Workbench Crisis

[Bigbud78]

Maybe a little over exaggerated but I'm so angry with myself

I've made the legs and aprons for my new work bench and had left the tops until last, Set it all up and clamped everything up and it all lined up lovely. Started glueing and it took longer than I thought it would, by the time I'd finished the glue was already grabbing The result is a stepped bench top, no problem I thought and next day started planing it by hand.

It's going to take forever to sort it and now I'm worried by the time I have both sides flat I'm going to have to take a load off the next plank I do (with different glue) and that I'll not actually get it flat and square all round

Should I just admit defeat and find someone with a thicknesser to help me or should I stick at the hand planing ?
My turning club has a thicknesser but no idea if anyone knows how to use it :/

 

[Jacob]

Either hand planing or ripping and starting again with a thicknesser. Dunno it's up to you!
Tip - next time you glue up a set of boards just do one at a time and leave the next one until the following day - it can be really difficult keeping them all in line as the glue goes off - you tap one down and the next one pops up etc.

Another tip - a trad bench with a well, separating two joist sized timbers, or one at the front and a rail at the back, is a much better bench than the fashionable solid one piece top, and very much easier to construct.

Nearly all the new fashions (especially with sharpening) actually make life more difficult for aspiring woodworkers

 

[DTR]

When I built my bench, one of my rough-sawn boards had a wicked twist in it. I didn't fancy hand planing it, so I took it to a local professional with an industrial thicknesser. When I got the board back it still had a wicked twist, it was just a bit thinner :? So I ended up hand planing it anyway. It was daunting to begin with, but not that bad in the long run. Rather than using a jack like I usually would, I found using a no.7 with a jack-style cambered blade was easier. Maybe the momentum of the heavier plane was working to my advantage?

 

[DTR]

Just to prove a point!

If you feel like the top is too thin once you've finished it, you could add some stiffening ribs underneath?

 

[morfa]

I also flattened my pine workbench by hand. Using a no 4. Took a while, but it was ok in the end. It's a good thing to do to learn how to plane big things by hand.

 

[Roughcut]

I can still remember one cold, dark December night hand planing the bench top I had made.......drenched in sweat and ankle deep in wood shavings.
Took me longer than I had anticipated. :roll:

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Jack plane, heavily cambered iron, rank set (as rank as the work and you can stand), work across the grain. That shifts wood at a fairly frightening rate. Once it's about flat, try-plane along the grain to true it up. Or a scrub plane across the grain if it's really badly out of whack.

It might be worth doing the whole glue-up, allowing to cure, then plane the bench-top underside to get it flat enough but don't bother too much about finish, turn over and fix to supports, then true up and finish the top surface as last job.

PS - Don't beat yourself up too much over the glue slippage. We've all been there, the consequences in this instance are annoying but not terminal, and experience is the best teacher etc....

 

[Bigus]

What about an electric planer like this?

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... 104992.htm

Cheap as chips, then you could finish it off with a hand plane.

 

[Bigbud78]

I actually have a power planer but never thought about that

 

[Bod]

I actually have a power planer but never thought about that

Before you start, check where the broom is, you may not be able to find it later!

Bod

 

[WoodMangler]

I actually have a power planer but never thought about that

I've used a hand power-plane and winding-sticks to get a twisted thick wide board flat enough to go through my planer-thicknesser, worked a treat.

 

[xy mosian]

I actually have a power planer but never thought about that

Before you start, check where the broom is, you may not be able to find it later!

Bod

Spot on Bod.
I don't use my electric plane very often, but I've taken to pointing the output at a large sheet of corrugated card to make some attempt at collection. Or at least keeping all the debris in one spot.
xy

 

[deema]

Machining it flat you need a planner and then thicknesser, or a wide belt sander. Depending on how wide it is will determine if anyone has a suitable machine near you who could help. Please let us know the width of the offending item.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Another tip - a trad bench with a well, separating two joist sized timbers, or one at the front and a rail at the back, is a much better bench than the fashionable solid one piece top, and very much easier to construct.

