Steve's workbench build

[Steve Maskery]

Well, I have spent the afternoon trying it. Not as successfully as you, Mike. I got a couple of clean lengths out, but more were rough. The good ones were on the fat side and adjusting the chisel just wrecked them, presumably because the dowel was no longer supported on the infeed.

I think I have enough to make my pegs for the bench, but I definitely prefer the RT jig approach for precision, accuracy and ease of adjustment, though not, I admit, for noise.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I decided I wasn't going to be beaten by this. I figured the lack of universal success was down to insufficient support for the dowel, especially on the outfeed side. So I modified my jig so that, whilst the chisel is down to the hole where it cuts, either side still has some meat on it. In particular, the outfeed hole is completely enclosed.

The result in pine is much, much better. Smooth, accurate, just as it should be.

Great!, I thought, let's try it with Bog Oak. I had some lengths left over from making the Mackintosh motifs on my wardrobe.

Disaster! For a start, despite using the jig on exactly the same set-up, I'd not changed a thing, they were too fat. 8.35mm. Adjusting the position of the chisel made no difference So they jammed and the wood just snapped.

Sorry about the photos, I didn't have a card for my camera, these are from my phone.

So, like the Curate's Egg, good in parts. I'm in a quandary now. Do I use pine pegs and hope they are up to the job or do I forget the idea? As Mike pointed out, they really are not necessary. But if I start, I am committed.

 

[samhay]

I made some pine pegs recently for a coffee table. I had used pitch pine for some of the table and wanted the pegs to match. Big mistake, pine pegs weren't strong enough to be hammered in. Had some luck driving them in with a drill, but this was a bit hit-and-miss.
Mind you, mine weren't 8mm, but rather a bit smaller.

 

[MikeG.]

I'm off the stairs for a bit as I have to make some oak curtain poles. One of them is nearly 2m long, and will be approximately 30mm in diameter. In mentally scaling up this jig, and taking note of your experience, I can see myself making this out of something 6 inches thick, or more, and also having an outfeed support of some sort, or a helper to catch it and guide it when it's got a fair way through. I reckon this job requires sneaking up on the final diameter by judicious bandsawing, then planing , then maybe two sizes of doweling jig.

Good to see you stick at it, Steve, and get a decent result in the end. I've no theory as to why it would work with one species and not another.

 

[Inspector]

Steve I wonder if you ever considered making a dowel forming jig for your table saw? I have seen it done both with the wood fed across the blade and with the blade. Same principle as a router jig. I haven't done it myself but have the jigs my father made for thread cutting wood screws and they come out with a good surface finish.

Pete

 

[Inspector]

Mike I made a 1 1/2" White Oak pole for a boat hook and I did it with 4 passes along the router fence with a 3/4" round over bit in it. Your 30mm pole would be just as easy with a 15mm round over bit.

Pete

 

[MikeG.]

That would mean spending money, Pete. I get a severe allergic reaction to that. :lol: :wink:

 

[Steve Maskery]

I wouldn't want to do it on the TS, Pete, but I do have a design in my head for one for the RT, offering a number of different sizes and DX. I have a fine adjuster on my RT fence, so I should be able to dial in pretty precisely.

Mike - no it seems strange to me why pine would work fine and Bog Oak not. But it was a real disaster, stemming mainly from the fact that the size was bigger. But I had not changed anything about the setup. Indeed, I cut another pine one after the oak and it was fine. I don't understand it either.

As regarding your long curtain pole and doing the job twice, I have my doubts as to how well that would work. It seems to me that the key factor for a good finish is support. The infeed hole supports the stock, the outfeed hole supports the dowelling. Getting someone to hold the other end is a good idea, but get them to wear hard gloves. This stuff gets hot, but soft cotton gloves could get wrapped around a spinning dowel. I did just that. I wore one of those yellow builder's gloves with the rubberised palms and that got caught and got ripped off the main body of the glove.

But putting the workpiece through twice - the second time there is no support for the stock so you get a really rough finish as the piece waggles about around the chisel. I think this is one of those things where it has to be Right First Time.

FWIW, I made a 13' curtain pole in ash once (well, 2x 2m joined, actually). I cut it to an octagon on the TS and then finished it on the bench with a handplane. The surface was textured a bit, but in a nice way. I'd do it that way again.

 

[MikeG.]

No, I meant two jigs, with different size holes. The first one would knock the rough edges off, and the second one would therefore have a nice clean shape to work with.

The infeed hole only supports the workpiece until the first part of the dowel enters the outfeed hole. Thereafter you could get rid of the infeed hole, as it is doing nothing. The work is supported by its snug fit in the outfeed hole. One clip I saw on Youtube didn't have an infeed hole as such, but had a giant countersink instead.

