The MkII Paul Sellers Workbench Build

[Bodgers]

I'm cursed to be old enough to have been influenced heavily by imperial but young enough to have been taught metric at school, and it does my head in, I end up using both most of the time as I cannot VISUALISE anything in metric, but I struggle to CALCULATE anything in imperial... Grrr.. (hammer)

I'm glad I've never had to deal with imperial measurements (with the exception of miles - which also needs to go so we can work out fuel consumption more easily). It's the fractional maths that's the killer.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I would find metric easier if people could resist using bl00dy centimetres. As Nick - I can't visualise or estimate in metric. If someone's six foot three I know they're quite tall, if the they're one metre eighty three or whatever I have no idea whether they are tall or short without actually converting it back to imperial. We should have gone metric lock stock and barrel on 17/2/71 (as Australia did when its currency went metric)......... or not bothered at all, apparently it was understood at the time that the USA would change, otherwise we probably wouldn't have.
^^^^ miles or even kilometers per litre are absolutely meaningless to me.

 

[NickN]

So, amidst all the chatting about chisels and metric stuff, I actually spent some time in the workshop working on my first ever mortises today... and have to say I'm quite happy with the result. First one took about an hour, second one about half that, and I'm in no rush anyway, for me the hobby is as much about simply relaxing and doing something practical as it is about actually finishing anything.

Now the hardened old-timers may chuckle, but I was ridiculously happy when the reverse side 'tunnelling' of that first mortise actually met up dead straight with the face side excavations! Such simple pleasures but for me it's what it's all about, particularly having got to middle age and never having had the chance even while at school to try woodworking.


First ever mortise well underway:

Breakthrough - it lines up!

Second mortise - already looks much tidier than the first:

And a finished first leg, with haunch housing also created:

 

[thetyreman]

well done! I noticed that with each tenon you cut it gets faster and easier, looks really good so far

 

[DBT85]

Great start there Nick. Nice and neat.

You planning to do the same for the others now that you've got it down?

Have you decided how to do the tenons? Will you try splitting?

With regard to imperial and metric. I'm one of the few in my age group (32) it seems that can deal with both. While we were only taught metric at school my dad would always talk in imperial at home. We're not helped by everyone still weighing babies in lbs (though they are actually weight in g and everyone converts them just so that they can tell their mum/aunt how much it weighs lol), using miles on the road and feet for height! I wonder what the govt will do when 100% of the people alive in the UK were only ever taught metric at school.

 

[bugbear]

I'm cursed to be old enough to have been influenced heavily by imperial but young enough to have been taught metric at school, and it does my head in, I end up using both most of the time as I cannot VISUALISE anything in metric, but I struggle to CALCULATE anything in imperial... Grrr.. (hammer)

I'm glad I've never had to deal with imperial measurements (with the exception of miles - which also needs to go so we can work out fuel consumption more easily). It's the fractional maths that's the killer.

I recently acquired a vernier gauge with both imperial and metric scales. A normal engineer's vernier reads in 1/1000 of an inch, and is fine.

But the one I just got read is coarser - reading to 1/128".

Which ought to be easier, right?

Try this, if you love imperial, and deem fractions convenient:
http://www.stefanelli.eng.br/en/use-ver ... onal-inch/

BugBear

 

[NickN]

"In the topic vernier scale: simulator of reading and interpretation in fractional inch resolution 1/128″ we saw how each division of the main scale represents 1/16 (one sixteen avos) of inch. We saw also that this space is divided by the vernier by eight and that the value of the measure is obtained by the sum of the integer, the fraction of the main scale is the fraction of the nonius. However, the measurement value is obtained by adding the whole, the fraction of the main scale and the fraction of vernier."

:shock:

That noise you thought was a sonic boom was my head exploding...

 

[NickN]

You planning to do the same for the others now that you've got it down?

Have you decided how to do the tenons? Will you try splitting?

Yes, I think I will do the remaining six by hand too, it's good practice anyway and quite enjoyable.

The tendons, hmm, I think looking at the grain of the rails I could do, but will use a hand saw for the first one at least, as I don't have a bandsaw yet, and plus this is an ideal hand tools project anyway.

 

[bugbear]

"In the topic vernier scale: simulator of reading and interpretation in fractional inch resolution 1/128″ we saw how each division of the main scale represents 1/16 (one sixteen avos) of inch. We saw also that this space is divided by the vernier by eight and that the value of the measure is obtained by the sum of the integer, the fraction of the main scale is the fraction of the nonius. However, the measurement value is obtained by adding the whole, the fraction of the main scale and the fraction of vernier."

:shock:

That noise you thought was a sonic boom was my head exploding...

