Workbench 1

I began work on my workbench by cutting the 6x6 beam into lengths for the legs.  It was pretty easy work since I just sharpened the teeth on vintage crosscut saw.  I cut the legs to 33", which is one inch longer than the finished length.

Next, used my jackplane to roughly plane all four sides of each of the two top slab pieces.   Then I worked one of the edges to get it as straight and flat as possible.  I planed at an angle to the grain to remove as much material as possible.  Then I followed up with my jointer plane to make the edges as straight and flat as possible.

Once I had two flat and straight edges, I stacked the two slabs up to see how they fit together.  I found that there were some gaps, so I took them down and did some more planing.  Once I was satisfied with the way they fit together, I took them back down and put some glue on them.

For such a long and thick slab, I needed every pipe clamp that I could get.  In my case I did't have any, but fortunately I knew someone that had plenty.  I ended up using 12.

After 24 hours, I took the clamps off.  My next step was to make to two long edges flat and parallel. I began working one of the edges the same way that I had worked the inside edges that I had glued together.  However, this it wasn't nearly as easy because the top edge was now 12" higher.  When standing on the floor, the top edge of the slab was about even with my neck.  This made it almost impossible to get good downward pressure on the plane.  Then I had the idea to use the leg posts and boards for the stretchers to stand on.  This helped a little, but I was still not at a good angle for planing.  By time I finished the first edge, I was completely exhausted and my muscles were sore for days.  I realize now that I should have built two shorter saw horses before I even started, which would have made all the planing much easier.

New Tools

While looking at what it will take to build my new workbench, I realized that I didn't have the tools to do it.  Fortunately, this was right before the Christmas season, so I was able to pick up some of what I need as gifts.  Here is what I picked up this year:

A little before Christmas I set out to buy a Stanley No. 5 plane on ebay and I managed to pick this one up for $31.

It came in pieces, which was fine, because I wanted to tune it up since it was likely made in the 1930's.  First I cleaned the body with mineral spirits and then I flattened the frog on my diamond board.  This will make sure that the blade will sit perfectly flat against it, which keeps it from chattering while in use.

Next, I flattened the blade as much as possible on the diamond board and ground a curved edge on it with my bench grinder.  The reason for the curved edge is because I want to use this plane to quickly remove large amounts of material and the curve will really dig in to the wood.

Here are the tools that I got for Christmas.  On the left is my new pride and joy, a Lie-Nielsen No. 7 jointer, which is 22" long.  This was my present to myself and it has been fun to use.

I also go a wooden mallet, 3/8" Sorbey mortise chisel, honing guide, and precision square from my wife and mother-in-law.

My new Lie-Nielsen No 7 and Stanley No 5 Planes

Beginnings of a Workbench

As I mentioned in my last post, I've decided that my next project would be to build a workbench, specifically  one that is based on the 18th century design of Andre Ruobo.  The design will be very similar one built by Chris Schwarz in his book The Workbench Design Book.  It will consist of a thick bench top (up to 6 inches) as well as stout legs.  In the book, Schwarz uses two slabs of cherry for the top and glues them together for a 20" wide bench.  This sounded like a good idea, except no way would I be able to find two slabs of hardwood like that.

The only large pieces of lumber that I was able to find was fir timbers, which I sourced from a local lumber yard.  I ordered two eight feet long 6" x 12" timbers for the workbench top and a 12 feet long 6" x 6" timber to be used for the legs. Usually these timbers are supplied green, but I had them kiln dried so that they wouldn't be shrinking after I built the bench and I didn't have six years for them to dry naturally.

One side effect of the kiln drying is that the two large timbers developed some pretty severe checks, as you can see by the picture at the left.  I think they may have been dried too rapidly and I hope that these checks don't cause me problems down the road because they are pretty deep.  If I had to do it over again, I would probably use four 6x6 timbers instead of the two 6x12's.

I hope to post soon about some of the tools that I've acquired recently in order to build this bench.  And hopefully I can put those tools to work soon and start turning these timbers into something useful.