joints, one on the outside of the leg and the other on the inside of the apron and - because I did not allow for the thinner brace timber - it was seated at a skewed angle to the face of the bench. I suppose the correct fix is to deepen the recess on the inside of the apron so that the brace goes in flush to the leg, but I am worried all my previous fiddling will result in worse problems down the road if I try to do this now.

3. Although I flattened the inside bits of the apron where the legs would go to make it easier to mark out, I did not check to see if there was any twist between the two surfaces. It turned out that one of the boards is quite twisted and the result was that it would not fit to the legs without large gaps. I managed to get rid of most of the problem by adjusting the joints (and the rest I hope will be resolved when I glue the legs) but I think it would have been much quicker to have got out the winding sticks and a plane to get the two parts of the board where the legs go out of twist before cutting the joints.

Anyhow, here is where I am now - the aprons are only held by wedges and it is very solid - I have been moving it around my (tiny) workshop and it has not fallen apart, so hopefully that bodes well for the final result!

 

[custard]

"the aprons are only held by wedges and it is very solid"

That's the key thing, you're guaranteed that solidity for the full life of the bench, because you're not relying on glue, bolts, or the fit of the legs in the housing joint. I guess in this day and age it's unlikely you'll do hours of heavy planing at your bench, so it's all a bit hypothetical. But if you did, and subjected the bench to rhythmic racking for hour after hour then you'd know that,

1. The leg will shrink more than the (long grain) housing, so that will open up a minute amount of play
2. The glue will fail, glue always fails eventually
3. At this point the hard metal bolts will start wearing the softer wooden round bolt holes into ovals.

Once 1 to 3 have happened then the continued racking will make things worse, the harder end grain of the apron housing will begin crushing the softer long grain fibres of the leg, any remaining glue will let go, and the ovalled holes will become ever more oval!

Smashing job by the way, very well done!

 

[nabs]

thanks Custard!

Not very interesting, but I cut the housings for the braces - I also made the housing for the unnecessary leg brace deeper so it fits properly. Next step is to glue and nail it all together. erk!

I have been giving some thought to fitting the vice - although apparently not enough thought. Inspired by richardarnold's extended QR vice (see pic above) I had decided to try similar, and I was going to use a bit of remaining 4x4' to make a big chunky guide which would have been a thrilling opportunity to do my first M&T (double!) joint.

as a result I place the front legs quite far forward to make room for the guide to go on the right of the vice only to realize while fitting the unnecessary leg brace that I am host by own pertard: the guide would interfere with the housing for this part. I then had the much better idea to put the guide on the left of the vice only to realise that (having moved the legs forward to make room for the other design) there was no longer enough room at the end of the bench to do this. <sigh>

never mind - as a wise man once said, you live and learn and then you die and forget it all.

onwards and upwards!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A really nice piece of work ... but I can't help thinking you've done whole load of work for no return.

 

[nabs]

quite possibly, although you might have to eat your words in 100 years time when it is still in one piece .

The benefit in my case is that I am learning the basics so the more opportunities to practice on something real, the better. For instance, I have done enough housings now to get my O level in housings (borderline C/D grade!)

 

[nabs]

glued and nailed - not a complicated job, but I rehearsed it just in case. What could go wrong I hear you ask? Well, nothing major but my nails were slightly too long and poked out the other side of the legs. I suppose only I will know (and whoever reads this thread) but they lurk there nonetheless, waiting to impale me while I fit the vice.

A lot of flattening lies ahead so that should make for some thrilling updates! To liven things up I will be comparing my little used wooden jack plane with my Record #5 when flattening the top. Exciting times indeed!

 

[DTR]

nothing major but my nails were slightly too long and poked out the other side of the legs. I suppose only I will know (and whoever reads this thread) but they lurk there nonetheless, waiting to impale me while I fit the vice.

Bend the pointy ends of the nails over and hammer them back into the wood. Then tell everyone that you clenched them deliberately for extra strength

Good work so far

 

[El Barto]

The benefit in my case is that I am learning the basics so the more opportunities to practice on something real, the better.

Totally agree.

I'll be interested to hear how you get on with the flattening. Mine took FOREVER. I started off with a No. 4 and quickly realised it wasn't going to work for me so got a 5 1/2 which was ideal. I've used it for pretty much everything since then.

The bench is looking brilliant!

