Right onto the glueing and hammering. I watched a David Charlesworth video a couple of weeks ago where he referred to this stage as the point where within a few minutes you can ruin days of work (something along those lines anyway!) With those words of encouragement, I started to think about getting those aprons nailed and glued on. My plan was to do this in the kitchen where it is flat until someone asked the obvious question of how will I carry it back out. I decided to do another dry fit to see how heavy it was.
I can't remember if I've already mentioned this but I used flooring straps for the dry fittings. I only own 4 x 30cm clamps and there aren't many easy clamping opportunities around the bench. They've been a lifesaver and will come in handy for the glue up.
Anyway, the bench is just about liftable without the top on if you stand inside it and sort of deadlift it right in the middle. As I'm only 5ft 7, that only lifts the bench about 3 inches off the ground so there's no chance of me moving it on my own and I wanted to crack on.
I just fount the most level area I could and got on with it. Beforehand I gave the trestles a quick tart up with my plane and chamfered the edges
Like a fool, I'd bought 5-inch oval wire nails for this job. My calculation was 4-inch leg plus a 2-inch apron. I was forgetting that the leg and apron are like a double joint fitting into each other. I'm just glad I held one of the nails up to the leg before I'd started glueing.
Whenever I've used adhesives in the past I know I start rushing and making mistakes that lead to more mistakes. It's like someone starts the countdown clock, the music starts and I'm fumbling to form a four-letter word from the letters. I was determined to be calm and methodical and try to anticipate those mistakes before the glue goes on and the sweat comes out! So cockup number 1 was fixable. I still had a load of those smaller cut nails. I didn't want to use them after they caused a split in one of the top rails, but they were the only alternative to hand.
And so let the panic commence!
I was so focused on the glue that I didn't remember to take any photos at this point! I will say that true to form I did start to mess about and panic. I also learned that I'm a messy gluer-upper! I thought you can't have too much, so slap it in there. I was having to clean up all over the place and what did I reach for? An oily rag! So that was even more of a mess. So cockup number 2 - not having the things I'm going to need to hand. I finally found some clean rags to continue with.
So these images are from when the red mist descended...
I didn't really perceive hammering as a skill but I do now. I was trying to be as careful as possible getting those nails in but as you can see I left my hammer mark on the 3rd nail down on the leg, and for some unknown reason my hammer was attracted to a spot in the centre of the 4 nails on the diagonal brace. It is going to need a good cleanup that now! I think it was probably fatigue that led to these misplaced blows. Those cut nails didn't just fly in easy at all. You could hear the pitch of them changing as they got tighter in and as they got closer in they got harder to move.
One thing I didn't aticipate was hitting the nails that are already in the trestles behind. You wouldn't think you would be that unlucky but that happned on two of the nails for me. I had to take them out and change their angle. I should've roughly checked they weren't aligned before hammering.
I initially decided not to put nails into the diagonal brace, then I thought I'd have a go at clinching nails (I've not tried it before) but I wish I never started it. I was using nails that didn't like the idea of bending so easy. It also added those few out of place hammer blows on the apron. I should've quit while I was ahead!
Next was to plane the aprons down to be level with the trestles. I didn't end up using the pinch stick/baton idea because the floor wasn't a good reference now. Because I know the trestle joints were marked off each other, so long as the joints are tight, the thing should be level. I then used the straightest length I had to span the trestles and I butted it up against the inside of the apron for a rough guideline, then just a square to check the level.
I hacked off most of it with a #4 with a massive camber on, then went to a #5 1/2 - oh, I know I said I wasn't going to buy any more planes... but... in anticipation of this step I bought an old #7 to finish it. I can't help myself! That's the last one now.
It's finally starting to look like a bench. It is rock solid even without the top and the only things I'm not happy with so far are cosmetic. I've never built a piece of furniture so when I do in the future I'm going to have to be a hell of a lot more delicate!
You can see above the amount of glue residue left on the diagonal brace. That's from where I nearly dropped the apron in panic mode with corporal Jones screaming in the background. As I caught it, all the glue in the notch pressed on the diagonal brace. I wiped it with a rag but it still left a slight residue. I had to crack on becuase at that time I had glue sitting in all the other notches waiting for their new home. I'm not sure on the best way to clean that up now. Sandpaper? Maybe blockplane?
Next step will be to get all the bearers in and then nail the planked top on. I can already anticipate a problem here, though. You can see how much of a twist there is in that middle board above. I'm confident it'll flatten when nailed, I just don't know how I'm going to plane its edges straight and test fit it next to the other planks to visually check the small gap is nice and even between them. There's no obvious way I can think to clamp it down. I can't take that much twist out with a plane or there will be nothing left of the board. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
