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27K views 143 replies 50 participants last post by  damianpenney 
#1 ·
Getting started

So after looking at all the options I decided to just go ahead and build a bench. I really liked the look of Chris Schwarz's Holtzapffel bench



So that's what I'm going to build, ordered the "24 Veritas Twin Screw vise from Lee Valley for the front and like Chris' the large quick release steel vise for the tail





Yesterday I went to PALS and picked up the lumber for the base which I'm going to build first. Building it all from maple, and it's going to be a beast, just the 12' x 5" 8/4 board I'll be using for the stretches weighed a ton :)

Now for my question (I'll post this as a forum topic too). Chris glued up the top using pieces that were 1 3/4 wide (so it was all 8/4 stock) to get the 24" width, but I saw that PALS had 12/4 stock, about 8" wide. Would I be better off using three of these huge chunks for the top, or will the smaller laminated strips be more stable (I'm guessing the latter)

Hopefully I'll get some shop time this afternoon to start building the base :) Will keep you posted with pics a plenty.
 
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#6 ·
Hi Damian,

I have been thinking about what to do for my bench as well…Whether to buy or build and found your previous post very interesting. It prompted me to start my own research. Although I would love to have a Lie Nielsen custom built workbench I also don't want to drop 2k + shipping charges to CA. And like yourself would rather spend the time building furniture then building things for the shop, however, the notion of building one's own bench, the heart of any shop, is a hard one to pass up. In some respects building a workbench is the ultimate furniture project, it must be built to the same tolerences and exactness. And like any furniture project you want to build something that is useful and will last a lifetime. What a great sense of satisfaction it will it be to know every future project you build will be built on a bench that you made. Seeing your previous projects this bench will be AWESOME!
The bench you have chosen is beautiful. Are there detailed plans that you are working off of? Please keep us posted on the progress as I want to learn as much from your experience as possible before I embark on my own.
 
#7 ·
At the end of the day it wasn't that hard of a decision; twice the bench for the money and the satisfaction of having built it myself :)

I'm working from the plans in Woodworking Magazine #8 and the only difference will be using the Lee Valley Twin Screw instead of the wooden screws Chris used.
 
#9 ·
Damien,
I think I'd use the 8/4 for the top and the rip to 1 3/4 wide is probably a good idea as well. it will be more stable and you get to have all that fun getting it flat. Remember, you're building a tool, not something to impress your fellow Lumber Jocks. LOL
 
#15 ·
Damien;

You're very fortunate to have the opportunity to do this. Many of us lumber jocks would love to be able to build this project, and especially the bench you chose to build. That's a beauty all right.

Makes mine look like a toy. (well almost)

It's quite an undertaking, as those pieces will get very heavy, very quickly!

8/4" is probably the way I would go.

Have a great time building this, as it will be with you forever so enjoy the process.

Lee
 
#16 ·
I have the greatest respect for the Hotlzapffel bench - I'm building one myself. Maybe we can start our own club of other European fusion bench builders! I'm using Ash - a local tree and probably Green Ash as opposed to a Northern White. I look forward to seeing how your progress goes. Mine is slow-going as I have a lot of cart-before-the-horse issues to work out.
 
#17 ·
Olaf, I liked your description of man handling the rough cut ash. I don't think pictures really convey just how heavy one of these benches truly is. Hopefully I can get to the lumberyard either tonight or early next week for the remaining lumber and then construction will begin in earnest. I just got my shipping confirmation from Lee Valley for the two vises, most exciting.
 
#19 ·
Awesome Damian! Can't wait to see it develop and get a glimpse into your experience. I've been busy with shop projects myself lately. They are totally satisfying in a way furniture isn't….. I think it's the function and customization and how in touch with ourselves and our own workflow we have to get to perfect the nuances. Anyway, good luck man!
 
#20 ·
Cutlists

One thing I'm awful at is taking a cutlist to the lumberyard and figuring out which boards to buy, I either end up with too little or too much. Yesterday I'd picked up the boards for the base, figuring I'd build that first then swing by and get the stock for the top.

I'd heard some good things about Cutlist Plus so figured I'd use it to see how best to cut the pieces for the base from the stock I'd bought. Turns out if I use the pieces I bought for the base, and then go and get the stock for the top I'll end up wasting about $200 worth of wood! So looks like I'll be making my second trip to the lumberyard sooner than I thought… It really does go to show just how important optimizing your cuts is though, and I thoroughly recommend Cutlist Plus.
 
#21 ·
I always use AutoCAD and draw 1 to 1 the pieces of lumber I have to use for a project.

Then draw all the pieces I need. Then I arrange them to get them to fit the best.

This allows me to take into account grain features and defects in my stock.

It helps to buy 10-20% more wood then you need. It will never go to waste, and it beats running
back to get more.
 
#26 ·
Lumber Acquired

Made another trip to PALS for the rest of the lumber, and seeing as my lumber rack isn't wide enough most of it is on the floor or just propped up at the moment. Here's all the 8/4 stock waiting to be butchered.



I ran all my stock through Cutlist Plus and here's what it came up with, not too much waste which is nice (and I'll use whatever is left over eventually anyway)



You can click the Cutlist Pic for a bigger view. Some parts are doubled up because I need to glue them up for final thickness (like the legs).

