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91K views 132 replies 41 participants last post by  EricTwice 
#1 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:


Getting there…


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…



I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
 

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#2 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
Sweet. I could have used a little more planning on mine. I just jumped right in.

I'll be watching this one for shizzle.
 

Attachments

#3 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
good lookin sticks right there..
 

Attachments

#4 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
And I thought mine was going to be heavy. Sounds like it's going to be a real looker.
 

Attachments

#5 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
Nothing I enjoy more than a bench build. This one looks pretty juicy with all the right parts.
 

Attachments

#6 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
That's going to be a massive beast, Mark. Don't mess up the other wrist trying to muscle it around.
 

Attachments

#7 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
Yes!!!!
 

Attachments

#8 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
Ah, well. Another massive amount of good wood being used to build…a bench. Sorry, I just can't justify using beautiful wood to build workshop pieces. I went to the Home Cheapo and bought a bunch of 2×4s for my bench. 49.5 cents per board foot. If you got a better deal on the cherry, well then I take most of it back. And where did you get such a deal on the cherry?!

I'm sure it'll look beautiful, though.
 

Attachments

#9 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
I know the agony you went thru designing your workbench. I spent about a month designing the one I posted. After you finish it, youʻre probably going to need to build a tool cabinet to compliment it.
 

Attachments

#10 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
Very cool. Another beautiful bench to look forward to seeing. If it's anything like the planes you made that you posted in this thread, (And why aren't those separate projects on your profile? They're beautiful and you should show them off!) I'm sure it'll be a looker.
 

Attachments

#11 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
Brian, thank you for reminding me. I had that on the to-do list and somehow it kept getting pushed down in priority until I forgot. :)

Jay - I'm not planning on moving it once it is in place. My kids will have to figure out what to do with it in 40 years when they put me in a home.

LJackson - you can't justify it; I can. It is a good point for discussion, though, and I'm going to pose it in the Workbench Smackdown thread (http://lumberjocks.com/topics/31539)
 

Attachments

#12 ·
First sniff of glue

I've been planning a workbench build for two years, maybe a bit longer. Started by reading everything I could, followed by some quality SketchUp time. Had a design, changed it. Tweaked it again. Threw the design out and started over. More tweaking followed. And so on…

Settled on a Roubo variant, and ordered Benchcrafted hardware. A year and a half ago.

Complete re-design once again. Did a couple tweaks to that and ordered the lumber. Should be well-acclimated to my shop by now.

Threw out the design and started over. Again. Getting pretty good at SketchUp.

And tweaked the design a couple more times. Fairly small tweaks, as far as these things go.

In typical Roubo fashion, the bench will be massive. The more mass the better. To that end, I picked the densest wood I could easily and affordably obtain for the base - Jatoba. Legs will be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 29 1/2" and weigh 30 lbs each. Add in stretchers and bottom shelf and the base will weigh over 200 lbs.

The top will be a laminated slab of cherry. 4" thick by 26" deep and 7' long. That will weigh about 200 lbs on its own. Why cherry? I got a truckload at a good price, plus it looks good.

Add in the hardware, a chop and a deadman and the bench will be over 450 lbs, maybe close to 500. I've got a cabinet planned for the interior space of the bench, should add another 100 lbs by the time it is loaded up with tools. Massive is good.

I had to commit to building the bench at some point, and today was as good a time as any. Still in a cast (left wrist) and still don't have the dust collection hooked up in the new shop. So the top will have to wait a week or two. In the meantime, I can start on the legs.

Here's the lumber for the 4 legs:
Brown Wood Rectangle Amber Wood stain


Each board is destined to become one leg, so start by cutting them into 33" lengths using my fancy miter saw station:
Wood Flooring Floor Bicycle handlebar Hardwood


Getting there…
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Building material


Two of the boards were just under 6" wide, but the other two were 8". After cutting to length, I ripped them to width. Normally I keep a Freud combo blade on the saw, but this wood calls for something better suited to the task:
Hood Red Motor vehicle Font Gas


I've had it for over a year, still in its plastic wrap. I do like that Freud combo blade :)

And quickly, there are 4 stacks of leg pieces and 1 stack of cut-offs. I'll be keeping the cut-offs for something or other…

Wood Rectangle Wood stain Material property Hardwood


I still had some time, so I decided to glue up one leg. After jointing and planing, the first stack comes in at 5 3/4".
Rectangle Wood Wood stain Flooring Plank


Glue-up got a little exciting near the end when I emptied the glue jug. Had just enough to do the job. Was worried about the glue setting up before I had time to wait for it to drip from the jug.
Vehicle Wood Building Aircraft Flooring


Pretty even squeeze-out = good glue-up!
Product Engineering Gas Machine Technology


Coming out of clamps in the morning. Hoping to get 2 more done tomorrow.
Gonna look sweet. I'm along for the ride.
 

Attachments

#13 ·
More design tweaking, and some cherry sawdust

After getting my legs glued up, I decided to look at my plan to see how it would fit the likely final leg dimensions. And realized that the 6Ă—6 legs in the SketchUp model would likely end up at 5 1/2" x 5 1/2". So I spent a couple hours making tweaks. Adjusting the leg dimensions was easy. I also simplified a bunch of the joinery. Used LayOut to make dimensioned drawings for leg joinery.

After all, I have 4 legs glued up and waiting for action.

Was about to start cutting wood for stretchers and I realized that before I could do the leg/stretcher joinery I would need to know the exact dimensions of the top.

When building furniture, I build to a plan. The table is a certain size, the mortises are in certain locations, the legs are so long. Everything is decided beforehand, and you can safely make any individual piece independent of the others and it will fit. Pretty much, anyway. Some joinery does need to fitted by hand, but those fittings generally mean using a chisel or plane to take a 1/100th off here or there.

With a Roubo workbench, the joinery must be made to fit the top. One face of each leg needs to be coplanar with a edge of the top, and just about everything else is fitted from that. And while I have a specific dimension in mind for the width of the top, the reality when gluing up large slabs is that you may not exactly hit that dimension. It isn't that critical if the top is 25 3/4" or 26 1/4" wide, or if the length is +/- 3". You can force the issue, but that might mean wasting a whole board just to get that extra 1/2" in width.

So I started on the top this afternoon. First task - retrieve the boards from up there:
Fire extinguisher Wood Shelving Interior design Rectangle


using only one hand.
Leg Gesture Finger Comfort Thumb


First board down:
Wood Wall Ladder Shelving Gas


The top will be about 8' long, 26" wide and 4" thick. Did I say 7' long in the first blog entry? I did! That's another one of those things I tweaked last night.

I'm hoping for 1 3/4" from each piece, so I need 15 lengths. That's 8 boards at 9" widths. Pulled them down, cut them to length and ripped them to about 4 1/2".

Slight oopsie. 2 of the boards I pulled down were jatoba instead of cherry. I thought they were kinda heavy. I'll have to put them back up and pull down 2 cherry boards. Munyana.

Here's the 11 pieces I ended up with:
Wood Building Wood stain Flooring House


Skinny bench, anyone?
Table Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain


If that was stable enough, I could see getting work done. There wouldn't be any clutter building up on top, at least.

Let's try four legs:
Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content
Hand Leg Wood Gesture Finger


Time to call it a day.
 

Attachments

#14 ·
More design tweaking, and some cherry sawdust

After getting my legs glued up, I decided to look at my plan to see how it would fit the likely final leg dimensions. And realized that the 6Ă—6 legs in the SketchUp model would likely end up at 5 1/2" x 5 1/2". So I spent a couple hours making tweaks. Adjusting the leg dimensions was easy. I also simplified a bunch of the joinery. Used LayOut to make dimensioned drawings for leg joinery.

After all, I have 4 legs glued up and waiting for action.

Was about to start cutting wood for stretchers and I realized that before I could do the leg/stretcher joinery I would need to know the exact dimensions of the top.

When building furniture, I build to a plan. The table is a certain size, the mortises are in certain locations, the legs are so long. Everything is decided beforehand, and you can safely make any individual piece independent of the others and it will fit. Pretty much, anyway. Some joinery does need to fitted by hand, but those fittings generally mean using a chisel or plane to take a 1/100th off here or there.

With a Roubo workbench, the joinery must be made to fit the top. One face of each leg needs to be coplanar with a edge of the top, and just about everything else is fitted from that. And while I have a specific dimension in mind for the width of the top, the reality when gluing up large slabs is that you may not exactly hit that dimension. It isn't that critical if the top is 25 3/4" or 26 1/4" wide, or if the length is +/- 3". You can force the issue, but that might mean wasting a whole board just to get that extra 1/2" in width.

So I started on the top this afternoon. First task - retrieve the boards from up there:
Fire extinguisher Wood Shelving Interior design Rectangle


using only one hand.
Leg Gesture Finger Comfort Thumb


First board down:
Wood Wall Ladder Shelving Gas


The top will be about 8' long, 26" wide and 4" thick. Did I say 7' long in the first blog entry? I did! That's another one of those things I tweaked last night.

I'm hoping for 1 3/4" from each piece, so I need 15 lengths. That's 8 boards at 9" widths. Pulled them down, cut them to length and ripped them to about 4 1/2".

Slight oopsie. 2 of the boards I pulled down were jatoba instead of cherry. I thought they were kinda heavy. I'll have to put them back up and pull down 2 cherry boards. Munyana.

Here's the 11 pieces I ended up with:
Wood Building Wood stain Flooring House


Skinny bench, anyone?
Table Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain


If that was stable enough, I could see getting work done. There wouldn't be any clutter building up on top, at least.

Let's try four legs:
Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content
Hand Leg Wood Gesture Finger


Time to call it a day.
Mark, what about keeping the Jatoba as a couple of contrasting boards for the top? Kind of like your racing stripes on those planes. I used two pieces of cherry to get to my desired top width.
 

Attachments

#19 ·
Half a top

Milled and glued up two quarters of the top today. Started edge jointing the first board and realized I had a jointer taper issue. Spent an hour getting that right, or at least pretty close. My longest straight-edge is my 6' builders level, so it is sorted out to whatever degree of accuracy the level allows. Didn't seem to be an issue afterwards, at least.

Process was to mill 3 boards and glue them up. Mill the next set while the glue was setting.

All clamps on deck!
Wood Building sets Engineering Composite material Gas


Line up the boards properly - check to make sure all the grain is running in the same direction:
Wood Window Table Flooring Floor


And get to work
Wood Engineering Gas Machine Composite material


The bottle says the clamp time for the glue is 30 minutes. I swear it took me 25 to just get the clamps on tight.

