Screened patios and decks seems to be somewhat the theme around here, so I will post mine up too. Basic construction. PT 2×4 for the most part. The siding is 2×12 pine (not sure how expansion and contraction will work yet). I had to use vinyl panels to seal the roof from rain off the deck. Overall it was a tiring project. About $1000 and 2 weeks to put it up on weekends and spare time.

p.s. if you are wondering about the black blur, that is my daughter using the dog door.

Okay, unveiling the bench here in completed project land. Now that it has the finish on it I can call it complete (not sure a bench ever is, so this is as good a land mark as I can get). For those who visit the blog section the bench is nothing new…
http://lumberjocks.com/jocks/dsb1829/blog/series/1165
It has been blogged throughout the entire construction process. Follow the link for some light reading.

For those that haven’t checked out the blog this is all news. For additional photos check out my picasa web albums. Here is the finished photo album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/anon102/20090115Bench10#
Photos on my web album are bigger, more detail, and can even be blown up to full size to really check stuff out.

The bench was originally thought to be do-able in a 3 day weekend. I kind of missed the boat on that due to planning as I went and sorting out a lot of details that I hadn’t anticipated. I started the bench on Dec 27th and completed it on Jan 11th (okay, I spent 20 minutes applying finish last night for the sticklers). By my time tracking I logged just over 40 hours of work time. I imagine with solid planning and pre-milling of lumber that the bench could be built in a weekend.

Construction:
101.5lg x 27wd x 36tall
Poplar – legs, aprons, braces, and shelf (mostly milled to 3.5wd x 1.75-2.0thk)
Oak – Vise mounting block and chocks (I still need to make an oak chock for the end vise, currently poplar)
MDF – Top is 4 layers from 2 sheets, shelf is 1 layer

Expenses:
(I am only going to include the cost of materials in the bench as pictured. I had a fair amount of excess wood, glue, hardware, and finish left in the end. Last tally by the receipts was about $400.)
$70 – 2-1/2 sheets of 3/4in mdf
$60 – rough poplar (approx 60bdft)
$40 – S4S oak for vises, 1in x 8in x 8ft (1X), 1in x 4in x 8ft (2X)
$15 – 1/2 gallon of titebond3
$60 – 2 vise screws from woodcraft, bessey qr iron vise (both on closeout)
$50 – hardware 3/8in(16X) & 1/2in(4X) (nuts, bolts, washers), pocket screws (32X), 3/8in steel rod, #12×3in wood screws(12X), 1/4in(2X) (nuts, bolts, washers)

Total = $295
So you could save some money with a plan and no extra HW or materials (this is more like a magazine would price the project vs. reality)

Features:
-Capacity- can hold just over 9ft boards for edge/face surfacing
-Mass- about 300lb of bench and 300lb of sand in the tubs on the shelf
-Vises- Twin screw opens to just over 10in and skews 5-10 degrees, QR bessey open width is about 10in
-Finish- BLO thinned with turps
-Knock-down- The bench can easily be broken down for transport, could also easily be modified to fit in a smaller workshop (I am not planning on moving, but you never know)

In retrospective
closing thoughts
- pre-mill all lumber next time
- fully detail out a plan in the beginning (saves money and time)
- invest in a better QR vise (hey, for $35 I can’t complain much)
- skip the MDF (bench would have been cheaper in solid poplar)
- it is hard to build a bench without a bench, this was a good compromise in that respect
- twin screw is cool, but a second bigger QR vise in this position would likely work about as well and would take less time to install/tune
- inspect joinery with more care (I ended up with slightly mismatched legs that I had to account for in the shelf construction)
- I couldn’t have done this bench without my hand planes (No5 was a work horse and the LA block and jointer were also used often) If you don’t have hand planes get surfaced stock.

I look at the magazine articles, the off the shelf solutions, and my pile of clamps. I am too cheap to buy a clamp rack. I would rather do something more productive than build a clamp rack. That pile isn’t getting any smaller.

