Milling lumber for and constructing the laminated top
The lumber for the laminated top of my bench lived a previous life as cribbing for industrial piping transported by train. Each piece was rough cut to a true 2Ă—6x8. My bench top length was designed to be 6 ft so I had room to work with to find the best section of wood in each board. The oak was free as it was going to be burned when the railroad was done with it. I could not watch he oak be wasted like that so I managed to get 12 pieces that were worth saving. This was enough to yield a laminated top measuring 6ft long x 20in wide x 2.5,inches thick. To get to 20inches wide and 4 1/2 thick some creative joinery and lamination of southern yellow pine to the underside of he top was in order.
Due to the end vise that was selected a mortise leaving 1.75 inches was designed into the lamination at 18 inches long to accomidate the lead screw of the vise.
Cleaning up one edge of the 2Ă—6x7 ft oak boards to start the milling process to get to square.
After trying to joint each of the 70 lbs boards on a bench top jointer each board was ripped to just under 3 inches to manage the weight for the bench top planner and jointer and make the width ofv20inches. It took about 2 days of shop time to joint and plane the oak once milling one edge and face square .
Didn't empty the dust collection soon enough. This was the first of two loads.
The finished size of each lamination of oak for the top and southern yellow pine was 1.75 inches wide by 4.5 inches thick by 6 foo long.
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Milling dog holes in SYP
Top of bench lamination.
Routing the tenon for the mortise in he breadboard end.
There were a lot of first for me on this build. The next blog in this series will outline mortising the breadboard end to accommodate the pattern makers vise installed as the end vise instead of a front vise.
The lumber for the laminated top of my bench lived a previous life as cribbing for industrial piping transported by train. Each piece was rough cut to a true 2Ă—6x8. My bench top length was designed to be 6 ft so I had room to work with to find the best section of wood in each board. The oak was free as it was going to be burned when the railroad was done with it. I could not watch he oak be wasted like that so I managed to get 12 pieces that were worth saving. This was enough to yield a laminated top measuring 6ft long x 20in wide x 2.5,inches thick. To get to 20inches wide and 4 1/2 thick some creative joinery and lamination of southern yellow pine to the underside of he top was in order.
Due to the end vise that was selected a mortise leaving 1.75 inches was designed into the lamination at 18 inches long to accomidate the lead screw of the vise.
Cleaning up one edge of the 2Ă—6x7 ft oak boards to start the milling process to get to square.
After trying to joint each of the 70 lbs boards on a bench top jointer each board was ripped to just under 3 inches to manage the weight for the bench top planner and jointer and make the width ofv20inches. It took about 2 days of shop time to joint and plane the oak once milling one edge and face square .
Didn't empty the dust collection soon enough. This was the first of two loads.
The finished size of each lamination of oak for the top and southern yellow pine was 1.75 inches wide by 4.5 inches thick by 6 foo long.
Milling dog holes in SYP
Top of bench lamination.
Routing the tenon for the mortise in he breadboard end.
There were a lot of first for me on this build. The next blog in this series will outline mortising the breadboard end to accommodate the pattern makers vise installed as the end vise instead of a front vise.