While that was setting up, I got busy milling another 4 boards for the next section. One had a long radial crack near an end.
Table Wood Floor Flooring Rectangle


I planed that board down quite a bit, to just under 1 1/2" trying to get rid of the crack. No luck, but it was decidedly smaller with a good amount of area for glue on both sides of the crack. If it ever expands and becomes an issue, I'll figure out a way to deal with it.

Wood Gas Flooring Engineering City


My forearm is sore now. Pipe clamps take much less work than parallel jaw clamps.

Most of the boards have been netting 1 7/8" width. These 7 boards measure out to 13" total, half of my target width. We'll see how the rest do, but looks like I'll get away with a 14-board top instead of 15.
 

Attachments

#20 ·
Half a top

Milled and glued up two quarters of the top today. Started edge jointing the first board and realized I had a jointer taper issue. Spent an hour getting that right, or at least pretty close. My longest straight-edge is my 6' builders level, so it is sorted out to whatever degree of accuracy the level allows. Didn't seem to be an issue afterwards, at least.

Process was to mill 3 boards and glue them up. Mill the next set while the glue was setting.

All clamps on deck!
Wood Building sets Engineering Composite material Gas


Line up the boards properly - check to make sure all the grain is running in the same direction:
Wood Window Table Flooring Floor


And get to work
Wood Engineering Gas Machine Composite material


The bottle says the clamp time for the glue is 30 minutes. I swear it took me 25 to just get the clamps on tight.

While that was setting up, I got busy milling another 4 boards for the next section. One had a long radial crack near an end.
Table Wood Floor Flooring Rectangle


I planed that board down quite a bit, to just under 1 1/2" trying to get rid of the crack. No luck, but it was decidedly smaller with a good amount of area for glue on both sides of the crack. If it ever expands and becomes an issue, I'll figure out a way to deal with it.

Wood Gas Flooring Engineering City


My forearm is sore now. Pipe clamps take much less work than parallel jaw clamps.

Most of the boards have been netting 1 7/8" width. These 7 boards measure out to 13" total, half of my target width. We'll see how the rest do, but looks like I'll get away with a 14-board top instead of 15.
Nice. I don't think the cracked board will be a problem sandwiched in a lamination.

Jointer taper- I've got a grizzly jointer too. And I noticed the other day that the setup needs adjusting. All three knives are good on the fence side. but drop toward the front edge. Not sure if I can raise the cutterhead on just one side, or if I have to adjust all 3 knives. How'd you do it? Ehh, just got it last year. Need to learn more about it.
 

Attachments

#26 ·
Almost the whole top

Managed to get all four sections of the top glued up. A bit laborious, but pretty straightforward. Decided to take a suggestion and use some jatoba for contrast.
Wood Outdoor furniture Hardwood Wood stain Street furniture


The plan was to glue up 4 sections of boards. Then I'd flatten each section before gluing the sections together. The rationale was that it would be easier to flatten each section using the powered jointer and planer than it would be the entire top using hand planes.

There were two problems with this approach, both of which I found after the fact. The first problem is that the glued-up sections are heavy and unwieldy. Particularly so for a guy recovering from a fracture in the wrist.

Wood Gesture Finger Thumb Foot


I'm out of the cast now, but the wrist will take some time to fully recover. I discussed physical therapy options with the doc, but when he found out that I build furniture and play guitar, he figured I would get all the therapy I needed.

The second problem is that there is a small but inevitable amount of sag in a board suspended between two points. Even if the board is 2" thick, it will sag under its own weight even before adding the weight of the clamps.

So after glueing the sections, I had four pieces that were all less than flat and had a bow. I was able to run them through the planer to get them mostly flat, but my efforts with the jointer - even using a roller stand to support the infeed - were insufficient to remove the bow. The pieces had about 1/16" gap at the ends. I was committed to a particular board orientation, too, no way I could just flip a section around to have the bows coincide.

On a hunch, I checked with the Sagulator. I calculated that for a 2" thick cherry shelf 4.25 inches wide and supporting 50 lbs of clamps with supports 6' apart will result in a sag of 0.06". Oddly, this is almost exactly the amount of bow I had to contend with.

So I took the jointer to the boards. My interpretation of heft and hubris is a 24" long beech & ipe locomotive:
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Hardwood Varnish


I continued to use the sawhorses I started with. They were fine for glueing up a small number of boards, but really unsuited for being worked on.

Started being a big shaky gluing together two sections:
Building Wood Gas Engineering Machine


And very close to dangerous while working on fitting the third section:
Table Wood Picnic table Outdoor bench Outdoor furniture


Not to mention a really high and uncomfortable planing height. But the shavings were rather long and pretty:
Wood Hardwood Wood stain Naval architecture Automotive exterior


When I nearly tipped the whole thing over, I decided to make a better way to support the slab. Using scrap 1Ă—4s and 2Ă—4s, I built a pair of these:
Cabinetry Wood Natural material Hardwood Chest of drawers


Adjustable by changing the location of the horizontal piece between the two uprights. Easy peasy. Other than hauling the slab off the sawhorses and onto their new supports.

Finally got the third section fitted and glued:
Wood Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies Gas Hardwood Flooring


Adjusted the support height and fitted and glued up the fourth:
Wood Machine tool Hardwood Gas Engineering


Next step is the dog strip
 

Attachments

#27 ·
Almost the whole top

Managed to get all four sections of the top glued up. A bit laborious, but pretty straightforward. Decided to take a suggestion and use some jatoba for contrast.
Wood Outdoor furniture Hardwood Wood stain Street furniture


The plan was to glue up 4 sections of boards. Then I'd flatten each section before gluing the sections together. The rationale was that it would be easier to flatten each section using the powered jointer and planer than it would be the entire top using hand planes.

There were two problems with this approach, both of which I found after the fact. The first problem is that the glued-up sections are heavy and unwieldy. Particularly so for a guy recovering from a fracture in the wrist.

Wood Gesture Finger Thumb Foot


I'm out of the cast now, but the wrist will take some time to fully recover. I discussed physical therapy options with the doc, but when he found out that I build furniture and play guitar, he figured I would get all the therapy I needed.

The second problem is that there is a small but inevitable amount of sag in a board suspended between two points. Even if the board is 2" thick, it will sag under its own weight even before adding the weight of the clamps.

So after glueing the sections, I had four pieces that were all less than flat and had a bow. I was able to run them through the planer to get them mostly flat, but my efforts with the jointer - even using a roller stand to support the infeed - were insufficient to remove the bow. The pieces had about 1/16" gap at the ends. I was committed to a particular board orientation, too, no way I could just flip a section around to have the bows coincide.

On a hunch, I checked with the Sagulator. I calculated that for a 2" thick cherry shelf 4.25 inches wide and supporting 50 lbs of clamps with supports 6' apart will result in a sag of 0.06". Oddly, this is almost exactly the amount of bow I had to contend with.

So I took the jointer to the boards. My interpretation of heft and hubris is a 24" long beech & ipe locomotive:
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Hardwood Varnish


I continued to use the sawhorses I started with. They were fine for glueing up a small number of boards, but really unsuited for being worked on.

Started being a big shaky gluing together two sections:
Building Wood Gas Engineering Machine


And very close to dangerous while working on fitting the third section:
Table Wood Picnic table Outdoor bench Outdoor furniture


Not to mention a really high and uncomfortable planing height. But the shavings were rather long and pretty:
Wood Hardwood Wood stain Naval architecture Automotive exterior


When I nearly tipped the whole thing over, I decided to make a better way to support the slab. Using scrap 1Ă—4s and 2Ă—4s, I built a pair of these:
Cabinetry Wood Natural material Hardwood Chest of drawers


Adjustable by changing the location of the horizontal piece between the two uprights. Easy peasy. Other than hauling the slab off the sawhorses and onto their new supports.

Finally got the third section fitted and glued:
Wood Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies Gas Hardwood Flooring


Adjusted the support height and fitted and glued up the fourth:
Wood Machine tool Hardwood Gas Engineering


Next step is the dog strip
That stand is a really neat (and great!) idea to help make managing the top easier. I may have to build a set of those for my own workbench build!
 

Attachments

#28 ·
Square or round? Round or Square? Doggone it, somebody throw me a bone!!!

I knew I'd come to this point - and I don't mean throwing out pithy blog entry titles. I'd have to decide what kind of dog holes I want.

Jameel Abraham (Mr. Benchcrafted) feels pretty strongly that square dogs are the only way. Chris Schwarz used to be agnostic, but now has a strong preference for round dogs.

Lon Schleining suggests using both. Scott Landis doesn't really state a preference in his book, but most of the benches he shows have square holes.

Interestingly, Roubou's plate 11 bench doesn't have a vise, and therefore no dog holes. It does, however, have round holes for holdfasts. And a square planing stop.


So, naturally, I went with square holes.

A week ago, I milled the dog board. Got a piece of jatoba nice and straight, and cut off a chunk for where the wagon block will slide. That chunk will become the wagon block.

Today I built the jig to make the dog holes. Pretty basic stuff:
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Hardwood Composite material


I built it square, then cut a spacer with a 2° taper to slant the dogs. The spacer was from a 6-squared 2×10:
Furniture Table Rectangle Wood Wood stain


Fastened the spacer on the template at my mark:
Wood Brick Wood stain Window Siding


Next step was to cut a 3/8" slice off the edge of the dog boards. First, drill some holes for alignment when gluing back together:
Wood Tradesman Table Flooring Floor


I'd already laid out where the dog holes are going, so I made sure the alignment holes wouldn't get in the way. (The pencil lines are pretty faint in the pic.) And they are placed toward the bottom of the board. If the top ever gets flattened down far enough to expose the dowels, it is time for a new bench.

Then off to the bandsaw, small chunk first.
Wood Hardwood Wood stain Tool Plank


Good excuse to tune the bandsaw. The result is nice:
Table Rectangle Wood Plank Flooring


Then comes the long board:
Wood Table Motor vehicle Automotive tire Gas


And about 2 feet in, I notice the fence has slipped due to me putting a lot of lateral pressure on the board to keep it squared to the fence. Hasn't slipped much, but enough that I consider re-purposing the board for firewood.

I look in my lumber stash and find some 9/4 jatoba. Would be perfect, except it has over a 1/2" bow. Well, maybe I can salvage this board, just need to make it a bit thinner.

Tighten up the fence lock, set some featherboards to apply lateral pressure. And make the cut. Works out OK, except the one straight board is now two pieces of bacon. Serious reaction wood, I'm kind of glad I didn't use my tablesaw to do the cut. And they are bacon-y enough they may not even clamp flat. (I tried.)

And considering the firewood option again, I decide to see if I can make it work before abandoning the piece. That's the great thing about woodworking - if you screw up, you can always start a fire.