So now I'm all ready to start some actual work :)
 
#36 ·
Time for a trip to the sharpener

So this afternoon I tried to shimmy my blades around a bit so that the notches in my jointer blades would offset one another. Here is a pic of the knives in question.



Well the results were less than satisfactory (this was taken in raking sunlight)



So I'm going to head to Standard Saw Works in Oakland to get them sharpened on Monday. I've heard people asking for their jointer blades to be back beveled, can any LJers shed a little light on this?
 
#37 ·
Damian,

I can't shed any light on back beveling, but thought I'd share an endorsement given to me. I haven't had to sharpen my jointer or planer blades yet, but Jeff Lohr (a professional of over 30 years from whom I just took a 6 day course) swore that American Carbide was far and away the best place he had used for "ship your blades in a box, get 'em back sharp", for anything not made by Forrest.

http://www.american-carbide.com/

However, for this to work, you have to buy another set of knives. Sounds like a good excuse to me… ;-)

-b
 
#46 ·
Yup, that's sharp...

So I got my jointer blades back from the sharpener, Standard Saw Works, and they did a great job. It's a cool store too and one of the storefront window displays is full of old wooden planes (I didn't get a pic)

Once I got the blades back to the workshop I set about reinstalling them. My usual method is to use my dial indicator and twiddle with them for hours on end getting them just right but this time I tried a new approach which worked really well.

After I'd dropped the blades off to be sharpened I swung by Ace Hardware and picked up six small rare earth magnets. The plan was to stick them to something flat and use the magnets to align the blades to the outfeed table. Here is my alignment setup.



It's pretty low tech but it worked really well, so much easier than all the messing about with the dial indicator. The process was as follows.

First I used my dial gauge to make sure all the magnets were the same width, they were all exactly the same which was nice. I then attached them to something nice and flat. On the far side by the fence I'm using the bottom of my combination square, and at the front I'm using a big allen key.



I found top dead center of the jointer head using the dial indicator and then moved the blades to that position. Then it was a simple matter of sliding the magnets over the blade which attached itself to the underside of the magnets. Tighten the screws to keep the blade in place et voila! Perfectly aligned with no messing about.

So that worked really well until I was tightening the final screw, on the final blade when…. I slipped…



A nice deep, clean cut ensued. Luckily the blades were razor sharp so it didn't really hurt and it hit my nail which prevented the blade from going too deep, still a tad scary, as all shop accidents are though :)

Anyway the final result was worth it.

 
#58 ·
Making Progress

I've been making slow but steady on my bench. After getting my jointer knives sharpened I set about milling the stock for the legs. I'd noticed my dust collector wasn't running as well as it once did and wondered were all the dust I'd been collecting since I bought it had ended up…



Turns out it all goes into that big sack! So after getting that working I face and edge jointed all the parts for the base. Once that was done it was time to glue the two pieces that comprise the legs together. I'm not a man of many clamps so figured I'd crack open my vacuum press to do the job all in one shot.

This is my trusty vacuum press, built per joewoodworkers plans.



Here it is in action..



I could really do with some proper breather mesh for the top but I've found it works just as well if I throw some rags in there which is what you can see on top of the legs.

The vacuum pressing worked really well, producing a ton (literally) of nice even pressure on the legs. Which you can see at the bottom of this pile.



So now I have all the bits for the base pretty much ready (and I've rough cut most of the pieces for the top too). I'm going to drum sand them to final thickness next week (I think) because my initial plan to use the planer was causing too much chip out in this crazy grained maple. After that I can get down to some joinery.
 
#74 ·
Slow Going

So it's been pretty slow going as of late. The top is proving to be trickier than I'd anticipated and I got sidetracked with a slew of house related tasks. The main issue I've had with the top is being able to effectively mill such large pieces.

Initially I got hung up trying to flatten the faces of the top; I'd been using my jointer to do this but the bed simply isn't long enough to joint 7′ long boards. However I came to the realization (with help from some fellow jocks) that I didn't need it perfectly flat along it's length, I just needed it flat enough whereby I could clamp it flat during the glue up.

So my new tack is to just plane it so that both faces are flat-ish, and parallel to one another, then 'joint' it with a rip cut on my tablesaw. I'm using the tablesaw with a 9′ straight edge attached to the fence. Using this technique I'm slowly but surely getting the top built.

I do have the parts for the base milled though but I'd really like to get the top out of the way before doing any more work there.
 
#75 ·
"flat-ish"....is that one of those strange things that live on the sea floor? Yup, getting it "flat-ish" is important…and I'm jealous you're building it in the first place…that's one of my projects down the road…and it's going to be a long road before I begin. You're having a great adventure with this project.
 
#84 ·
Building the top

This post is just to share some top building pics

I'm using a 9' straight edge to joint the boards for the top. I usually use this for cutting sheet goods to size as I have a jig that locks a circular saw to it but it's come in real handy for handling these long pieces.



Here you can see how big and unwieldly the straight edge is, as well as my super high end Taiwanese saw…

The blade is a new 12" Freud combo blade, doesn't leave an edge like my Woodworker II that usually lives on the saw but it gets it smooth enough whereby I can finish off on the jointer.



Slowly but surely…. :)

 
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