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WorkBench

23K views 25 replies 16 participants last post by  moshel 
#1 ·
Rites of passage

Somebody told me a bench should be a woodworkers first project. Something to do with rites of passage.

So here I am with 800NZD (or South Pacific Pesos) worth of European Beech in my garage and a design on sketchup.

When the wood was delivered, most of it was too heavy for a weedy little guy like me to carry..



Those babies are 3.1m long!

Hare is another picture after I eventually dragged it in the garage.


You can see my current "workbench" in the background and understand why I want a new one. If I plane too aggressively with my old bench it falls off it's blocks.

I attend a college once a week where I get access to pretty much every machine you can think of. The jointer and planer made short work of the stock though I did need some help from a friend of mine to keep the stock from tipping when I passed it through the jointer.

Next post I'll include a picture of the wood in it's planed state. If I can work out how, I'll also include my design in sketchup…
 
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#2 ·
Is that 12/4 Beech? (7.6 cm) nice looking wood can't wait to see it prettyed up. no wonder it cost so much. About $450 USD by my caculations. I would love to see your design if you figure it out. A bench is in my not so distant future.
 
#3 ·
Looking forward to seeing the design. Last I looked 1kiwi peso was only worth 23 philippine peso. Compare that to 1usd being worth 47 peso! Glad beer only cost a buck here. Nice to see another kiwi on the site.
 
#7 ·
rites of passage

?

followed by sketch up

?

I think you might be making another trip to buy more timber as the rite of passage in making a nice bench is gonna need way more wood then that pile. woodworking, especially the bench, should you make that right of passage , isnt written by sketch up?............obviously

The best thing to watch, is a man who has never made a bench, make one, and be humbled.

$$$$$$$$$ is easy to throw at woodworking…..........and fun too
 
#8 ·
Some more Pictures and the plan..

As promised here are a few more pictures..

First up the beech after planing:



My car does not have a huge amount of room for carting around lumber and putting this stuff on the roofbars was out of the question so I had to roughly dimension the stock before carting it to college. I used my framesaw I ordered from Europe last year. It has a Japanese turbo-cut blade. I was really impressed with the speed with which this saw cross-cut the wood..



I also have more traditional western cross and rip cut blades which work ok but the Japanese blade is a cut above (excuse the pun). One advantage to the framesaw is that the Japanese blade can be used as a western style push saw which suits me fine.

Here is a closeup of the beech:



And here is the leftover wood.



I reckon I'll get some drawers to fit under the bench out of this lot.

Now on to the design:

Here is a picture taken from sketchup for those who don't have sketchup:


And here is a link to my plans in sketchup..

sketchup file 1

sketchup file 2

Let me know if this doesn't work as it's the first time I've shared a sketchup file.

Next step is to dimension the stock to length and start marking out the mortises and tenons.
 
#9 ·
Base just about ready for glue up

It's been a while but I finally finished the last tenon on the long rails. I couldn't wait to dry assemble so I could get an idea of how it will look.

Here is a photo of the base:



The next picture is the base plus one of the pieces for the top. This showed me how high the bench will be.



Using the heel of the hand measuring technique the bench sits just right which makes it a wee bit high as I want to add some feet. I'll just need to make the feet 10mm and have the bench sitting a tad tall.

Now for my dilemma:

I'm wondering whether I should draw-pin the tenons? The surface area for glue is enormous for each tenon but I am aware that the bench will get a pounding over the years and my tendency is to rush towards the finish which I'm trying not to do here . Any opinions will be gratefully received.
 
#13 ·
Completing the base

Well it's been 60 days since my last entry in the blog. My tardiness is due to spending most of my spare time in the shop working on my bench. I decided to go with the majority view and glue and pin the leg tenons.
Here is a picture of one of the legs just prior to glue up:



I was very nervous about this glue up phase; there seemed like a lot of joints to glue in one go. The first leg went great:



On the second leg catastrophe! While hammering in the pins I got a bit excited and blew out one of the mortise sides. You can just see the crack in this picture:



Hmmn, not the best view of the crack but I can assure you it's there. I'd had a discussion with my tutor at my woodwork evening class, he said drill in no further than 3/4 of the thickness of the leg. I did this but was not satisfied that the pin was going in enough to really draw the tenon so I decided to drill another centimeter. I guess the moral of this tale is always trust the guy with 40 years experience.

I was pretty gutted but I had decided before starting this project that I wasn't going to dwell on mistakes. This is a hobby so why go beating up on yourself in your own leisure time. I decided to implement a patch for the crack. I was pretty sure that the structural integrity of the joint was not much compromised but to be sure I glued a piece of wood over the crack in an attempt to stop in from blowing out any further:



Up to this point the bench had been completely symmetrical but now, at least, I knew which face would be at the back.

The next job was to glue and pin the long rails to complete the base. This was when it all started to get a bit weird. Recall I had been nervous about the leg glue up and this resulted in my blow out. I was doubly nervous about the long rail glue up which as a tight fit at best and was complicated by a couple of vertical rails I had decided on after the initial design phase. I'm going to use those rails as supports for drawers.

So I decided to do a dry fit before glue up. I assemble all the parts (really tight fit to attach the rails to the legs, lots of hammering required). Eventually I get it all together and slightly tap the pegs in, just to ensure they will all go in.

So the pegs are all slightly tapped in and I test the bench for strurdiness, solid as a rock. So then I go in to a bit of a haze and, without really stopping to make a conscious decision, I just keep on tapping in the pegs the rest of the way.

So now my base is kind of half glued and half pegged. This was not a decision I made, it just seemed to happen. The base is rock solid but I hope this is a non-decision I won't regret later.

Next I added a tool rail to the bottom of the top rails. This shelf will have two purposes: it will be used for sitting tools on to keep them off the main bench and it will also stop wood shavings from getting in to the drawers. This feature was not in my original design but I'm happy it is a good addition.

My next job was to apply a couple of coats of tung oil to the base then add some feet. The next two pictures show the base which is now complete apart from the drawers:





You can see the tool rail on both pictures.

I'm currently in the process of glue-up for the top.

Thanks for viewing..

gt
 
#15 ·
Don't worry about the non- glue glue up. Just pretend it's timber frame joinery. It's not going anywhere.

If the base gets wobbly in the far future you would have other options.

Looks great. Keep on!
 
#19 ·
Workbench (almost) done

Well I have been tardy in updating my blog for my workbench. It's been so long that my bench looks well used and even abused. It's almost done: I still need to find and fit two drawer fronts. My idea is to make the drawer fronts out of 6 different woods. So far I have European Beech, Matai, Oak and Maple.

I am very pleased with how the bench turned out, here are some pictures:







It is rock solid, if I hadn't inserted some drawers we would be using it as an earthquake shelter :).
 
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