I try using the router to do the first dog hole:
Table Wood Rectangle Floor Flooring


Works OK, but is pretty hard on the router. I waste away most of the holes using my table saw and the tapered spacer.
Wood Wood stain Floor Flooring Composite material


Routing the rest of each hole is much easier.

I got about halfway through the board and called it a day. The interesting part will be trying to glue the thing back together.
 

Attachments

#29 ·
Square or round? Round or Square? Doggone it, somebody throw me a bone!!!

I knew I'd come to this point - and I don't mean throwing out pithy blog entry titles. I'd have to decide what kind of dog holes I want.

Jameel Abraham (Mr. Benchcrafted) feels pretty strongly that square dogs are the only way. Chris Schwarz used to be agnostic, but now has a strong preference for round dogs.

Lon Schleining suggests using both. Scott Landis doesn't really state a preference in his book, but most of the benches he shows have square holes.

Interestingly, Roubou's plate 11 bench doesn't have a vise, and therefore no dog holes. It does, however, have round holes for holdfasts. And a square planing stop.


So, naturally, I went with square holes.

A week ago, I milled the dog board. Got a piece of jatoba nice and straight, and cut off a chunk for where the wagon block will slide. That chunk will become the wagon block.

Today I built the jig to make the dog holes. Pretty basic stuff:
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Hardwood Composite material


I built it square, then cut a spacer with a 2° taper to slant the dogs. The spacer was from a 6-squared 2×10:
Furniture Table Rectangle Wood Wood stain


Fastened the spacer on the template at my mark:
Wood Brick Wood stain Window Siding


Next step was to cut a 3/8" slice off the edge of the dog boards. First, drill some holes for alignment when gluing back together:
Wood Tradesman Table Flooring Floor


I'd already laid out where the dog holes are going, so I made sure the alignment holes wouldn't get in the way. (The pencil lines are pretty faint in the pic.) And they are placed toward the bottom of the board. If the top ever gets flattened down far enough to expose the dowels, it is time for a new bench.

Then off to the bandsaw, small chunk first.
Wood Hardwood Wood stain Tool Plank


Good excuse to tune the bandsaw. The result is nice:
Table Rectangle Wood Plank Flooring


Then comes the long board:
Wood Table Motor vehicle Automotive tire Gas


And about 2 feet in, I notice the fence has slipped due to me putting a lot of lateral pressure on the board to keep it squared to the fence. Hasn't slipped much, but enough that I consider re-purposing the board for firewood.

I look in my lumber stash and find some 9/4 jatoba. Would be perfect, except it has over a 1/2" bow. Well, maybe I can salvage this board, just need to make it a bit thinner.

Tighten up the fence lock, set some featherboards to apply lateral pressure. And make the cut. Works out OK, except the one straight board is now two pieces of bacon. Serious reaction wood, I'm kind of glad I didn't use my tablesaw to do the cut. And they are bacon-y enough they may not even clamp flat. (I tried.)

And considering the firewood option again, I decide to see if I can make it work before abandoning the piece. That's the great thing about woodworking - if you screw up, you can always start a fire.

I try using the router to do the first dog hole:
Table Wood Rectangle Floor Flooring


Works OK, but is pretty hard on the router. I waste away most of the holes using my table saw and the tapered spacer.
Wood Wood stain Floor Flooring Composite material


Routing the rest of each hole is much easier.

I got about halfway through the board and called it a day. The interesting part will be trying to glue the thing back together.
I can't believe you went with square holes. Your so gonna regret it….lol. I can see tiny advantages to each, but either will hold your work.

Looking good man.
 

Attachments

#36 ·
Mmmm, bacon

I finished routing out dog holes. Here's what the jig looked like clamped over one of the roughed-out holes:
Wood Gas Composite material Hardwood Plywood


Pretty straightforward, taking 1/16" or less off each side. A bit more work on the head recess, but way easier than hogging out the whole hole with the router.

The darker area on the top of the jig is wax.

And here's what I mean by bacon:
Wood Tradesman Composite material Gas Engineering


Those two boards should be flat and fit together without gaps! Instead I have 3/4" warpage over 4".

I was hoping that I'd be able to clamp them flat during glue-up. So I did a dry clamp using the existing portion of the top as a massive caul on one side:
Wood Gas Engineering Machine Composite material


A couple of clamps short, good excuse to get some more :)

Surprisingly, it was reasonably good. Not perfect, so I decided to mill the last (front) board and use that as a caul on the top side:
Wood Engineering Gas Automotive wheel system Machine


This also gives me my final top width - approximately 25 1/2". Didn't quite get the same yield on the jatoba boards as I did on the cherry, plus lost some more with resawing and trying to reflatten the two pieces of the dog board. Close enough to my target of 26".

Put some glue on the puppy and let it sit in clamps for 48 hours. There are a couple of small gaps at the glue line, maybe on the order of 1/64". None are large enough for the camera to pick up. I'll probably try to get some epoxy in those gaps, mostly for aesthetic reasons.

After I released the clamps, the board stayed straight, so I'd consider this part of the process a success.

While I was at it, I also glued up the traveller block. I had enough from the cut off that I routed two holes, just in case I mess one up later.
Wood Building sets Red Font Urban design


Because the dog in the traveller needs to be sloped opposite to the dogs in the rest of the board, the easy way to do it is cut/route the dogs the same, and then simply turn the traveller around. That, however, means that the thin side of the two-part board will now be on the opposite side and there is the potential that the dog hole in the traveller will not quite line up with the rest of the dog holes. Not to mention that the glue line will switch sides and the grain direction will be reversed.

So OCD kicked in. I rebuilt the jig as a mirror image top/bottom and cut/routed the traveller so the dog hole will be sloped in the correct direction while the board maintains the "correct" orientation. Probably no one will ever notice that but me.
 

Attachments

#37 ·
Mmmm, bacon

I finished routing out dog holes. Here's what the jig looked like clamped over one of the roughed-out holes:
Wood Gas Composite material Hardwood Plywood


Pretty straightforward, taking 1/16" or less off each side. A bit more work on the head recess, but way easier than hogging out the whole hole with the router.

The darker area on the top of the jig is wax.

And here's what I mean by bacon:
Wood Tradesman Composite material Gas Engineering


Those two boards should be flat and fit together without gaps! Instead I have 3/4" warpage over 4".

I was hoping that I'd be able to clamp them flat during glue-up. So I did a dry clamp using the existing portion of the top as a massive caul on one side:
Wood Gas Engineering Machine Composite material


A couple of clamps short, good excuse to get some more :)

Surprisingly, it was reasonably good. Not perfect, so I decided to mill the last (front) board and use that as a caul on the top side:
Wood Engineering Gas Automotive wheel system Machine


This also gives me my final top width - approximately 25 1/2". Didn't quite get the same yield on the jatoba boards as I did on the cherry, plus lost some more with resawing and trying to reflatten the two pieces of the dog board. Close enough to my target of 26".

Put some glue on the puppy and let it sit in clamps for 48 hours. There are a couple of small gaps at the glue line, maybe on the order of 1/64". None are large enough for the camera to pick up. I'll probably try to get some epoxy in those gaps, mostly for aesthetic reasons.

After I released the clamps, the board stayed straight, so I'd consider this part of the process a success.

While I was at it, I also glued up the traveller block. I had enough from the cut off that I routed two holes, just in case I mess one up later.
Wood Building sets Red Font Urban design


Because the dog in the traveller needs to be sloped opposite to the dogs in the rest of the board, the easy way to do it is cut/route the dogs the same, and then simply turn the traveller around. That, however, means that the thin side of the two-part board will now be on the opposite side and there is the potential that the dog hole in the traveller will not quite line up with the rest of the dog holes. Not to mention that the glue line will switch sides and the grain direction will be reversed.

So OCD kicked in. I rebuilt the jig as a mirror image top/bottom and cut/routed the traveller so the dog hole will be sloped in the correct direction while the board maintains the "correct" orientation. Probably no one will ever notice that but me.
A lot of great looking work, Mark! Dog hole board looks fine, and the wagon vice parts, too. Watching your wagon vice build with much OCD enthusiasm. :)

Hey, how do you like those pipe clamps with the tall red feet? ShopFox? Bessey? Seen them online, but wondered if they were better than the Jorgenson's from the Borg? No shop has enough clamps…
 

Attachments

#44 ·
The Left Tongue

I'm going to have end caps on my bench, which will work something like a scaled-up breadboard end. The purpose isn't to help hold the top flat, though. On the right end - where the wagon vise is located - the end cap holds the vise screw in place. On the left end, the end cap is mostly to balance out the look of the right end.

It is a big slab. Approximately 25" wide and nearly 4" thick. Even if I had a euro-style slider saw with a 12" blade, I'm not sure the sliding table would take the 200-lb weight of the slab. Although that would be a very easy way to make the necessary cross cuts.

Neither do I have the patience to use a (hand-powered) panel saw to work something this large. Don't know if I could be as precise as I want, either.

So I resorted to using my trusty circular saw. Even went out and bought a new blade.

The biggest problem when using a saw when you have to cut from both side to make a through cut is to get the cuts to line up. The solution is to build a collar that you clamp around the piece. The collar just needs to have guide faces that are coplanar and perpendicular to the piece. It is pretty straightforward to make.

Take a couple of scraps - plywood or hardwood - maybe 4" wide and a bit longer than the piece is wide. They need 1 face and 1 edge flat and squared to each other. Also cut a couple of blocks to be just longer than the piece is thick - maybe by 1/64" to 1/32".

Using a flat assembly table, build something that looks like this:
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Plank Hardwood


The blocks are spaced so the collar can slip around the slab. Easy!

Second step is to make sure the saw blade is 90° to the base
Wood Finger Flooring Hardwood Engineering


Third step is to measure the offset from the blade to the edge of the saw's base. In my case, 5 1/16".
Tape measure Wood Plant Rectangle Ruler


Next, lay out the cut lines:
Wood Rectangle Road surface Flooring Floor


Line 1 is the outer end of the tongue, while line 2 is the inside shoulder. Lines 3 and 4 are then offset by the saw's cut offset.

Slide the collar over the end of the slab and clamp it on Line #3 to start:
Table Wood Wood stain Hardwood Plank


Set the saw blade to cut through 1/2 the slab and then make the first cut with the saw against the guide. Then, keeping the collar clamped in place, flip over the slab and make the second cut:
Table Wood Outdoor furniture Wood stain Plank


In this case, I didn't have the saw blade extended quite enough. However, the remaining bit was easy enough to break by using a mallet.