But imperial is so much more natural:

Add these values to the whole of the main scale, (7/16 = 14/32 = 28/64 = 56/128 + 5/128 + 1 = 1 61/128)

What could be easier than that? (*)

BugBear

* rhetorical AND sarcastic

 

[Tasky]

Great start there Nick. Nice and neat.

I agree... and am somewhat jealous!

I'm one of the few in my age group (32) it seems that can deal with both.

I can, but it's a royal pain in the backside.

I wonder what the govt will do when 100% of the people alive in the UK were only ever taught metric at school.

Stop selling things with the imperial measures in smaller text beneath the metric ones. Not much else.

That noise you thought was a sonic boom was my head exploding...

This bit is the easy part - He's taking one 16th of an inch and further splitting it into 8 - which is where 128 comes from. In other words, a quarter of a 32nd, which is the smallest bit on a standard tape measure or ruler.
Younger folks should recognise these from using computers, with 4, 8, 16 and sometimes 32 gigabytes of RAM being quite common. 8, 16, 32, 64 and finally 128GB of data storage are common USB flash drive and SD card sizes, so even mobile phone users can probably cope up to this point.

* rhetorical AND sarcastic

Yeah, they said that about imperial money... I remember "quick ways with money" was anything but - All about adding pennies and calling them shillings, before subtracting another amount of pennies from those shillings, and then dropping the remaining shillings back down to pence for counting, before adding the remaining pennies back up to make shillings again... or something weird like that. Oh, and shillings often had a variety of sub-coins that represented sort-of fractions of a shilling, but ultimately were allowed to be considered as pennies because there are 12 pence to the shilling, but a penny is more than 1/12th of a shilling... or a farthing, or a thruppunce, or a happunce, or a Newpunce even...while a shilling was actually worth two shillings after 1967...

Yeah, sure, easy as pie.
I know what it means when someone is thrupenny-bitting round a corner on a motorcycle, but damned if I know what thruppence would've ever bought you. Ninepence would get you an intermission albatross, but you don't get wafers with it.

 

[DBT85]

You planning to do the same for the others now that you've got it down?

Have you decided how to do the tenons? Will you try splitting?

Yes, I think I will do the remaining six by hand too, it's good practice anyway and quite enjoyable.

The tendons, hmm, I think looking at the grain of the rails I could do, but will use a hand saw for the first one at least, as I don't have a bandsaw yet, and plus this is an ideal hand tools project anyway.

Sounds like the next project is building Mattias Wandel's bandsaw

Hoping to get cracking on mine in the new year as the last large obstacle has been removed from my would be workshop. Now I just need to have a tidy, a bit of paint and I can get going!

 

[El Barto]

So, amidst all the chatting about chisels and metric stuff, I actually spent some time in the workshop working on my first ever mortises today... and have to say I'm quite happy with the result. First one took about an hour, second one about half that, and I'm in no rush anyway, for me the hobby is as much about simply relaxing and doing something practical as it is about actually finishing anything.

Now the hardened old-timers may chuckle, but I was ridiculously happy when the reverse side 'tunnelling' of that first mortise actually met up dead straight with the face side excavations! Such simple pleasures but for me it's what it's all about, particularly having got to middle age and never having had the chance even while at school to try woodworking.


First ever mortise well underway:

Breakthrough - it lines up!

Second mortise - already looks much tidier than the first:

And a finished first leg, with haunch housing also created:

Bloody hell those mortises are brilliant. Mine were positively hideous by comparison. Good job.

 

[DBT85]

All hail the Aldi chisels. lol

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Those are Lidl. lol.

 

[DBT85]

Same difference!

 

[NickN]

Haha, I must admit I did reflect to myself afterwards "that wasn't bad for a two quid chisel"!

Thanks for the encouraging comments though, all, nice to know that I don't seem to have made any major mess ups (yet). Second leg is in progress, hoping to get the four done before I am unable to move for over-eating on the 25th... :lol:

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Same difference!

Much the same design, but made by different companies iirc.

 

[Bodgers]

Same difference!

The Lidl chisels have hornbeam handles

Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

 

[DBT85]

Same difference!

The Lidl chisels have hornbeam handles

Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

Weird, the 5 sets I have here bought a few months ago are all European Beech! Guessing it's whatever is available at the time of the production run.

 

[NickN]

Until this year the Lidl chisels did indeed have Hornbeam handles (Aldi use Ash I believe) - but they changed them this year to European Beech, and bumped the price up a 'lidl' too I think.

I've only got the one set, figure that should last me a good few years and by then wood will be a thing of the past in a Britain covered by shoebox houses...