 

[nabs]

well since you ask, here is my first flattening update. I really had no excuses since over the past couple of years I have bought and refurbished a number of planes including a no5 and no 7 which ought to be a good combination for this type of job and I made sure the irons were very sharp.

First step is to bring the aprons down in line with the top of the leg assemblies - ideally you should undercut the inside edge slightly so that when the top goes on it makes a tight fit. Using the jack plane to get the bulk of was uneventful (and quick). After I clattered the inside of the bench with the back of the no 7 for the fifth time it occurred to me that flailing around like a mad gibbon was probably not the required approach - I slowed down and things improved markedly - I then remembered my fabulous rag-in-a-can-oiler (baked beans) [copyright P. Sellers] and things improved further.

I still managed to drag out a job that took Mr R Maquire 10 mins to around an hour (and his bench is more than twice the length of mine :shock: )

I do not have a long straight edge so tried to do it all by eye, which is what RM encourages - we will have to wait until the top goes on to see if there are any unsightly gaps between the top and the apron.

Next you fit the bearers, the housings for which were measured to the top of the unflattened apron tops, and thus need planing down too. This was a bit more efficient, partly because they are short, but also because I realised you can get much closer to the finish point with the jack plane than I had first thought, and this means the amount of finessing is much reduced.

On inspecting my work thus far, I think it is best described as erratic - for instance, if I look at the way the aprons and legs are joined at the front of the bench, I think it is not a bad effort, if I say so myself. Then towards the back there is a horror of a gap - admittedly I did all my first attempts at new techniques on this end as it will be furthest away from me when I use the bench (a dubious strategy with hindsight, as all your major first-attempt errors end up in one place!) and actually it is not quite as bad as it looks - the leg is a tight fit, I just did a sloppy job cutting the top bearer. Not sure what I was thinking then, although I vaguely remember doing those joints around the time Trump first tweeted his intention to fire nuclear bombs at North Korea, so possibly our intemperate orange friend is to blame. I wouldn't be surprised!

A bearer:

not bad:

oh dear:

oh no!:

 

[nabs]

earlier today I flattened the undersides of the 3 boards that will make up the top. El Barto, I did time it and it took 45 minutes in total - much quicker than I expected. However, I suspect this is an advantage of the planked top design, since you only have to worry about getting the boards reasonably flat, the idea being that any twist or bowing/cupping along the length will be removed when you nail it down.

I did test this to be sure and the straightest board went down without gaps under its own weight, the worst one could still be pressed down with just hand pressure.

No doubt I will need a lot longer on the top surface!

It was a good opportunity to experiment too - I did the faces of two board with a wooden jack and one with a Record #5. I had cambererd the irons in both and this leaves a sort of rippled surface so I finished them with my #7 jointer. I preferred using the wooden jack, mainly because it is a lot lighter, but also because it has a wider iron and takes more off in one go (I may have overdone the cambers a bit, and the #5 takes quite narrow savings, albeit they can be very fat).

I spent another half an hour squaring and flattening the edges - I much preferred using a metal plane for this as I found the top heavy wooden jointer a bit unwieldy and harder to balance.

I did have a quick go with a #4 for flattening the face ala Paul Sellers, and my conclusion was that the £20 needed to get a wooden jack plane is money well spent for this type of job!

Richard Maquire's bench build video series contains a short episode discussing bench height - his preference when doing a lot of timber preparation is to have a low bench as it means you can get your whole body into the work. As an experiment I planed the tops on my new frame which (without the top) this is 33'' high vs my current bench which is 35'' - I was surprised at the difference - particularly with the wooden plane which of course you hold higher than a metal plane due to its shape - it was noticeably less tiring on the lower bench.

the final job for today was to rip the middle board down by 1'' so the three boards together fit my 24'' wide frame - with hindsight it would have been far more sensible to just make the frame 25'' and avoid this task, but for some reason I got it into my head that a 24'' bench was what I needed. I was not really looking forward to this and it was sorely tempting to dig out my track saw, but I stuck to my goal to do everything with hand tools.

It took 13 minutes, which I suppose is not much longer than it would have taken me to set up the rail and saw, find the extention lead, do the cut, tidy up etc , however, the hand saw did involve having a near heart-attack which needs to be weighed in the balance. What I learned is that my saw, which when I got it, never having had a proper rip saw before - I believed had huge teeth (6 ppi) could really have done with far fewer (e.g 4 ppi or less?).

I also ordered the coach screws for the vice, which I hope to fit next week.

