Workbench - Leg Joinery

I've been running a little behind in both working on the workbench and on posting updates of what I have done.  Lately, I've been working the leg joinery that connects them to the bench top.  Since my last post, I planed all four of the legs square.  Then I traced out the joints for the top of the legs.  The joint is made up of a through dovetail joint in the front and a through tenon in the middle that will go through the entire 5" thick bench top.

Once the joints were drawn out, I sawed all the vertical lines going with the grain.  Then I used a mortise chisel to cut out the material between the two joints.

 Next, I made the diagonal cuts for the dovetails and the the crosscuts to remove the remaining material.  Because the legs were so thick it was tough to get the perfectly straight so I had to do quite a bit of cleanup with a chisel to get the joints good and straight.

I have cut the joinery into all four legs and begun cutting the mating joinery into the bench top.  More on that next time.

Workbench - End Vise Complete

Finally! My workbench is starting to do some work for me instead of me just working on it. Today I made the sliding block for the end and drilled a series of holes along the front edge of the bench top, which will be used to hold stop dogs. I made a couple stop dogs out of 3/4" oak dowell. I was able to clamp one of the leg posts in the vise and hold it securely while I planed it. I got one leg completely squared tonight, so just three to go.

Workbench - Tail Vise Installed

Over the last couple weeks, I've been working towards getting the tail vise put on my bench.  After cutting out the cavity in the bench top, I began working on the end cap.  I glued a couple pieces of maple together to make the end cap about 2-1/2" thick.  I chiseled out the dovetail slots to match up with the dovetails that I cut in the front of the workbench.  Next, using a template that I printed from the website for my vise, I marked the holes where the vise would mount.  I had to make several holes with an auger bit and then clean it up with a chisel to make the large hole for the vise screw.

 To install the end cap, I glued the dovetail joint on the front and fastened the rest with lag screws.  I drilled the pilot holes in the end cap extra wide to allow for movement in the wood due to moisture change.  The next step will be to cut a block that will screw into the vise.  This block will hold a dog, which will be the clamping device.

Workbench - Tail Vise Preparation

Now that I have all four sides pretty flat and parallel my next step was to saw the ends square and to length. This was a good workout, but didn't take too long with my recently sharpened crosscut saw.  Fortunately, I had my son Michael there to give me encouragement.

Benchcrafted Tail Vise

The left end of my bench will have a tail vise that will operate parallel to the benchtop.This vise, which is manufactured by Benchcrafted works by sliding a peg, also called a dog, allowing you clamp a board between a stationary dog.  The advantage to this type of end vise is that because it is integral to the bench top, the area around the clamping point is very strong.  The disadvantage to this vise is that it requires a lot of material to be removed from the underneath side of the benchtop.  This is not a big undertaking if you use an electric router, but it my case it has required time than I would have liked to sped installing the vise.

I began the cutout for the vise by using my rip saw to cut the track where the sliding dog will run.  I finished removing this piece by chopping through the remaining section with my 3/8" mortise chisel.

I then drew out the area that I needed to cut out and went at it with a brace and auger bit.  I followed this up with the mortise chisel again, removing the remaining material and getting all the dimensions to where they need to be for the vise to work properly.  By the time I to the point of the picture below, I felt more like Michelangelo whacking at a piece of marble than a carpenter.

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.