That entirely depends on how you want to use it.

Mine doubles for assembly, and as support for things like my morticer and chop saw, depending entirely on what I'm doing/making. I'd probably appreciate a trough right at the back, but even then it would get in the way of clamps back there.

I take your point about solid tops - you need mass and rigidity, and that doesn't have to come from thick baulks of timber.

But flat benches are differently useful.

Back on topic, there is a quick and easy way of fixing the problem, and it's demonstrated in videos on the web (can't be bothered to look right now). You need:

- one of these or these from Wealden:

(I have the six-cutter one, unfortunately showing out of stock at the mo. It's brilliant)
Two pieces of steel round bar stock to fit your router sole plate (where the fence normally slides in). It needs to be 2x the bench width plus a bit. You can alternatively make a long thin sled ('trammel'), and that alternative is probably better (takes a bit longer to make), as there's no danger of sag.

You fix straight battens to both sides of the bench, so that they're level with each other (they will be reference for the top), stood off the sides by half the width of the router sole plate (so you can skim up to the bench edges), and a bit longer than the bench (so you can get to the ends).

Basically, you skim the surface by making repeated passes back and forth with the router, taking a very light cut. It still makes a huge amount of mess (comments about the broom above are well made!).

Despite Wealden's claims, I've found it won't really give you a perfect finish, but that might be because there was too much vertical play when I used the technique for flattening a wide board (too big for my planer). The more rigid you can get the trammel, the better. Check the results with a straightedge, and/or winding sticks, and/or a laser. mark high spots in pencil and gently repeat until you're as close as you feel you can get.

Note: lots of noise; lots of mess; unprotected dirty great cutter whizzing about at high speed (stop blocks on both trammel and battens are a good safety feature). You also need plenty of room to work round the bench.

But it does work and the end result only really needs finish sanding.

I can't afford a 16" Wadkin, but for <40 quid and a bit of effort...

 

[Owl]

Marc Spagnuolo shows how to do it on his website.

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/ ... &apt=video

 

[custard]

I've seen this so many times before. Small mistakes escalating into big mistakes, which then snowball into yet more mistakes, until the project get's buried under an avalanche of errors.

Unless you're slick and practised at glue ups then why play Russian Roulette with PVA. Cascamite will give you 30 or 40 minutes of open time and isn't pressure sensitive so doesn't "grab". Yes, it's a bit more of a faff to mix up, but nothing compared to the faff you're now faced with.

And levelling with a power planer is a bit like carving with a chainsaw. Just because some people can do it doesn't mean you'll pull it off.

Take a break for a fe days and think this all through. Tune up your hand plane and just knuckle down to some handwork. Otherwise you'll end up with a rubbish bench that will irritate the pants off you for ever more, as well as setting entirely the wrong tone for your woodworking future.

Good luck.

 

[mikefab]

Something pretty similar happened to me when I made my bench 3 years ago. I hadn't got as far as doing the whole top when I realised it was all going wrong. I took it to a local joinery workshop where they surfaced and thicknessed it for me and then I took the rest of the glue up rather more slowly. I finished it off with a handplane.

The result? I got a good bench with a reasonable thickness top, and some nice friends in the trade who I still buy timber from, get useful advice and see socially. Result!

 

[Bigbud78]

Ran over it with a power planer, bloody horrible thing and I'll not be using it again :evil: Finished off with a hand plane and the bottom is flat now as well as my eyes can see, just need to square it up now Its hard work but enjoying learning the tools, just frustrated as its taking so long to get done and I want to use my new Lathe

 

[DTR]

Ran over it with a power planer, bloody horrible thing and I'll not be using it again :evil: Finished off with a hand plane

Haha, same! I briefly tried a power plane too. It made a lot of noise and a lot of mess with not a lot to show for it