Wood Rectangle Flooring Hardwood Wood stain


You'll notice that the cuts don't quite line up. Assuming your technique resulted in even cuts on both sides, this means that the edges of the collar aren't perpendicular and coplanar to the slab face. Using a square to check, I shimmed one edge of the collar using a couple strips of masking tape. All is good:
Table Saw Wood Tool Workbench


Flip the slab back over and reset the collar to line #4. And reset the saw blade depth to be the shoulder depth you want. In my case, 1 1/4". Make the cut:
Wood Gas Hardwood Wood stain Machine


Here's the easiest way to cut the rest of the tongue's shoulder - use your saw to freehand closely spaced kerfs:
Wood Flooring Hardwood Rectangle Composite material


The kerfs should be spaced closely enough so the you can easily break off the remaining strips of wood with finger pressure. Then use some sharp friends to clean up the shoulder. I used a slick, a chisel and a router plane but there are other ways to skin that cat…

Make sure the collar stays clamped in place during the kerfing and cleanup, because you need to flip the slab over and repeat the process.

Voila - you now have a tongue on the end of the slab.
Wood Musical instrument Wheel Tire Hardwood
 

Attachments

#45 ·
The Left Tongue

I'm going to have end caps on my bench, which will work something like a scaled-up breadboard end. The purpose isn't to help hold the top flat, though. On the right end - where the wagon vise is located - the end cap holds the vise screw in place. On the left end, the end cap is mostly to balance out the look of the right end.

It is a big slab. Approximately 25" wide and nearly 4" thick. Even if I had a euro-style slider saw with a 12" blade, I'm not sure the sliding table would take the 200-lb weight of the slab. Although that would be a very easy way to make the necessary cross cuts.

Neither do I have the patience to use a (hand-powered) panel saw to work something this large. Don't know if I could be as precise as I want, either.

So I resorted to using my trusty circular saw. Even went out and bought a new blade.

The biggest problem when using a saw when you have to cut from both side to make a through cut is to get the cuts to line up. The solution is to build a collar that you clamp around the piece. The collar just needs to have guide faces that are coplanar and perpendicular to the piece. It is pretty straightforward to make.

Take a couple of scraps - plywood or hardwood - maybe 4" wide and a bit longer than the piece is wide. They need 1 face and 1 edge flat and squared to each other. Also cut a couple of blocks to be just longer than the piece is thick - maybe by 1/64" to 1/32".

Using a flat assembly table, build something that looks like this:
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Plank Hardwood


The blocks are spaced so the collar can slip around the slab. Easy!

Second step is to make sure the saw blade is 90° to the base
Wood Finger Flooring Hardwood Engineering


Third step is to measure the offset from the blade to the edge of the saw's base. In my case, 5 1/16".
Tape measure Wood Plant Rectangle Ruler


Next, lay out the cut lines:
Wood Rectangle Road surface Flooring Floor


Line 1 is the outer end of the tongue, while line 2 is the inside shoulder. Lines 3 and 4 are then offset by the saw's cut offset.

Slide the collar over the end of the slab and clamp it on Line #3 to start:
Table Wood Wood stain Hardwood Plank


Set the saw blade to cut through 1/2 the slab and then make the first cut with the saw against the guide. Then, keeping the collar clamped in place, flip over the slab and make the second cut:
Table Wood Outdoor furniture Wood stain Plank


In this case, I didn't have the saw blade extended quite enough. However, the remaining bit was easy enough to break by using a mallet.

Wood Rectangle Flooring Hardwood Wood stain


You'll notice that the cuts don't quite line up. Assuming your technique resulted in even cuts on both sides, this means that the edges of the collar aren't perpendicular and coplanar to the slab face. Using a square to check, I shimmed one edge of the collar using a couple strips of masking tape. All is good:
Table Saw Wood Tool Workbench


Flip the slab back over and reset the collar to line #4. And reset the saw blade depth to be the shoulder depth you want. In my case, 1 1/4". Make the cut:
Wood Gas Hardwood Wood stain Machine


Here's the easiest way to cut the rest of the tongue's shoulder - use your saw to freehand closely spaced kerfs:
Wood Flooring Hardwood Rectangle Composite material


The kerfs should be spaced closely enough so the you can easily break off the remaining strips of wood with finger pressure. Then use some sharp friends to clean up the shoulder. I used a slick, a chisel and a router plane but there are other ways to skin that cat…

Make sure the collar stays clamped in place during the kerfing and cleanup, because you need to flip the slab over and repeat the process.

Voila - you now have a tongue on the end of the slab.
Wood Musical instrument Wheel Tire Hardwood
Nice! Well done Mark!
 

Attachments

#46 ·
The Right Tongue

The layout for the vise end tongue is a bit more involved because you need to factor in your vise screw, traveller and dog block. Unless you can fabricate them yourself after you make the cuts to your benchtop, you pretty much need to have all those pieces in hand at this point.

I assembled my vise screw, flange and traveller. And the dog block.
Wood Rectangle Machine tool Hardwood Composite material


That's actually two dog blocks in one piece. I'll cut that apart when I eventually assemble the vise. Keeping it as a larger piece for now gives me a bit of room to make adjustments for fit later.

Setting the vise for maximum extension, lay it out on the bench where the traveller would touch the dog strip.
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Hardwood Flooring


I marked out a couple points where the traveller would sit, but that's probably not necessary. What is necessary is to mark out a point about 1/4" beyond where the maximum travel would be. That mark will be used later when adding the hardware to hold the traveller in place. (You can always make that mark later, too.)

And mark the other end. The flange gets bolted to the outside of the end cap, so mark where the inside of the flange will sit.
Wood Table Automotive tire Rectangle Sports equipment


You did plan out where your dog strip should end, right? Going back to the benchtop slab construction, you have to plan for the length of your vise screw. You can always build the slab too long and cut it down, but why waste a bunch of lumber?

Brown Ruler Table Office ruler Wood


The next bit of the layout is critical. I marked off another 1/4" from the inside of the flange just to ensure I had a bit of breathing room. This mark represents the outer edge of my end cap. Then I marked off the final width of my end cap - 2 15/16" in this case. That mark represents where the end cap meets the inside edge of the tongue's shoulder.

And then I add another mark - the length of the tongue.
Rectangle Wood Flooring Wood stain Hardwood


To recap - Line 1 is the inside edge of the flange from the direct layout. Line 2 gives me 1/4" margin for error. Line 3 is the end cap width and line 4 is the tongue depth.

Next, mark off the saw cut offset from lines 3 and 4:
Ruler Table Office ruler Rectangle Wood


Square them across with a big square:
Rectangle Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain


I learned something about my benchtop at this point. As the square isn't quite long enough to reach across the top, I tried to use the square from both sides. It didn't line up. And I know my square is square. This means that over the course of glueing up the top - likely when I used my hand planes to joint some of the boards - one or more of the boards got somewhat wedge shaped. It isn't off by much - not enough so you'd notice when looking at it - but enough to make a difference when laying out lines. So I decided to use the front face as my reference and leave it at that. All the pieces will get individually fitted, so being off by something less than 1/16" over 7' doesn't pose an issue.

Then clamp the collar on and cut half the end:
Saw Wood Flooring Abrasive saw Floor


Flip and repeat:
Wood Rectangle Composite material Flooring Hardwood


Note the burning! I'm not so impressed with this brand new blade. The only thing it has ever done is make the cross cuts for ends of this benchtop, and it is seriously struggling. I won't buy this brand again.

Reset the collar:
Table Wood Saw Wood stain Outdoor furniture


Cut, kerf and clean. Followed by a flip. Cut, kerf and clean again. There is now a second tongue on the benchtop:
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Flooring Floor
 

Attachments

#47 ·
The Right Tongue

The layout for the vise end tongue is a bit more involved because you need to factor in your vise screw, traveller and dog block. Unless you can fabricate them yourself after you make the cuts to your benchtop, you pretty much need to have all those pieces in hand at this point.

I assembled my vise screw, flange and traveller. And the dog block.
Wood Rectangle Machine tool Hardwood Composite material


That's actually two dog blocks in one piece. I'll cut that apart when I eventually assemble the vise. Keeping it as a larger piece for now gives me a bit of room to make adjustments for fit later.

Setting the vise for maximum extension, lay it out on the bench where the traveller would touch the dog strip.
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Hardwood Flooring


I marked out a couple points where the traveller would sit, but that's probably not necessary. What is necessary is to mark out a point about 1/4" beyond where the maximum travel would be. That mark will be used later when adding the hardware to hold the traveller in place. (You can always make that mark later, too.)

And mark the other end. The flange gets bolted to the outside of the end cap, so mark where the inside of the flange will sit.
Wood Table Automotive tire Rectangle Sports equipment


You did plan out where your dog strip should end, right? Going back to the benchtop slab construction, you have to plan for the length of your vise screw. You can always build the slab too long and cut it down, but why waste a bunch of lumber?

Brown Ruler Table Office ruler Wood


The next bit of the layout is critical. I marked off another 1/4" from the inside of the flange just to ensure I had a bit of breathing room. This mark represents the outer edge of my end cap. Then I marked off the final width of my end cap - 2 15/16" in this case. That mark represents where the end cap meets the inside edge of the tongue's shoulder.

And then I add another mark - the length of the tongue.
Rectangle Wood Flooring Wood stain Hardwood


To recap - Line 1 is the inside edge of the flange from the direct layout. Line 2 gives me 1/4" margin for error. Line 3 is the end cap width and line 4 is the tongue depth.

Next, mark off the saw cut offset from lines 3 and 4:
Ruler Table Office ruler Rectangle Wood


Square them across with a big square:
Rectangle Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain


I learned something about my benchtop at this point. As the square isn't quite long enough to reach across the top, I tried to use the square from both sides. It didn't line up. And I know my square is square. This means that over the course of glueing up the top - likely when I used my hand planes to joint some of the boards - one or more of the boards got somewhat wedge shaped. It isn't off by much - not enough so you'd notice when looking at it - but enough to make a difference when laying out lines. So I decided to use the front face as my reference and leave it at that. All the pieces will get individually fitted, so being off by something less than 1/16" over 7' doesn't pose an issue.

Then clamp the collar on and cut half the end:
Saw Wood Flooring Abrasive saw Floor


Flip and repeat:
Wood Rectangle Composite material Flooring Hardwood


Note the burning! I'm not so impressed with this brand new blade. The only thing it has ever done is make the cross cuts for ends of this benchtop, and it is seriously struggling. I won't buy this brand again.

Reset the collar:
Table Wood Saw Wood stain Outdoor furniture


Cut, kerf and clean. Followed by a flip. Cut, kerf and clean again. There is now a second tongue on the benchtop:
Wood Rectangle Wood stain Flooring Floor
The problem with most circular saw blades is they are made to cut 2Ă—4s.

