The MkII Paul Sellers Workbench Build

[DBT85]

Nick, there's a thread in General about Davies Timber, someone asking for experience to build up a guide.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I did a welding course a long while ago - the tutor (who was a workshop manager at one of the local firms and a brilliant welder) let us go about things as we saw fit - then took everything apart and explained why what we had done was wrong then how not to do it again. It seemed good to me.

 

[DBT85]

Finally getting around to getting my wood ordered for my own bench. Need to make some quick and easy saw horses too so will just go with some of Mattias' ones for the time being, made form CLS as its cheap and more than adequate.

Like yourself I've had to wiggle with Mr Sellers metric measurements as they just don;t match timber available and it seems daft to cut things down where there is no need.

In the end I've gone for
4x 50x75x3.6m for the top (will use all 8 lengths from these, making the top 45mm wider)
1x 25x150x3.6m for the wellboard (a smidge thinner than spec but didn't fancy going thicker)
2x 50x150x3.6m for the aprons. (Won't be planing these down to 40mm like you did!)
1x 50x150x3.6m for the rails
1x 75x100x4.2m for the legs
1x 50x100x2.4 for the bearers

With that lot, some CLS for 2 sawhorses and a 18mm sheet of Elliotis pine ply, plus delivery it came to £240. £30 for delivery seemed a bit steep as Avon Timber will do it for nowt and they have to come over from Coventry, but with me only just getting my new wheels and it costing at least a tenner in fuel to get to Davies, plus my time on top I figured sod it, Also transporting a sheet of ply in the car would have been fun

Seems like so long ago I wanted to start this!

 

[Bodgers]

Finally getting around to getting my wood ordered for my own bench. Need to make some quick and easy saw horses too so will just go with some of Mattias' ones for the time being, made form CLS as its cheap and more than adequate.

Like yourself I've had to wiggle with Mr Sellers metric measurements as they just don;t match timber available and it seems daft to cut things down where there is no need.

In the end I've gone for
4x 50x75x3.6m for the top (will use all 8 lengths from these, making the top 45mm wider)
1x 25x150x3.6m for the wellboard (a smidge thinner than spec but didn't fancy going thicker)
2x 50x150x3.6m for the aprons. (Won't be planing these down to 40mm like you did!)
1x 50x150x3.6m for the rails
1x 75x100x4.2m for the legs
1x 50x100x2.4 for the bearers

With that lot, some CLS for 2 sawhorses and a 18mm sheet of Elliotis pine ply, plus delivery it came to £240. £30 for delivery seemed a bit steep as Avon Timber will do it for nowt and they have to come over from Coventry, but with me only just getting my new wheels and it costing at least a tenner in fuel to get to Davies, plus my time on top I figured sod it, Also transporting a sheet of ply in the car would have been fun

Seems like so long ago I wanted to start this!

Wow. I paid less than that for the sawn beech for my bench! There is probably slightly less volume than what you have though.

Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

 

[DBT85]

Wow. I paid less than that for the sawn beech for my bench! There is probably slightly less volume than what you have though.

Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

To be fair, about £45 is timber for other stuff and £36 was delivery. So £159 for a load of PAR redwood for the bench and there will be a little left.

 

[NickN]

Finally getting around to getting my wood ordered for my own bench.

Like yourself I've had to wiggle with Mr Sellers metric measurements as they just don't match timber available and it seems daft to cut things down where there is no need.

Seems like so long ago I wanted to start this!

Excellent news! If I'd known I would be recently getting a planer-thicknesser before I started this project I would have made my order a little bit different, but not to worry, where I have had to reduce thickness it's been very good hand planing practice!
Davies Timber prices seem to be a lot better than Avon Timber too, certainly for sheet goods anyway, so it makes up for the delivery price on a large order.

 

[NickN]

After what seems like ages, an update on my progress, which hasn't been as speedy as I'd have liked, but hey ho, such is life.

First off I assembled and glued the legs together:

Then cut, planed and attached the bearers to the top:

A modification to the plans next, rather than just the single apron forming the back 'wall' of the wellboard and bench, I thought it might be handy to have just a little bit of extra width there for extra rigidity and strength, so I glued a length of timber to the inside face of the apron, the same depth/height as the worktop is, so that the legs will sit under the extra piece. I will still be making a housing into the apron as well for the leg.

And then glued the wellboard pieces together, successfully.

Next is to cut the wedges and then the leg housings in the apron back faces.

 

[DBT85]

Excellent news! If I'd known I would be recently getting a planer-thicknesser before I started this project I would have made my order a little bit different, but not to worry, where I have had to reduce thickness it's been very good hand planing practice!
Davies Timber prices seem to be a lot better than Avon Timber too, certainly for sheet goods anyway, so it makes up for the delivery price on a large order.