 

[Steve Maskery]

OK, two different jigs, maybe.
But putting the same workpiece through the same jig twice definitely does not work, there is too much vibration at the cutting point. I cut a nice dowel that was just a bit too big, so I tapped the chisel, put it through again and it came out as rough as a rough thing from Roughshire.

I'm going to have another go tomorrow with ordinary oak rather than the black stuff.

 

[Racers]

Check out this video of a rounder, you might need to install a lineshaft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNv5FhFI3sU

Pete

 

[Steve Maskery]

Well. I tidied up the tenons on the bandsaw, including the haunches:

So then I could do a dry assembly.

I did think about doing draw-boring for the tenons, but decided it was too much work and wasn't necessary.

Then Mike came along...

So I have been shamed into doing the job properly (well, as properly as I can). Thanks Mike

So the first job was to drill holes through the mortices

They are offset so that they do not interfere with each other within the joint.



Then dry assemble. Pop a mark through the holes onto the tenons

But we really don't want just a peg. We want it to draw the two parts together. So I drill through the tenon, not at the popmark, but a little closer to the shoulder, making a staggered hole through the joint.

Then it is out with the glue and slap everything together. No time to take photos! But once assembled, I can hammer home some oak dowels to nip it all up reet gudd.

I end up with good glue squeeze out all round

I have one shoulder that is only good rather than immaculate. I don't know why. There is not a gap, exactly, it's just not tight. It looks like relatives kissing rather than lovers doing so. But the rest is all good.

I'm glad that is over, it is definitely the hardest part of the build.

 

[Steve Maskery]

It's time to sort out the long rails, or stretchers if you prefer.

I'm going to bolt them from the offside of the leg frames, using 200x12mm bolts. The nut will be inside the rail, so I need a straight hole for the bolt and a cavity at the end of it for the nut.

I could try drilling a long straight hole into endgrain, but it's not easy to keep it straight. These rails are too long to do upright on my drill press and I don't have a horizontal borer. So I'm going to rout it all instead.

The first job is to rout a groove 1/2" wide down the broad inside face, 6mm beyond the centre of the thickness. A second router fence stops my router from wandering and a piece of scrap stops my holdfasts from marring the workpiece as well as acting as a stop.

Then I adjust the fences and reduce the cutting depth:

Then glue in a patch to give me a straight, square hole in the end:

Now I need a cavity for the nut and washer, and I also need to to be big enough to get my fingers and a spanner into it. So I made a simple template with a rectangular hole in it. The hole is 17mm bigger than I need, because 17mm is the difference between the diameter of the cutter and the diameter of the bush.

Swap the fences for a guidebush and rout to half the diameter of the 24mm washer beyond the centre of the thickness.

To stop the rail from twisting, I'm going to insert a couple of short dominoes

Finally, to ensure that it tightens up securely. I relieve the very end of the board with the same template. I had to modify it a bit, but I would not had to do that if I'd put the dominoes a tad further apart. Still, it didn't take long.

The cutter was not quite long enough because of the thickness of my template

But a quick whizz with a flush-trim bit sorted that out

 

[Steve Maskery]

So apart front cleaning up the arisses and sanding, etc, the long rails are done.

 

[MikeG.]

Dominoes to stop twisting? Wouldn't a traditional joint have been a better bet?

 

[Steve Maskery]

I want this to be knock-down, Mike. Whilst I don't expect I shall ever have to dismantle it, someone, someday, will. The dominoes are just loose. They could just as well be dowels, but doms are easier to line up. Those mortices are only 30mm deep. They are just to keep the rail oriented vertically, they are not structural at all. The bolt will be the muscle.
I've used this technique on my last two benches and on every bed I've ever made bar the first one. It works, it's never let me down. So if it ain't broke...

 

[Doug B]

I do a similar joint on beds for where the rails meet the headboard & baseboard, works very well though I use the domino 700 to cut all the slots rather than the router.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Have you got a picture, Doug?

 

[Doug B]

These are the only photos I have Steve but show what I do for small rails, the pocket was cut with the domino just plunged in on maximum width setting then moved forward & plunged again

As this was a small rail I made an aluminium template as a drill guide to drill down into the pocket, but on larger rails the domino can be used instead of the template & drill

I used the template again to drill the leg

The leg joint part, the bolt is a wash hand basin fixing screw thread one end machine thread the other

 

[Steve Maskery]

Thanks Doug. That looks quicker than my way, though I don't think you have as much bolt length as I have. Is that bolt stainless?
For the lsat couple of beds I have made I have embedded a stainless steel nut inthe leg of the bed and veneered over it. I can re-saw a piece to give me, say, two 4mm veneers that can then be glued over the nut, bookmatch style. My former bed was maple and I put a piece of black veneer between the nut and the cover veneer. When it was all shaped it looked like black stringing all round.
I think I do have a picture, but I really don't want to look at it. Previous life and all that.