Good call on the 1/16" over 7'. I am pretty confident it'll be perfect.
 

Attachments

#52 ·
Vise End Cap

Finally got some time to get back on the bench. After all, its only been 5 months since I last worked on it.

Decided to tackle the end cap on the vise side. Condor tails for joinery, naturally :)

Popular Woodworking recently sent out an email with article from Jameel Abraham (Mr. Benchcrafted) on the process, pretty easy to follow. Link: http://www.popularwoodworking.com/techniques/make-condor-tails

First, though, I laid out the tails full size and played around with sizes to get something that looked right. I ended up with this:
Handwriting Wood Font Rectangle Parallel


And the result was:
Table Wood Textile Rectangle Wood stain


They are a bit loose as a result of me trying to see pencil lines on the dark end grain of the jatoba. Fixable, but I'll be using the masking tape trick to do the other end.

Before fitting the end cap, I decided to clean up the shoulders of the end tenon. I had noticed some flex in the circular saw I used to cut the shoulders which meant that they weren't consistently 90° to the surface. Get out the router and short pattern bit (well, it was already out from cutting the condor tail sockets) and square the shoulder and very lightly clean up the cheek of the tenon.

Pneumatic tool Saw Furniture Handheld power drill Table


Also cut off the ends of the tenon with a hand saw. Didn't need to be terribly precise:
Brown Wood Wood stain Hardwood Flooring


As I used the long pattern bit to clean that up:
Wood Table Tool Hardwood Wood stain


Led to:
Wood Sculpture Hardwood Art Composite material


I thought I had the bit extended to just past halfway, but after I turned it over and did the same thing from the other surface it turns out I was about 1/32" short. The rest was easy to clean off with a chisel.

Next step was to mortise the cavity into the end cap. Router motising jig to get most of it and then chisels to square off the ends:
Furniture Table Wood Musical instrument Wood stain


I made the cavity slightly (< 1/32") under width, so when I flipped over the slab to clean the tenon shoulder and cheek with the router, I was able to trim the cheek to get a perfect fit.

How does it fit?
Wood Flooring Floor Beige Hardwood


A couple problems became apparent.

First, the tenon is not a consistent length. I set my mortise depth from one end of the tenon, looks like the other end is 1/16" long. I tried to use a block plane to trim the tenon down, but taking off 1/16" of end grain with a hand plane seems like a waste of time when I can use a router.

The other issue is that the shoulders do not line up. Either the collar jig I used was wonky (there's a technical term for you) or the circ saw flexed a lot more than I thought. Or both. Probably both. Anyways, I'll have to fix that, too, before I move on.

But I had to see what it looked like before I quit for the day:
Table Furniture Wood Desk Flooring
 

Attachments

#53 ·
Vise End Cap

Finally got some time to get back on the bench. After all, its only been 5 months since I last worked on it.

Decided to tackle the end cap on the vise side. Condor tails for joinery, naturally :)

Popular Woodworking recently sent out an email with article from Jameel Abraham (Mr. Benchcrafted) on the process, pretty easy to follow. Link: http://www.popularwoodworking.com/techniques/make-condor-tails

First, though, I laid out the tails full size and played around with sizes to get something that looked right. I ended up with this:
Handwriting Wood Font Rectangle Parallel


And the result was:
Table Wood Textile Rectangle Wood stain


They are a bit loose as a result of me trying to see pencil lines on the dark end grain of the jatoba. Fixable, but I'll be using the masking tape trick to do the other end.

Before fitting the end cap, I decided to clean up the shoulders of the end tenon. I had noticed some flex in the circular saw I used to cut the shoulders which meant that they weren't consistently 90° to the surface. Get out the router and short pattern bit (well, it was already out from cutting the condor tail sockets) and square the shoulder and very lightly clean up the cheek of the tenon.

Pneumatic tool Saw Furniture Handheld power drill Table


Also cut off the ends of the tenon with a hand saw. Didn't need to be terribly precise:
Brown Wood Wood stain Hardwood Flooring


As I used the long pattern bit to clean that up:
Wood Table Tool Hardwood Wood stain


Led to:
Wood Sculpture Hardwood Art Composite material


I thought I had the bit extended to just past halfway, but after I turned it over and did the same thing from the other surface it turns out I was about 1/32" short. The rest was easy to clean off with a chisel.

Next step was to mortise the cavity into the end cap. Router motising jig to get most of it and then chisels to square off the ends:
Furniture Table Wood Musical instrument Wood stain


I made the cavity slightly (< 1/32") under width, so when I flipped over the slab to clean the tenon shoulder and cheek with the router, I was able to trim the cheek to get a perfect fit.

How does it fit?
Wood Flooring Floor Beige Hardwood


A couple problems became apparent.

First, the tenon is not a consistent length. I set my mortise depth from one end of the tenon, looks like the other end is 1/16" long. I tried to use a block plane to trim the tenon down, but taking off 1/16" of end grain with a hand plane seems like a waste of time when I can use a router.

The other issue is that the shoulders do not line up. Either the collar jig I used was wonky (there's a technical term for you) or the circ saw flexed a lot more than I thought. Or both. Probably both. Anyways, I'll have to fix that, too, before I move on.

But I had to see what it looked like before I quit for the day:
Table Furniture Wood Desk Flooring
Looks real good, its all about trying and learning. You doing both really well..
 

Attachments

#60 ·
More on the vise end cap

Trimming the tenon cheeks and shoulders was fairly straightforward. The hardest part was flipping the 200 lb slab every 5 minutes…

There were two issues. First, the tenon shoulders weren't coplanar. In fact, they formed a kind of X. I doubt my collar jig was that bad, so I'm inclined to think there was a lot of flex in the circ saw, and probably exacerbated by the blade burning issue.

The second issue is that the tenon depth was uneven. That's a layout problem.

It was probably too much to ask to get a perfectly cut tenon from a circular saw, anyways, so I'd recommend planning on trimming/squaring it up from the start.

Here's the non-coplanar issue:
Brown Wood Beige Rectangle Wood stain


I have a track that clamps across a board and has a slide I can attach to my router. So I figured out the relevant offsets and carefully laid out a square line across the slab at the desired location. Because I need to do this operation on both sides, I extended the layout lines down the sides of the slab, too. Then I clamped the track on the line:
Wood Drill Drilling Workbench Machine tool


Set the plunge depth to a hair less than the shoulder depth. The tenon is already trimmed to width so I don't want to touch that. I'll use a chisel to trim off the little sliver I miss with the router.

The first trim:
Wood Table Flooring Wood stain Floor


A little bit of tearout in the middle where I attempted a climb cut. D'oh! And that's the top :-(

I was very careful when I extended my layout lines across down the sides. I need to flip the slab and reset the track on the other side. I then had this idea that I could clamp squares in place to register the track against after the flip:
Wood Radial arm saw Table Carpenter Flooring


Surprisingly, that worked perfectly. I removed the track, carefully flipped the slab and gently reset the track. Looked like it lined up, so I went for it. Dead on. No pics, you'll see the fit later.

The next step was to trim the tenons to depth. I have an adjustable edge guide jig I use with my router, and I started with that. I removed the adjustable part and attached a fixed-depth fence. Nothing special about that, just a piece of scrap plywood cut to the right width. It was set to just touch the router bit.
Wood Table Wood stain Hardwood Workbench


And here's how it looks poised for action:
Wood Engineering Gas Machine Machine tool


Set the plunge depth to half way, and take a pass:
Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain Hardwood


Flip the slab, do the other side. The end cap fits perfectly, no need to undercut anything.
Wood Flooring Rectangle Wood stain Floor


I got a start on fitting the vise hardware. That'll be the next blog post.
 

Attachments

#61 ·
More on the vise end cap

Trimming the tenon cheeks and shoulders was fairly straightforward. The hardest part was flipping the 200 lb slab every 5 minutes…

There were two issues. First, the tenon shoulders weren't coplanar. In fact, they formed a kind of X. I doubt my collar jig was that bad, so I'm inclined to think there was a lot of flex in the circ saw, and probably exacerbated by the blade burning issue.

The second issue is that the tenon depth was uneven. That's a layout problem.

It was probably too much to ask to get a perfectly cut tenon from a circular saw, anyways, so I'd recommend planning on trimming/squaring it up from the start.

Here's the non-coplanar issue:
Brown Wood Beige Rectangle Wood stain


I have a track that clamps across a board and has a slide I can attach to my router. So I figured out the relevant offsets and carefully laid out a square line across the slab at the desired location. Because I need to do this operation on both sides, I extended the layout lines down the sides of the slab, too. Then I clamped the track on the line:
Wood Drill Drilling Workbench Machine tool


Set the plunge depth to a hair less than the shoulder depth. The tenon is already trimmed to width so I don't want to touch that. I'll use a chisel to trim off the little sliver I miss with the router.

The first trim:
Wood Table Flooring Wood stain Floor


A little bit of tearout in the middle where I attempted a climb cut. D'oh! And that's the top :-(

I was very careful when I extended my layout lines across down the sides. I need to flip the slab and reset the track on the other side. I then had this idea that I could clamp squares in place to register the track against after the flip:
Wood Radial arm saw Table Carpenter Flooring


Surprisingly, that worked perfectly. I removed the track, carefully flipped the slab and gently reset the track. Looked like it lined up, so I went for it. Dead on. No pics, you'll see the fit later.

The next step was to trim the tenons to depth. I have an adjustable edge guide jig I use with my router, and I started with that. I removed the adjustable part and attached a fixed-depth fence. Nothing special about that, just a piece of scrap plywood cut to the right width. It was set to just touch the router bit.
Wood Table Wood stain Hardwood Workbench


And here's how it looks poised for action:
Wood Engineering Gas Machine Machine tool


Set the plunge depth to half way, and take a pass:
Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain Hardwood


Flip the slab, do the other side. The end cap fits perfectly, no need to undercut anything.
Wood Flooring Rectangle Wood stain Floor


I got a start on fitting the vise hardware. That'll be the next blog post.
That turned out nice! You're making me want to build another bench, lol!
 

Attachments

#64 ·
Wagon Vise Install

With the end cap being fitted and condor tail joinery cut, the next step was to start the process of fitting the wagon vise.

First step: excavate the cavity where the screw/traveller will sit. I fit the edge guide attachment to my router base and adjusted it to my layout:
Wood Saw Table Workbench Tool


A bunch of sawdust later, there is a cavity for the traveller:
Wood Flooring Floor Urban design Composite material


I really should move my oil rag can somewhere it won't be a dust collector :)

Put the end cap back on to see how it looks from the other side:
Wood Rectangle Flooring Floor Beige


Oops! This is where re-reading the instructions and checking my layout assumptions would have helped. The end tongue and consequent mortise in the end cap is too long. I may end up having to glue a small block in the hole as there is a bolt going in that area.