So what’s a guy supposed to do?

enter el borato…
A couple of stamped shelf brackets, scrap of pine 1×6, and a scrap of plywood. Add a couple of studs and a handful of screws and you got yerself a $5 clamp rack.

Simply attach the shelf brackets to the studs with decking screws. Attach the shelf to the brackets with wood screws. This gets you the basic rack. You will notice that if you load it up at this point that the rack is very flexy due to those cheap shelf brackets. So I use a squared offcut of 3/4in plywood to shore up the shelf. I used pocket hole screws to attach it, but other methods work just as well.

This one has been in the works for a while now. I kept procrastinating and debating about some of the simple assembly steps. In the end I chose to get it together and take my lumps as learning steps for future projects. The idea was to match the table to the picture window that my wife picked up in Indonesia. She later changed her mind to the darker legs.

Construction is just mortise and tenon on the base. I fastened the top with some figure-8 steel jobbers. I debated a bit on this. I thought about using dowels or other methods, but since the base ended up with a little twist to it I wanted it fastened to the flat table pretty well.

Finish details
legs – 2 layers of General Ebony water-base dye, 2 layers of Minwax polyshades old maple
Top – 2lb cut shellac (sanded), 1 coat of GF ebony dye (0000 steel wool to lighten and remove black dye), 2 coats minwax polyshades old maple (0000 steel wool between coats)

A couple of after thoughts:
- short aprons make for small tennons
- Crapsman TS mechanish is not very accurate for tenon work
- chisels are sharp, I have a couple of cuts and no idea when I got them
- a router jig for mortises is definitely in my future

The Mrs. and I think the proportions turned out about right. Decided not to taper the legs since they are sized the same as the exterior of the picture window.

I have been leaning towards the neanderthal side recently. Don’t get me wrong, there will always be a place in my shop for stuff like routers and tablesaws. But there are just some things that plain work better without a cord. Something about sneaking up on tennon thickness with a 2-5HP tablesaw is just one of those sore thumb examples. You want to take off .005”, pick up a hand plane.

Okay, off soap box. There are a lot of more qualified people who can preach from there. Me, I am gonna hang out in my garage-shop.

My plane life started with a hand-me-down Stanley block plane and some sort of rasp plane. Those were not inspirational at all. I recently picked up a Groz set. They work well, but I am wanting to get some more sizes and specialty planes. So off to e-bay I went. I snagged up a handful of planes (some transitional, a woodie, a #5, and a #78). I kept it reasonable and the #78 was the only one I paid more than $10 for. Well, the #5 arrived yesterday. So naturally today I wanted to see if it could make shavings.

First step, try it out. Horible. Wow, not even functional.

Step 2, see what we are up against
Honestly nothing too bad. There is surface rust and the tote is wiggling. Of course the blade is dull and far from usable.

Step 3, get out the sand paper. Collectors will cringe, but personally I would rather use than let it rot on the wall. So I took a 120 grit belt sander belt and laid it out on my cast iron router table. I flattened the back of the plane iron, squared up and fixed the chip breaker, flattened the sole (mostly, I didn’t go ape on it), and flattened the bottom of the tote and handle.

Step 4, make it sharp. Off to the HF sharpening grinder. Setup was a little fiddley, but I was able after a couple of minutes to be setup for proper bevel and th square the blade back up. I spent a goot 30 minutes at the grinder, then transitioned to the wet stones to polish the back and add the micro bevel.

Step 5, oil and clean. File, sand paper, and scotch brite are your friends. Throw in some wire brush for good measure as well. Oil the threads and anything that can rust. Items in contact with wood need to be wiped clean so you don’t soil your future projects.

Step 6, assemble it. Take care to reassemble your plane.

Step 7, wax the sole so it glides.

Step 8, test your handy work.

Step 9, resharpen the blade. Yep, got a little cocky and tried to take on a couple of knots. Knots 1, micro-bevel 0. I recommend establishing a heavier micro-bevel from the start. The uber-fine is just too fragile.

Step 10, marvel at the fact that a tool that is over 40 years old is actually far superior to what is cranking out of China and India.

