118 days ago
by PurpLev |
10 comments »
Didn’t have much shoptime lately, which made me try to squeeze every moment I got to try and make the most of it, which lead to rushing, which lead to screw up – but I’ll write more about that in a following installment and leave this one a bit more on the positive side.
Last time I ran into the issue of having a not-square top part to work with. I fixed that by routing the edge at a 0.1 degree angle to straighten the front of the slab and make it parallel to the front 2 ...
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120 days ago
by Rob Drown |
3 comments »
The front face is mounted. I need to attach the chain cover, then disassemble everything, drill dog holes, finish plane the jaws then apply the oil finish.
The tolerance on the holes was much larger than I thought. I put way to much effort into straightening the holes.
There are 3/8ths pins that keep what ever you clamp from resting on the screws. The instructions indicate that you are to drill holes for these pins on the inside face of the rear jaw tangent to the screw hole. The sc...
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122 days ago
by PurpLev |
22 comments »
I was working on fitting the skirt to the front of the bench, and it looks fantastic. in order to get to the final dimensions of 30” width of the top, I’m missing 1/8” extra material between the benchtop and the skirt to fill in the gap, while keeping the skirt flush with the legs fronts. so far so good.
while fitting the skirt to the legs, I noticed that the gap on the left side of the bench is larger than the right side… a quick reach to the tape measure confirmed...
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126 days ago
by PurpLev |
14 comments »
I had some good progress on the top today. it actually started a couple of days ago when I went ahead, cleaned up the buffer strip, and main top, and glued them up together, I also milled the end cap part (which is on top of the clamps in the photo):
I also ground down one of the corner of the Lee-Valley Tailvise Nut so that I’ll be able to install the vise higher up and the nut will have less interference with the table top:
I’m not a machinist, nor work with metal ...
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130 days ago
by PurpLev |
15 comments »
finally getting to work on the actual bowling alley part of the “bowling alley workbench”, although I really found Damian’s comment on a previous installment entertaining, and might refer to it from now as the “Alley Workbench”...lol.
The top as can be seen in the sketchup model is made of 6 different components: Main Slab (nails and all), Dog holes strip, buffer strip, 2 skirts (front and back) and a breadboard End Cap.
In reality this will change slig...
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135 days ago
by PurpLev |
13 comments »
After last week’s ongoing progress, it felt a bit slow this week (which it is), but I did have some things I wanted to share, and also was able to finish the base with 3 coats of BLO which is what I’m going to keep on it for conditioning the wood, and protecting it from moisture.
Mistake #1: Drawboring to the wrong side (cringe) 2 legs on each side of the base are connected together using 2 short rails. The top one is using a sliding dovetail, while the lower one uses M&T. ...
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139 days ago
by kenn |
18 comments »
I have made lots of progress and actually am using my new bench some, I’ve just needed to get an update here. After putting the top on the base, I marked out so I could start hand planing.I used my scrub plane to get things close, that’s the scrub plane’s results above, and then this #5 to get the top flat and without wind.Here’s a picture of the top in “near” flat and smooth. FYI, I ended up with about 45 gallons of shavings.To trim the ends to final le...
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139 days ago
by PurpLev |
6 comments »
It’s interesting how it feels like you’re standing still when you’re working on already dry-fit parts for additional features. After all – at the end of the day when you look at all the parts – they seem to look just the way they did in the morning. bummer.
but even though things don’t seem that way somethings. Progress IS progress, and is one step closer to the finish line.
Today I implemented the hardware for the leg vise in the right leg (I’m...
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144 days ago
by PurpLev |
37 comments »
Yes. Finally some light at the end of the tunnel, reverse thinking, and this project seems a bit more doable, and even not much trouble at all.
Originally I tried to get the (2.5” hardened) nails out by using a cat’s paw and a hammer to pull each nail out of the 2.5 laminated hard-rock maple strips. I figured once I get all the nails out of the top strip, it’ll just free it from the lamination, and be nails free… one strip at a time, until I have them all cleared ou...
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148 days ago
by PurpLev |
16 comments »
July, and it was pouring rain here in Boston, MA. for the past week. go figure. (although today it cleared out which is really nice). but enough about the weather (as if this will stop us).
After completing the basic construction for the leg ends last installment. It was now the time to connect those with rails. The rails are 45” long with 2 1/2” tenon sticking on each side (to a total length of 50” – do the math). They are made of 2 2×4 that were jointed/plane...
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