Once I lined everything up again, I laid out for the bolts to hold the end cap in place. Nothing fancy, just 6" long cap screws set into a counterbore:
Table Wood Workbench Hardwood Desk


To get access to the other end of the bolt, I put in 1 1/2" wide, 2 1/2" deep mortises where the bolts end. Used the clamp guide and corresponding router base to make sure they lined up.
Rectangle Window Wood Door Hardwood


Laid out all the vise hardware to see how it looks/fits:
Table Furniture Desk Wood Workbench


I can't complete the vise install just yet. I need to install the other end cap and get the front board glued on before I can cut the grooves for the tracks.
 

Attachments

#65 ·
Wagon Vise Install

With the end cap being fitted and condor tail joinery cut, the next step was to start the process of fitting the wagon vise.

First step: excavate the cavity where the screw/traveller will sit. I fit the edge guide attachment to my router base and adjusted it to my layout:
Wood Saw Table Workbench Tool


A bunch of sawdust later, there is a cavity for the traveller:
Wood Flooring Floor Urban design Composite material


I really should move my oil rag can somewhere it won't be a dust collector :)

Put the end cap back on to see how it looks from the other side:
Wood Rectangle Flooring Floor Beige


Oops! This is where re-reading the instructions and checking my layout assumptions would have helped. The end tongue and consequent mortise in the end cap is too long. I may end up having to glue a small block in the hole as there is a bolt going in that area.

Once I lined everything up again, I laid out for the bolts to hold the end cap in place. Nothing fancy, just 6" long cap screws set into a counterbore:
Table Wood Workbench Hardwood Desk


To get access to the other end of the bolt, I put in 1 1/2" wide, 2 1/2" deep mortises where the bolts end. Used the clamp guide and corresponding router base to make sure they lined up.
Rectangle Window Wood Door Hardwood


Laid out all the vise hardware to see how it looks/fits:
Table Furniture Desk Wood Workbench


I can't complete the vise install just yet. I need to install the other end cap and get the front board glued on before I can cut the grooves for the tracks.
Mark, your shop looks suspiciously clean for such a good build :)

Great job, can't wait to see this work bench done and in action!
 

Attachments

#71 ·
The Other End Cap

The process for truing up the tongue and mortising the end cap for the non-vise end was the same as for the vise end, so I'll avoid repeating myself.

Once I had the end cap fit, I needed to cut the condor tails. I carefully laid out the front board and got a back shoulder cut precisely. Important, because the tails on the front board have to fit into sockets on both ends. And those sockets are at fixed locations. Once I got that right, I proceeded to cut the tails on the band saw, cleaning up with a chisel.

On to the sockets. Learning from the vise end, I used the masking tape trick to do the layout. Pretty simple, put some masking tape over the end board, and then knife the outline of the tails into the masking tape. Then remove the cut out bits to leave the silhouette of the tails:
Automotive tire Wood Flooring Motor vehicle Urban design


It makes it so much easier to see the outline while freehand routing:
Wood Flooring Hardwood Rectangle Font


The edge of the tape then becomes the chisel guide. It isn't much of a ridge, but it is enough to register a chisel against. Makes it easy to clean up the boundaries of the socket.
Wood Bag Denim Luggage and bags Pattern


Results in a near-perfect fit
Wood Table Flooring Floor Line


Finish up, and see how it fits:
Table Window Wood Cabinetry Picture frame


Table Cabinetry Property Furniture Wood


Then drill/route for the bolts to hold on the end cap. The center bore holes are oversize to allow for movement and a little bit of adjustability. 3/8" bolt into a 17/64" hole.

And bolted on:
Table Wood Wood stain Rectangle Flooring


Hey! It is cleaned off!

Because the next step is to glue the front board on. Getting ready:
Window Wood Loom Hardwood Watercraft


And a few minutes of panic later:
Window Wood Building Floor Flooring


To help in getting the end caps positioned exactly, I left the bolts a bit less than tight. They would move under clamp pressure or with a whack from the mallet. Once I got everything clamped together I then tightened up the bolts.

Last thing was to glue some wedges into the loose-fitting condor tails. Grain orientation matches the adjacent tail so hoping that the fix won't be noticeable from more than a couple feet away.
Wood Flooring Floor Household cleaning supply Wood stain


Cleaned up while the glue was setting. Amazing how much stuff needs to be put away. Lots of router detritus everywhere. Yuri, this is for you:
Automotive tire Tire Motor vehicle Gas Automotive exterior
 

Attachments

#72 ·
The Other End Cap

The process for truing up the tongue and mortising the end cap for the non-vise end was the same as for the vise end, so I'll avoid repeating myself.

Once I had the end cap fit, I needed to cut the condor tails. I carefully laid out the front board and got a back shoulder cut precisely. Important, because the tails on the front board have to fit into sockets on both ends. And those sockets are at fixed locations. Once I got that right, I proceeded to cut the tails on the band saw, cleaning up with a chisel.

On to the sockets. Learning from the vise end, I used the masking tape trick to do the layout. Pretty simple, put some masking tape over the end board, and then knife the outline of the tails into the masking tape. Then remove the cut out bits to leave the silhouette of the tails:
Automotive tire Wood Flooring Motor vehicle Urban design


It makes it so much easier to see the outline while freehand routing:
Wood Flooring Hardwood Rectangle Font


The edge of the tape then becomes the chisel guide. It isn't much of a ridge, but it is enough to register a chisel against. Makes it easy to clean up the boundaries of the socket.
Wood Bag Denim Luggage and bags Pattern


Results in a near-perfect fit
Wood Table Flooring Floor Line


Finish up, and see how it fits:
Table Window Wood Cabinetry Picture frame


Table Cabinetry Property Furniture Wood


Then drill/route for the bolts to hold on the end cap. The center bore holes are oversize to allow for movement and a little bit of adjustability. 3/8" bolt into a 17/64" hole.

And bolted on:
Table Wood Wood stain Rectangle Flooring


Hey! It is cleaned off!

Because the next step is to glue the front board on. Getting ready:
Window Wood Loom Hardwood Watercraft


And a few minutes of panic later:
Window Wood Building Floor Flooring


To help in getting the end caps positioned exactly, I left the bolts a bit less than tight. They would move under clamp pressure or with a whack from the mallet. Once I got everything clamped together I then tightened up the bolts.

Last thing was to glue some wedges into the loose-fitting condor tails. Grain orientation matches the adjacent tail so hoping that the fix won't be noticeable from more than a couple feet away.
Wood Flooring Floor Household cleaning supply Wood stain


Cleaned up while the glue was setting. Amazing how much stuff needs to be put away. Lots of router detritus everywhere. Yuri, this is for you:
Automotive tire Tire Motor vehicle Gas Automotive exterior
Lots of router detritus everywhere.
I'd call this "some detritus", not "lots", but anyway that's better :)

But speaking seriously I do envy how well organized your shop is, no doubt the work bench gonna fit perfectly into it. Once again, pretty cool build!
 

Attachments

#74 ·
Finishing the Wagon Vise Install

First, for Terry -

Step 1:
Window Wood Table Flooring Wood stain


Step 2:
Table Wood Window Wood stain Varnish


Step 3:
Wood Table Interior design Flooring Floor


Step 4:
Table Furniture Building Window Wood


Kinda like eating an elephant. A little bit at a time…

---

You know how it is when you head into the shop at 9 a.m. thinking you've got a fairly simple task to do, should take about an hour and you can move on to the next part of the project? And then you realize you need to take care of a detail before you can do that one thing? But before you take care of the detail you need to take care of something else and it doesn't work out right. So you need to figure something else out. And all of a sudden it is 5 p.m. and you've just finished that one simple thing? Missing lunch in the process?

Yeah, it was one of those days.

Before doing the legs, I wanted to finish up the wagon vise install. Pretty simple, route the slots for the guides and mount them up. A couple passes with the router and edge guide. How hard can it be?

Well, first, I needed to do a bit of flattening on the bottom. I had milled the end caps and front board slightly wider than the rest of the slab. Realized that I'd never get a perfect glueup if they were the same width, so made it so they would sit about 1/32" proud on top and bottom. Needed to be flushed before I routed for the vise guides, as one guide would be attached to the front board.

I get out the four horsemen:
Wood Hardwood Flooring Varnish Wood stain


Notice that they are all single iron planes? They work just fine on cherry, but all give massive tearout on the Jatoba. While I don't really care what the jatoba looks like underneath, this kind of tearout left splintery recesses 1/16" deep. For some reason, that bothers me.

So I haul out the big gun:
Wood Wood stain Hardwood Art Flooring


The high-angle double iron smoother GMatheson sent me in the plane swap last year. I don't get to use it much but this is the situation it was designed for. Except… The jatoba is really hard. I had to set the smoother for really thin shavings to avoid chatter. And even then, I'd get about 6 passes before the iron showed small chipping. Re-grind, re-hone, re-set the iron and take another 6 very thin passes. Rinse and repeat.

After I finished the first end cap, I realized I had another option. I "rescued" a 70s Handyman smoother from the back of a drawer in my dad's shop when I first got into woodworking. I only used it twice before deciding to make my own, but it was still kicking around somewhere.

Dig it out, grind/hone the iron and try to put it work. It doesn't, chatters like crazy. Ok, re-grind and re-hone, maybe I messed up the iron. And fit the cap iron properly, now that I know what should happen. Still chatters. It weighs about the same as the wooden smoothers, btw. The light weight, combined with a likely out-of-flat sole is probably the cause of the chattering.

Then I remember I've got yet another option. I won a set of Woodriver V3 planes (fore, smoother and LA block) over a year ago and they were still sitting in the unopened box. Figured they were worth a shot. So that entailed stripping them down, degreasing, grinding and honing the irons, fitting the cap iron, tightening the totes, etc. Not just one, but all three.

Here's the fore and smoother:
Wood Automotive exterior Automotive design Bumper Hardwood


And that did the trick. The WRs seem like pretty decent planes. Good heft, the smoother subjectively about twice the Handyman. Thick irons with a modern cap iron design. I had the pleasure of using an LV smoother and LA Jack for a few months a while back, and these perform as well as those. The LVs look better and are produced to a higher standard, but these are satisfactory alternatives.

Ended up with "some" detritus:
Road surface Wood Asphalt Public space Waste container


Now, onto the business of the day.
After laying out the guide locations very carefully, set the router up with the edge guide and routed the slots in two passes each:
Wood Saw Milling Machine tool Gas


Remember the oops on the length of the end cap mortise? Turns out to not be an issue. The bolt hole for the flange is located in a OK spot.
Wood Rectangle Table Flooring Floor


I'll need to chisel away about 1/16" to get clearance for the washer.

