yet another workbench wip - FINISHED

[Woodmonkey]

I finally started building myself a workbench last week after thinking about it for quite some time, and studying the excellent Schwartz workbenches book. This is my old bench inherited from my dad,

although solidly built its lacking when it comes to woodworking, clamping options are severely limited and it's a good 4 inches to short for me. I've been lucky enough to have three different projects which all yielded some decent beech offcuts, laminated together I ended up with this,

After gluing up I flattened out using a router sled (sorry didn't take any pics of the process but it's been well documented elsewhere). Final thickness ended up just over 60mm, it's nearly 600mm wide and about 1.5m long. I would've preferred it around 2 metres but was limited to the offcuts I had. I do have an assembly table in the workshop so don't think it will be a problem.
So fitted my dads old vise to the front, this time recessing the rear jaw so it is flush to the bench front. Also died a tail vise which I was given a while ago, you can see the grooves I routed on the right,

Gave the whole thing a coat of osmo and have it on some trestles for now until I get the base made. Have been promised some more rough sawn beech boards by a tree surgeon mate which I'm hoping will be enough to laminate together to make some meaty legs.

Total cost so far £0, although actually I did buy a 19mm bit the other day to drill some dog holes. To be continued....

 

[stewart]

Looking great, so far. Been meaning to do something similar for a while...
Cheers

 

[mickthetree]

Looks fantastic! My bench is made of ash, a fair bit longer but quite a bit narrower (limited to space when I made it). But if anything like mine it will be a hefty lump to try and manoeuvre!

 

[Strap]

My bench was a copy of the 21 Century design. As wood are very expensive, in South Africa where I live, the top is 25mm thick laminated Salinga. The rest of the thickness is bulked out with MDF.
The frame of course is pine. I still have to make some reversible boxes to fit down the middle. One way up to slip tool into. The other, with the bottoms up, making a solid surface.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Woodmonkey]

No not that kind of dogging. I had a spare hour this afternoon so drilled some dog holes. I used this 19mm "wood beaver" bit from screwfix

It's an aggressive little beaver, I tried it out on some scrap and it tried to pull my arm off. After some experimentation I found that drilling a 6mm pilot hole first gave good results so out with the crappy cheap drill guide and marked & drilled the pilot holes

There's a bit of play in it but it keeps it squarer than I could by eye.
Then swapped bits and drilled the holes. Once I'd drilled a couple I could put my shiney new hold down clamps to good use

The bit leaves a really nice clean hole with not much tear out underneath either. Just need to make some dogs now...

 

[skronk]

Looking really nice.

 

[Woodmonkey]

Made some beech dogs this morning

 

[AndyT]

That does look very smart and practical - and the price is right too!

 

[Woodmonkey]

Started work on the legs this afternoon, as promised I scored some nice meaty beech boards 50mm thick, £50 for the lot

My ts55 made easy work of breaking them down into manageable pieces ready to plane. Breaking down natural edge boards is so much easier with a track saw, with a rip blade it went through 2" beech like butter.

Few dominos for alignment and then clamped up. Final leg size should be about 85mm square. Hope to get a bit more done tomorrow, although this head cold is rapidly turning into man-flu

 

[Woodmonkey]

Mortising and tenoning today. Mortising was done on the woodrat and tenons cut using tablesaw for the shoulders and the band saw for the cheeks.

Managed to get the two end frames glued up before retiring for a lemsip and a hot water bottle.

 

[Woodmonkey]

Got the rest glued up this morning, not wildly exciting I know but trying to keep the wip going! Can't wait to get the top attached, been using it on wobbly trestles and getting fed up with it.

 

[n0legs]

I tell you what.................it's gonna' be worth it =D>

PS,
Love the bench dogs. Never seen ball catches used like that before, good idea.

 

[Woodmonkey]

Thanks nolegs although I can't claim it as my idea, plagiarised from YouTube I'm afraid

 

[Woodmonkey]

More or less done, I might put a few more dog holes, and I will make a nicer handle for the tail vise apart from that I'm happy with it, it's rock solid. Attached the top with some really meaty coach screws so that I can easily take it apart if I need to move it. I drilled the screw holes in the frame oversize which I hope will allow the top to move if it wants to, a single domino on each front leg should keep the top edge flush with the legs.