Alright, check the pictures. Hit me back if you have any questions.

Evening project in the shop. I have been a bit bothered recently with some of my tool setup. Not entirely surprising was the fact that several of my squares were actually not square. Not a big deal to fix, I just hadn’t done it.

I used the draw a line and flip method to get a baseline for each of my commonly used squares. I used mag glasses and a .05mm mechanical pencil to aid in accuracy. My son can be seen modeling the mag glasses above. As I had noted several weeks ago my wood squares are right on in their respective brass reference side. So I have been favoring them for any work I have been doing. I was kind of amazed that the 6in one that I got from Harbor Freight was dead on using either the brass or wood surfaces. I had to file and sand the smaller Crown brand on the outer wooden surface. Some will argue that I probably shouldn’t be using that face, but I find it handy from time to time.

For the combination squares it is simply a matter of sneaking up on the correct adjustment by filing the bed of the holder. Here is a quick blurb about it with a picture?: After about 5-10 minutes on each combination square they are now, well, square. I am not sure how they got unsquare. I am thinking it is a combination of use, inserting different rulers than the original (I have about 5 combos), and possibly by switching the ruler orientation (stamped rulers are a bit different side to side).

Picture is worth a thousand words, camera does pick up some distortion from the angle but trust me they all are lined up. Now I have a drawer full of squares that I can pick up and use without fear of using the one that isn’t quite right. If you have some spare time this is a good evening project. Now I need to tackle my 24in carpenters steel square, I know that one is out ;-)

Update 8/5/08
I have really been wanting a precision square. Something that I know is dead-on no question about it. I was cruising around the other day and noticed someone had a kit that coupled the brass gauge bars with a 1-2-3 block. Brilliant. I can’t believe that it eluded me for so long. A 1-2-3 block is a perfect square to help set up tools. With accuracy under .0005” over the entire length they are far superior to the pencil line aligned squares in my kit. So I got on e-bay and found a nice seller who hooked me up with 4 of them for under 25 shipped to my door. That is about half the cost of most of the woodworking specific “precision” squares and they are usually only guaranteed to about .001”.

The only bad part is that they show that my squares aren’t as perfect as I thought. Oh well, guess the pencil test can only get you so close. I was even using mag glasses and a fine pencil. Bottom line, even cheap machinist setup squares are as precise as expensive wood squares. Also, not too worried about dropping them on the floor. Heck they are likely to dent the floor.

Using the blocks to set my jointer last night was a breeze. They engage solid on the fence and the bed. There is no question that they are sitting flat. I think they will also be handy for tablesaw setup. Who knows what else, but with a few of these around the shop I am feeling very confident they will come in handy.

Okay, launching into my first real wood project. I have mostly worked in plywood/mdf with edge/face trimming. So we will have to see how this turns out.

I milled and glued up the top last week. Initially started with 6/4 hard Maple. I think final thickness will be around 1-1/8in for the top. I will see what I get to this week as I sneak up on the final dimensions.

I picked up some oak this week to run some test mortise and tenons. After I get my method straight I will continue on with the legs and aprons.

Here are a couple of photos so far…
Edge jointed, glued up, and then passed through the planer.

First is yesterday’s project. I still need to finish it (pun kind of intended ). I like to refer to this as not-so-fine furniture. It is my attempt to make something useful out of a miserably warped piece of 1/2in Birch that I had picked up. I got as far as top/bottom trimming it, but I still need to trim out the front of the shelves and case.

Overall it was a good learning piece. I learned that warped wood is more trouble than it is worth to mill and pull into alignment. Rabbet cuts should not pass all the way through on the cap pieces of the cabinet. Brads are prone to shooting out the side of 1/2in material.

Fortunately this learning piece will be destined to the kids playroom for toy storage. It replaces an erector set storage cube assembly that broke for the last time yesterday and dumped toys all over.

One note on the shelves. I decided not to glue them. Since the wood is fairly warped I wanted to monitor it for a while. So I brad mounted some strips to the walls and shelves to these strips. Had the wood been flat I would have preferred the dado approach.