After checking that the plate slides easily in the guides, I clamp them down and mark the screw hole locations
Wood Gas Engineering Machine Machine tool


Drill pilot holes:
Table Wood Wood stain Plank Floor


The screws nominally needed a 9/64" pilot, which is what I did. That worked in the cherry, but I was unable to drive the screw into the jatoba - on a fresh battery charge my impact driver stalled out about halfway. I re-piloted at 5/32", and that barely worked.

The instructions said to make the slots 1/4" deep. Using a 1/4" drill bit to set the router plunge depth should result in a perfect depth, right? Nope, I end up being too deep - the plate would not slide into the guides. I ended up needing to shim the guides with two pieces of masking tape each side.
Wood Outdoor bench Table Wood stain Floor

Outdoor bench Table Wood Rectangle Automotive exterior


Next, install the plate and nut. I used a bit of thread lock, probably overkill.
Wood Tool Automotive exterior Hardwood Wood stain


And check the operation:
Wood Gas Hardwood Automotive tire Flooring


Easy travel along the full length! Woohoo!

I removed the screw at that point. I'll leave it off until just about the end. No sense in adding an extra 20 lbs to the top while I still need to move it around to work on it.

And that is how 9 a.m. turned into 5 p.m.
 

Attachments

#75 ·
Finishing the Wagon Vise Install

First, for Terry -

Step 1:
Window Wood Table Flooring Wood stain


Step 2:
Table Wood Window Wood stain Varnish


Step 3:
Wood Table Interior design Flooring Floor


Step 4:
Table Furniture Building Window Wood


Kinda like eating an elephant. A little bit at a time…

---

You know how it is when you head into the shop at 9 a.m. thinking you've got a fairly simple task to do, should take about an hour and you can move on to the next part of the project? And then you realize you need to take care of a detail before you can do that one thing? But before you take care of the detail you need to take care of something else and it doesn't work out right. So you need to figure something else out. And all of a sudden it is 5 p.m. and you've just finished that one simple thing? Missing lunch in the process?

Yeah, it was one of those days.

Before doing the legs, I wanted to finish up the wagon vise install. Pretty simple, route the slots for the guides and mount them up. A couple passes with the router and edge guide. How hard can it be?

Well, first, I needed to do a bit of flattening on the bottom. I had milled the end caps and front board slightly wider than the rest of the slab. Realized that I'd never get a perfect glueup if they were the same width, so made it so they would sit about 1/32" proud on top and bottom. Needed to be flushed before I routed for the vise guides, as one guide would be attached to the front board.

I get out the four horsemen:
Wood Hardwood Flooring Varnish Wood stain


Notice that they are all single iron planes? They work just fine on cherry, but all give massive tearout on the Jatoba. While I don't really care what the jatoba looks like underneath, this kind of tearout left splintery recesses 1/16" deep. For some reason, that bothers me.

So I haul out the big gun:
Wood Wood stain Hardwood Art Flooring


The high-angle double iron smoother GMatheson sent me in the plane swap last year. I don't get to use it much but this is the situation it was designed for. Except… The jatoba is really hard. I had to set the smoother for really thin shavings to avoid chatter. And even then, I'd get about 6 passes before the iron showed small chipping. Re-grind, re-hone, re-set the iron and take another 6 very thin passes. Rinse and repeat.

After I finished the first end cap, I realized I had another option. I "rescued" a 70s Handyman smoother from the back of a drawer in my dad's shop when I first got into woodworking. I only used it twice before deciding to make my own, but it was still kicking around somewhere.

Dig it out, grind/hone the iron and try to put it work. It doesn't, chatters like crazy. Ok, re-grind and re-hone, maybe I messed up the iron. And fit the cap iron properly, now that I know what should happen. Still chatters. It weighs about the same as the wooden smoothers, btw. The light weight, combined with a likely out-of-flat sole is probably the cause of the chattering.

Then I remember I've got yet another option. I won a set of Woodriver V3 planes (fore, smoother and LA block) over a year ago and they were still sitting in the unopened box. Figured they were worth a shot. So that entailed stripping them down, degreasing, grinding and honing the irons, fitting the cap iron, tightening the totes, etc. Not just one, but all three.

Here's the fore and smoother:
Wood Automotive exterior Automotive design Bumper Hardwood


And that did the trick. The WRs seem like pretty decent planes. Good heft, the smoother subjectively about twice the Handyman. Thick irons with a modern cap iron design. I had the pleasure of using an LV smoother and LA Jack for a few months a while back, and these perform as well as those. The LVs look better and are produced to a higher standard, but these are satisfactory alternatives.

Ended up with "some" detritus:
Road surface Wood Asphalt Public space Waste container


Now, onto the business of the day.
After laying out the guide locations very carefully, set the router up with the edge guide and routed the slots in two passes each:
Wood Saw Milling Machine tool Gas


Remember the oops on the length of the end cap mortise? Turns out to not be an issue. The bolt hole for the flange is located in a OK spot.
Wood Rectangle Table Flooring Floor


I'll need to chisel away about 1/16" to get clearance for the washer.

After checking that the plate slides easily in the guides, I clamp them down and mark the screw hole locations
Wood Gas Engineering Machine Machine tool


Drill pilot holes:
Table Wood Wood stain Plank Floor


The screws nominally needed a 9/64" pilot, which is what I did. That worked in the cherry, but I was unable to drive the screw into the jatoba - on a fresh battery charge my impact driver stalled out about halfway. I re-piloted at 5/32", and that barely worked.

The instructions said to make the slots 1/4" deep. Using a 1/4" drill bit to set the router plunge depth should result in a perfect depth, right? Nope, I end up being too deep - the plate would not slide into the guides. I ended up needing to shim the guides with two pieces of masking tape each side.
Wood Outdoor bench Table Wood stain Floor

Outdoor bench Table Wood Rectangle Automotive exterior


Next, install the plate and nut. I used a bit of thread lock, probably overkill.
Wood Tool Automotive exterior Hardwood Wood stain


And check the operation:
Wood Gas Hardwood Automotive tire Flooring


Easy travel along the full length! Woohoo!

I removed the screw at that point. I'll leave it off until just about the end. No sense in adding an extra 20 lbs to the top while I still need to move it around to work on it.

And that is how 9 a.m. turned into 5 p.m.
Second the masking tape trick on the rails. I used it when I needed to adjust angle of parallel guide of my leg vise a little bit. Still works.

How wide is the chisel shown on the pics? Looks like about 2", great stuff.

P.S. I officially give up on the detritus :)
 

Attachments

#80 ·
Leg Tenons

To join the legs to the top, I'm going to use blind tenons. I didn't quite have enough lumber to do the full through dovetail tenons - my leg blanks are about 1" short! C'est la vie.

I'd glued up the blanks months ago and left them rough. So I start by foursquaring them. Joint two adjoining faces, plane the other two. Kept at the planer until all four legs were surfaced on all sides, resulting in them being 5 11/16" square.
Table Furniture Wood Rectangle Outdoor furniture


Next step was to trim the ends and get them all the same length. Clamped a small scrap of plywood to my TS fence to act as a stop.
Wood Flooring Floor Hardwood Wood stain


And then trimmed one end of each leg. Took as little as possible off, maybe 1/4". With the saw blade raised all the way, even after cutting all four sides, there was a small nub left. The flush trim saw and block plane took care of that pretty quickly.
Wood Table Rectangle Flooring Floor


For the second side of each leg, I set the fence/stop at my desired leg length. Then repeated the four cuts/flush trim/plane process on each. That left me with a stack of identically sized legs:
Table Wood Hardwood Wood stain Composite material


That's about 140 lbs worth of legs.

Time to lay out the tenons on the legs. For the front legs, the tenons will run with the length of the top. That will ensure the front legs stay coplanar with the front edge of the top. Their mortises need to fit tightly on all four sides to help counter racking forces.

For the back legs, the tenons will run across the top. Their mortises will have additional length to allow the top to expand.

Clear? I don't have pics as the pencil lines on jatoba don't show up well on camera.

Now to cut the tenons. Most of the work is done on the table saw, so it went quickly.

First, lay out the tenon depth and set the stop on the xcut sled accordingly. All the tenons will be cut using this stop setting to ensure the leg lengths are all identical.
Wood Rectangle Flooring Floor Wood stain


Then, for each leg, set the shoulder depth according to the layout lines. As much as possible, I made the legs symmetrical so I could use the same stop setting for multiple cut.
Wood Rectangle Architecture Brick Flooring


Once the shoulders were cut, set up for cutting the cheeks. Set the saw blade height to the tenon depth and leave it there, as all tenons will be cut to this depth.
Road surface Wood Asphalt Flooring Floor


Then set the stop to cut the outer cheeks. Not like this!
Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain Rectangle


You don't want to trap the offcut between the stop and the blade, so move the stop to the other side.

Like this:
Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain Hardwood


And cut
Door mat Wood Rectangle Flooring Floor


Note the clamp. While a leg this size standing on end is relatively stable, it still needs to be supported while moving. Rather than worrying about it tipping - or worse, reaching after it if it starts to fall - just clamp it securely to the sled.

Adjust the stop as necessary and soon there a four legs with tenons. Because of how I laid out the tenons, I only had three stop settings.
Wood Floor Wood stain Hardwood Flooring


Not done yet. I want double tenons on each leg. More surface area for glue.

Lower the blade half a turn, set the stop for the inside cheeks.
Wood Floor Flooring Rectangle Composite material


Rotate it 180° and make the second cut.
Wood Flooring Floor Rectangle Wood stain


Then waste away the material between the two inner cheeks. Soon you've got:
Wood Rectangle Hardwood Flooring Composite material


I found out that if you leave a slight sliver of wood between the kerfs, the table saw captures much more of the sawdust. As opposed to spitting it out all over you. The slivers break away easily.

To finish off the inside shoulders, I used my router. I didn't have a template bit quite long enough so I used my 1/2" downcut bit and will let the shaft of the bit be the pilot.
Wood Rectangle Material property Wood stain Hardwood


Get it in the router and set the plunge depth.
Mitre saws Microscope Saw Machine tool Wood


Clamp the legs to something stable:
Wood Tool Gas Wood stain Hardwood


And route away the inside shoulders. I ended up with:
Wood Hardwood Wood stain Plywood Eyewear


You want to wear some basic PPE. If you're like me, you crouch down to have a good view of where the router bit is going. And the router chips are going to be flung at your face at high speed.

Mortises into the top are next.
 

