I am just getting started in this hobby and have learned a lot from people who have posted their experiences and projects online. In return, I wanted to document my first project which is the Holtzapffel bench. Unfortunately, I started working on the bench before I found the lumberjocks website and did not photo some of the construction in the beginning. I plan to document the project a little more closely. I will also try to point out things that I learn along the way to help new woodworkers save time when building this bench.
It is taking me some time to build this bench because I have had to buy the tools as needed. I am also learning skills and have been practicing before applying them to the bench. I opted to go with the southern yellow pine. I bought the lumber from a big box store close to my house. I had to adjust the dimensions a little since the lumber was already processed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
This is the face vise chop glued and clamped up. I can't believe how heavy this thing is once it was out of the clamps!
Here are the tenons on top of the legs that I cut by hand. I have since tuned up a Rockwell table saw that I will use to cut tenons in the future. I have to admit that I wanted to build this workbench completely by hand, but I did use the table saw to rip the boards. Everything else is hand sawn and planed.
These mortises are courtesy of a mortising chisel that I received as a Christmas gift from my wife. Thank goodness for an understanding wife. Just as long as I leave room for her to park in the garage!
This is the glued up chop for the end vise and a better pictures of the legs. You can see the side stretchers next to the legs. I have since cut the tenons on them and the longs stretchers. More pictures will follow.
Construction posts like this are nice to follow. It gives a lot more information than simply looking at a finished project. I will be interested in seeing the next installment.
Great start, for a first project its a smart choice. Without a good bench you'll struggle with the next project.Trust me it was a hard lesson for me to learn, I put it off way to long. I look froward to seeing more
I finished the Holtzapel work bench three weeks ago. Mine has a 3" x 24" x 96" hard maple top. It's a beauty. It's really heavy and a joy to work on. I made it so the base can be disassembled. I used the Veritas twin screw vise for the face vise and added the sliding dead man from the Roubo bench design. I finished the top with three coats of the bees wax/turpentine/boiled linseed oil mix which provides lots of protection from glue spills and stains. Draw boring the tenons is a nice touch to make the base very solid. Good luck with the bench. It is well worth the time to build it.
UVA - Your bench sounds really impressive. I would like to see it as well. Also, thanks for the idea regarding finish. I do plan on draw boring all of the joints.
I have completed the base assembly finally. The stretchers and legs are permanently attached using the drawbore technique. I still have to cut the pins flush and chamfer the edges. I made dowels from an oak board using a dowel plate. What a forearm workout! Other than assembling the base, I have been getting a game plan together for the top and face vise.
The next thing that I need to do is prep the boards for the top. I have cut the boards a little over 6ft. long and will begin hand planing them this week. I looked at the boards this evening and only a couple seem to have significant twist. I am thankful that I had the foresight to get extra boards for instances like this. I should have more than enough to build the top. Once the top is built and everything is set in place, I will be building ashelf into the bottom stretchers for storage of hand tools.
The face vise screws decision is still up in the air. I am beginning to think that I should make the vise screws myself. I am feeling the pressure to get this completed because I want to move on to other "ideas" that I have, but I want to take my time and do it right. I think that by making the screws myself, I will be learning another woodworking skill. Only time will tell.
Well, that's what has been going on in my shop so far. I have been putting together a post that I will post at the end of this series with tell all pictures and mistakes that I have made for the education of others. Here is my advice for newbies like myself. "Do not try and cut a 5/8 mortise with a 3/8 mortising chisel." I only have a 3/8 chisel and have been building this bench with only hand tools except for ripping boards on the table saw. I didn't want to buy the chisel since I already had the 3/8 one. This was a bad idea. It is super time consuming to tune the mortises if done like I did. Now I know better! "Do as I say, not as I do."
It has been some time since I have updated my blog on my progress. The bench is coming along nicely. I began working on the table top and am learning a lot as I progress.
The top requires a lot of work. I don't see myself building another bench for a long time. I am glad that I thought about what I would need before ever beginning. Since I started my bench, I have seen other's benches on this site that look great. It has made me think about a wish list for the next bench, but that will not happen for a long time. If anything, I will just add to the bench I am building.
I took advice on here regarding gluing up the top. I checked my last "table" for flatness and found that it was bowing under the weight of half the bench top. So, I opted for gluing the top vertically with parallel clamps. I spent a weekend gluing each piece and weighting 45 minutes before gluing on a second piece. After every third piece of wood, I would leave it alone for 4 hours before adding more wood. It seemed to work well, but it is work!.
Here is the top in clamps after the last board was glued and clamped in place.
I flattened the bottom using a foreplane and jointer plane. I apparently had created a trapezoid with one of the pieces for the top. Thank goodness I added a 1/4" to the thickness of the top in case something like this happened. I then cut the four large mortises in the bottom. I caught myself before I permanently attached the base and cut the back mortises wider to accommodate for movement. Only time will tell if I did this correctly.
I attached the base to the top and flattened the top using the drawbore method. The top ended up almost exactly 3" thick. You can imagine how much work it was to take it from 3 1/4" to 3" with handplanes. Next, I will drill the holes for the bench dogs and attach the end vise. I still haven't decided what to do about a face vise, but at least I will be able to finally use the bench.
I did finally use hardware on the bench. I used screws to attach some cleats around the inside of the stretchers on the base. I plan to add some planking for additional storage as I am working out of a two car garage that I share with my wife's car.
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