 

[Bm101]

Crack on Nabs. Enjoying the build as always mate.

 

[nabs]

thanks BM, I appreciate the encouragement. Only a few more of my vapid warblings to go before the end (I hope!)

Today's update consists entirely of making holes - hole 1 is for the bench stop, hole 2 (more of a trench really) is to accommodate the top of the rear jaws of the vice.

My brilliant plan for the vice is to fit it on the inside of the apron and, so it will sit slightly lower than the top, it is necessary to create a trench (housing - is that the right term?) in the underside of the top. I chopped the trench so it ended 1/4'' under the top surface and I hope this is enough to allow for an initial few flattenings before the top of the trench is exposed and I have to fit a hardwood insert. An insert is probably not a bad idea in the long run as it would be less liable to being dented etc , but I do not have any suitable timber at the moment so I am hoping the top of the vice does not make an unwelcome appearance during the first flattening attempt...

Obviously fitting the vice like this means the apron will form the rear face of the vice. Those who have read Paul Sellers' views on this matter will know one of his reasons for preferring a sticky-out vice is that it makes placing large pieces in the vice easier, because you can use a natural grip for heavy work (e.g putting it under your right arm) without the apron getting in the way. I confess I found exactly this problem when when planing the edges of the planks for the top in my old vice (which is also flush fitted), often resorting to holding the wood in a pinch grip from the top which is far from ideal.

Nonetheless I am persisting with my flush fitting vice as I am intrigued to see what can be done when using the apron as a working surface, my thought being I can always add an a bit of timber on the apron if I don't like it.

One other job I forgot to mention is to check the frame for twist. I was lucky in my case as it was not twisted (apparently longer benches tend to twist in line with any unevenness of the floor as they are not fully stiffened until the top is on - in this case you can use wedges under the legs to get rid of the twist before fixing on the top)

toodles!

hole for the bench stop - it will be just behind the vice

morice/trench/housing/whatever it is called in the underside of the top to accomodate the the rear jaw of the vice - I made it bigger than the rear jaw to allow some wriggle room when fitting:

 

[nabs]

top glued and nailed on. With a bit of judicious clamping there are no gaps where the top and the aprons joint (at least for now!).

You need a decent hammer for this type of bench - I counted over 100 nails - mine's made by Plumb and I like it a lot.

'only' flattening, vice, bench stop and finishing to go!

toodles

 

[Bm101]

Christ on a bike these guys look like the life and soul though don't they! :shock:

Looking good Nabs.

 

[nabs]

that reminds me, when I lived in London as a yoof I used to go to Speakers Corner on a regular basis, and without fail would see the same elderly chap in a french beret shuffling around - no soap box, but he had a sandwich board saying 'its going to get worse'

Eventually my mate Neil plucked up the courage to ask him what, exactly, was going to get worse and the answer was ....'the weather'. Another elderly attendee claimed the chap had been coming with the same board for at least 50 years!

 

[nabs]

flattening

I did the initial flattening of the top in about 40 minutes - I used my wooden planes, the jack to take off the high points and then the jointer to work across the grain. The result is not pretty but is reasonably flat, and I will clean it up on another day.

The apron took just over an hour. I used the metal planes for this, which I find a lot more tiring but easier to do more accurate work with than the woodies.

I got it as flat as I could and made sure it was square to the top - as with previous flattening jobs I stopped too early with the rough set plane and therefore spent more (knackering) time lugging the no 7 about than necessary. I suppose this is just a question of confidence as I stopped early just in case I went too far with the rough plane and do something that can't be fixed, but in practice I could have got much closer to the end result without any issues.

I was pleased that with how the joint between the apron and the top turned out (no gaps!)

next job is to install the vice but this will have to wait until next week as I am out of time this week. Talking about vices I must finish my riveting thread about the history of Record QR vices - contain your excitement if you can!

toodles

 

[AndyT]

Is the bench in the place where it will stay, with all that lovely natural light?
If so, I expect lots more arty photos of future projects!

 

[nabs]

I am going to turn it 45 degrees so it goes under the far window - one of the reasons for making it was I put the last one (which is not portable!) against the rear wall where the light is poor, and when the sun shines the shadows pay havoc with my increasingly blurry eyesight.

I am afraid all the credit for the arty photos goes entirely to the engineering team who made the camera in my iPhone - I just point it in the right direction and the software does all the rest

 

[Bm101]

Don't get a big head Nabs they are not even black and white photos mate. Pssshhhh.