Attachments

#81 ·
Leg Tenons

To join the legs to the top, I'm going to use blind tenons. I didn't quite have enough lumber to do the full through dovetail tenons - my leg blanks are about 1" short! C'est la vie.

I'd glued up the blanks months ago and left them rough. So I start by foursquaring them. Joint two adjoining faces, plane the other two. Kept at the planer until all four legs were surfaced on all sides, resulting in them being 5 11/16" square.
Table Furniture Wood Rectangle Outdoor furniture


Next step was to trim the ends and get them all the same length. Clamped a small scrap of plywood to my TS fence to act as a stop.
Wood Flooring Floor Hardwood Wood stain


And then trimmed one end of each leg. Took as little as possible off, maybe 1/4". With the saw blade raised all the way, even after cutting all four sides, there was a small nub left. The flush trim saw and block plane took care of that pretty quickly.
Wood Table Rectangle Flooring Floor


For the second side of each leg, I set the fence/stop at my desired leg length. Then repeated the four cuts/flush trim/plane process on each. That left me with a stack of identically sized legs:
Table Wood Hardwood Wood stain Composite material


That's about 140 lbs worth of legs.

Time to lay out the tenons on the legs. For the front legs, the tenons will run with the length of the top. That will ensure the front legs stay coplanar with the front edge of the top. Their mortises need to fit tightly on all four sides to help counter racking forces.

For the back legs, the tenons will run across the top. Their mortises will have additional length to allow the top to expand.

Clear? I don't have pics as the pencil lines on jatoba don't show up well on camera.

Now to cut the tenons. Most of the work is done on the table saw, so it went quickly.

First, lay out the tenon depth and set the stop on the xcut sled accordingly. All the tenons will be cut using this stop setting to ensure the leg lengths are all identical.
Wood Rectangle Flooring Floor Wood stain


Then, for each leg, set the shoulder depth according to the layout lines. As much as possible, I made the legs symmetrical so I could use the same stop setting for multiple cut.
Wood Rectangle Architecture Brick Flooring


Once the shoulders were cut, set up for cutting the cheeks. Set the saw blade height to the tenon depth and leave it there, as all tenons will be cut to this depth.
Road surface Wood Asphalt Flooring Floor


Then set the stop to cut the outer cheeks. Not like this!
Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain Rectangle


You don't want to trap the offcut between the stop and the blade, so move the stop to the other side.

Like this:
Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain Hardwood


And cut
Door mat Wood Rectangle Flooring Floor


Note the clamp. While a leg this size standing on end is relatively stable, it still needs to be supported while moving. Rather than worrying about it tipping - or worse, reaching after it if it starts to fall - just clamp it securely to the sled.

Adjust the stop as necessary and soon there a four legs with tenons. Because of how I laid out the tenons, I only had three stop settings.
Wood Floor Wood stain Hardwood Flooring


Not done yet. I want double tenons on each leg. More surface area for glue.

Lower the blade half a turn, set the stop for the inside cheeks.
Wood Floor Flooring Rectangle Composite material


Rotate it 180° and make the second cut.
Wood Flooring Floor Rectangle Wood stain


Then waste away the material between the two inner cheeks. Soon you've got:
Wood Rectangle Hardwood Flooring Composite material


I found out that if you leave a slight sliver of wood between the kerfs, the table saw captures much more of the sawdust. As opposed to spitting it out all over you. The slivers break away easily.

To finish off the inside shoulders, I used my router. I didn't have a template bit quite long enough so I used my 1/2" downcut bit and will let the shaft of the bit be the pilot.
Wood Rectangle Material property Wood stain Hardwood


Get it in the router and set the plunge depth.
Mitre saws Microscope Saw Machine tool Wood


Clamp the legs to something stable:
Wood Tool Gas Wood stain Hardwood


And route away the inside shoulders. I ended up with:
Wood Hardwood Wood stain Plywood Eyewear


You want to wear some basic PPE. If you're like me, you crouch down to have a good view of where the router bit is going. And the router chips are going to be flung at your face at high speed.

Mortises into the top are next.
very crisp and clean looking tennons
 

Attachments

#84 ·
Leg Into Top Mortises

To cut the mortises for the leg tenons, I went back to the masking tape. Laid some strips down, and lined up the first leg to be flush with the front of the bench. This leg will ultimately be the leg vise.
Rectangle Wood Table Wood stain Floor


I had deliberated left some extra space between two of the dog holes to ensure the leg would fit.

It was easy to knife the outer faces of the tenons, but the inner faces are a bit harder. Because I know the tenons are dead straight, I simply knifed about 1" in on both ends. After removing the leg, I used my 6" ruler to complete the line.
Brown Rectangle Wood Flooring Floor


Like the condor tails, I used the small router with a 1/4" spiral bit to freehand waste out the first ~3/8" close to the outline, then chisels to finish this part of the task.
Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Brickwork


Check the fit:
Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain Rectangle


A couple of tips. First, apply some wax to the bottom of the router plate. It will make it much smoother to run over the tape. And helps it avoid catching and tearing tape.

Second, leave the tape on until final fitting. Makes it easier to see the outline.

Once I was sure the tenons would fit, I wasted away the bulk of the rest of the mortise with the 1/2" spiral bit in my big router. Simple plunges, could be done with a drill. But this is faster :)
Wood Rectangle Automotive tire Brick Hardwood


Next, start to extend the mortise walls. I tried my longer pattern bit, but it vibrated too much. The shorter bit worked well, but only went down about halfway.
Table Wood Camera lens Cameras & optics Wood stain


I went back to the longer bit to try to finish up, but it still vibrated. Plus, it didn't reach far enough. The solution was to just use the 1/2" spiral bit relying on the shaft above the cutting edge as the pilot. That worked pretty well.
Brown Table Wood Rectangle Flooring


You can see a bit of what appears to be burning at the top of the mortise. This is where the bit's shaft was rubbing against the top of the mortise walls. There was some buildup on the shaft, too, which I cleaned off between mortises. I found that moving faster helped.

I chiselled the corners square. Could've rounded the corners on the tenon, too. But a sharp chisel works quickly.
Table Outdoor bench Rectangle Wood Wood stain


Does the leg fit? Initially, it wouldn't, and I spent 1/2 hr trying to get a perfect fit. As it stands now, seems like it will fully seat but with an extremely tight fit. Too tight, probably. I may need to do a bit more tuning.
Window Wood Building Wood stain Floor


The next leg was the back leg on that side. The mortises are oriented at right angles to the edge, with a bit of extra room on the edge to allow for the top to move
Table Wood Rectangle Flooring Floor


This leg fits much better.
Wood Window Floor Table Flooring


The third leg was the one by the wagon vise. The leg is wider than the spacing between dogs. This was planned - I figure I'll use the first 2 or 3 dogs on a regular basis and didn't want to have odd spacing. The solution will be to cut a channel at the top of the leg to give access to the dog.
Brown Rectangle Wood Flooring Floor


The tenon layout on the leg was different, too. When I cut the tenons, I increased the spacing between them to avoid interfering with the dog hole.
Rectangle Wood Brick Wood stain Flooring


Routers and chisels later, the leg fits:
Wood Window Gas Hardwood Engineering


You can see that I had to remove the wagon vise rails to work on these mortises. The astute among you probably realized that at the time I installed them.

And the fourth leg:
Property Cabinetry Window Wood Building


Well, that looks a bit odd. How about?
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Those legs make the top look a little thin. :)
 

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#85 ·
Leg Into Top Mortises

To cut the mortises for the leg tenons, I went back to the masking tape. Laid some strips down, and lined up the first leg to be flush with the front of the bench. This leg will ultimately be the leg vise.
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I had deliberated left some extra space between two of the dog holes to ensure the leg would fit.

It was easy to knife the outer faces of the tenons, but the inner faces are a bit harder. Because I know the tenons are dead straight, I simply knifed about 1" in on both ends. After removing the leg, I used my 6" ruler to complete the line.
Brown Rectangle Wood Flooring Floor


Like the condor tails, I used the small router with a 1/4" spiral bit to freehand waste out the first ~3/8" close to the outline, then chisels to finish this part of the task.
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Check the fit:
Wood Flooring Floor Wood stain Rectangle


A couple of tips. First, apply some wax to the bottom of the router plate. It will make it much smoother to run over the tape. And helps it avoid catching and tearing tape.

Second, leave the tape on until final fitting. Makes it easier to see the outline.

Once I was sure the tenons would fit, I wasted away the bulk of the rest of the mortise with the 1/2" spiral bit in my big router. Simple plunges, could be done with a drill. But this is faster :)
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Next, start to extend the mortise walls. I tried my longer pattern bit, but it vibrated too much. The shorter bit worked well, but only went down about halfway.
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I went back to the longer bit to try to finish up, but it still vibrated. Plus, it didn't reach far enough. The solution was to just use the 1/2" spiral bit relying on the shaft above the cutting edge as the pilot. That worked pretty well.
Brown Table Wood Rectangle Flooring


You can see a bit of what appears to be burning at the top of the mortise. This is where the bit's shaft was rubbing against the top of the mortise walls. There was some buildup on the shaft, too, which I cleaned off between mortises. I found that moving faster helped.

I chiselled the corners square. Could've rounded the corners on the tenon, too. But a sharp chisel works quickly.
Table Outdoor bench Rectangle Wood Wood stain


Does the leg fit? Initially, it wouldn't, and I spent 1/2 hr trying to get a perfect fit. As it stands now, seems like it will fully seat but with an extremely tight fit. Too tight, probably. I may need to do a bit more tuning.
Window Wood Building Wood stain Floor


The next leg was the back leg on that side. The mortises are oriented at right angles to the edge, with a bit of extra room on the edge to allow for the top to move
Table Wood Rectangle Flooring Floor


This leg fits much better.
Wood Window Floor Table Flooring


The third leg was the one by the wagon vise. The leg is wider than the spacing between dogs. This was planned - I figure I'll use the first 2 or 3 dogs on a regular basis and didn't want to have odd spacing. The solution will be to cut a channel at the top of the leg to give access to the dog.
Brown Rectangle Wood Flooring Floor


The tenon layout on the leg was different, too. When I cut the tenons, I increased the spacing between them to avoid interfering with the dog hole.
Rectangle Wood Brick Wood stain Flooring


Routers and chisels later, the leg fits:
Wood Window Gas Hardwood Engineering


You can see that I had to remove the wagon vise rails to work on these mortises. The astute among you probably realized that at the time I installed them.

And the fourth leg:
Property Cabinetry Window Wood Building


Well, that looks a bit odd. How about?
Table Furniture Rectangle Wood Outdoor table


Those legs make the top look a little thin. :)
Hey Mark. What's the overall finished height you're shooting for?
 

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