Great to see more progress being made! Like the idea of adding the extra bit to the back apron too.

Out of interest, why did you thickness your aprons down from 45 to 40mm?

 

[NickN]

I think the 40mm thickness for the aprons was one of those things that just happened - they were initially 44mm as collected from the timber merchants, and one length had a minor bow in its length, which by the time I'd straightened it all out with planing brought it down to 40mm - so I did the other one to match. More luck than judgement that it matched the 'Sellers Spec' really.

 

[DBT85]

Ahh ok. I thought you'd just decided to do it to match the spec and I was sitting here last night saying to myself "buy why, just leave it 5mm thicker each side" lol.

Think my timber arrives tomorrow so I've already got my draft thread made up.

Seriously need to get a quick sharpening plate made up though as I know for a fact my #4 had a couple of small dinks in, and I need to sort my chisels too. So much to do.

 

[MattRoberts]

Coming along really nicely Nick. I know what you mean about finding the time to work on it - it's tricky, but satisfying when you do and make good progress

 

[NickN]

The bench is really coming along now, thanks to having a bit more time this week to get things done (and it being far too cold to do much outdoor work too!).

I made the wedges which will sit next to the top of each leg in a recess cut in the back of the apron:

Then started chiselling the recess waste away, working to a knife wall initially:

Once the rough chiselling was completed it was time to use the router plane to get that nice level surface for the recess:

After all that, a completed recess housing - actually came out a LOT better than I was expecting - and what's more, the leg and wedge fitted exactly, first time, with no trimming needed at all. Still can't quite believe it, in fact...

And then, a magic moment after all these weeks, the first assembly of the skeleton of the bench to make sure everything fitted correctly and so that I can now bolt the aprons through the legs:

The small cut out at the underside of each rail is to allow for the nut to fit onto the bolt which will protrude at this point. The rails were effectively a little too deep - to clear the bottom of the rail I'd have been putting the bolt through within only 10mm of the bottom edge of the apron. No worries though, now it will work fine.

 

[DBT85]

Looking fantastic Nick! Won't be long and you'll be doing your next one! Haha

At this rate I might glue my top on Friday. Finally.

 

[NickN]

Another productive afternoon in the shed - got the aprons bolted through the legs and the bench top edge grooved and glued to the front apron.

First use ever of this Stanley 13-050 - not one cutter had ever seen use it appears. Seems like the sort of item someone woodworking as a hobby might be given as a present by a well-meaning relative, but never use as they have more 'modern' methods. Ideal for me though, and I have to say that it worked really well.

Ploughing the 6mm wide by 10mm groove in the bench top edge. I fitted a Sapele strip to the metal fence, partly to make it easier to keep square to the top, and partly to avoid marking the wood.

Gluing the bench top piece to the front (furthest away in the photo) apron - you can see the completed groove too.

Next up is to groove the rear of the rear apron, then rebate the wellboard to fit both grooves.

 

[custard]

Next up is to groove the rear of the rear apron, then rebate the wellboard to fit both grooves.

Looks superb.

Well done to you, and well done to Mr Sellers for popularising such a sensible, practical design. A good bench is pretty essential, and Paul Sellers must be credited with inspiring a lot of people to actually get stuck in and build one.

=D>

 

[DBT85]

More excellent work. Its great how fast it can come together.

I'm nearly there, honest!

 

[thetyreman]

blimey! that's really coming together, looks really good, the wedges are a big improvement on the version I made lol I don't fancy making another one though, it was a marathon, seriously though well done =D>

 

[El Barto]

Looks awesome, you must be chuffed. Well done.

 

[NickN]

Thanks for the comments guys, it's a huge relief to know that I seem to be doing ok with it.

Custard, you are quite right in that Mr Sellers must have inspired a huge number of people to have a try at hand woodworking (I think the second hand prices of tools partly bear testament to that) and it was my watching of his first workbench build in his garden that made me decide to enter the hobby in the first place.

No doubt a lot of people give up too, but perhaps it's because they expect instant results, or instant perfection without any practice, or just don't have a natural inclination for it. I'm not certain that I have the latter but I do have plenty of patience and a very low expectation so anything I make that comes out ok is a winner for me.

Mind you, my patience was tested today, wrestling with a pesky Woden 78 filister plane which kept resetting its depth of cut every couple of strokes, no matter how tight the lever cap screw. In the end I went back to my plough plane to do half the rebate, and the remaining half I'll just plane away with my 4 1/2 down to the ploughed level.

 

[AndyT]

A good quick fix for a plane where the iron shifts too easily is to rub some rosin on the back of the iron and front of the frog. It's the stuff violinists use on their bows - only a pound or so from any music shop.