Instead, I opted to take what I call the weight machine approach. I would laminate several pieces of dense materials together like the stacks of weights on a machine at a gym. The thought was I could get 1) a solid area to bore out a mortise and 2) more weight by putting together several pieces of MDF together (nasty, toxic material, I know). I knew I would be making some jigs for this so I went with it and Willie confirmed it would be an okay approach.

I modified the SketchUp file so I could refer to it later for actual measurements on the cut list as well as knowing what the dimensions would be so I could scale it accurately. I was off an running.

Willie, our instructor, wasn’t particular about the materials to use for the model or how ‘tight’ the model should be. I told him I wanted to build the model pretty accurately because I thought it would give some good insight to the actual process. He suggested Basswood since it’s tight grained even though it is soft. Actually, he thought I should build the torsion out of Basswood too since it was so light and would not be seen. I was surprised but did a little research and discovered it weighs 26 lbs per cubic foot making it one of the lightest domestic woods readily available. It’s also pretty cheap. I went to Rockler and got a small stick.

As it turned out, building a detail model was a great idea. The first realization I made was the number of cuts that would be necessary. Lots. Also, the realization that there were going to be a lot of setups. Not only were there few right angles but there were few parts with the same dimensions. The cutting of the parts for the model was tedious but necessary to see if this concept had a chance of succeeding. I really didn’t want to invest the funds in expensive wood and cut it all up only to become firewood.

Why so tedious you ask? Well, this was in February and being in Minnesota, my shop doesn’t get used between September or October through April because its in a detached, unheated garage. So, the bulk of all this fun and games was being done with exacto knives, exacto saws, a small bench hook and a block plane… I could have gone to the shop at school and used the bandsaw but by the time I got out of work, drove to Minneapolis from St. Paul in rush hour traffic I had about an hour and a half of shop time. Between gas prices, lack of familiarity with their machines, and competing with full-time students for ‘open shop’ time, it was problematic.

The situation was what it was. Here is the result of a weeks worth of evening work on the kitchen counter:

When I was working on the leg/main support, I second guessed myself on the thought of a simple friction fit between the top and the leg. I for some reason thought cutting an actual tenon at the top of the leg would be a good idea. I think I reasoned it would make fitting it in the stacks of MDF easier.

In my previous post there is a detail shot of the tenon inserted in between the stacks. All in all, despite my experiment with the tenon, the model was solid! I got brave and tried squeezing the top/torsion frame from both the sides and the end. I even tried twisting it. It was stable. The one part I couldn’t test was the beam/stretcher strength. I didn’t actually cut a through mortise for that on the leg. I just glued it so technically it wasn’t completely accurate for judging the physical strength of the design. I felt relatively confident with it though…

My iPod weighs 14 oz. I didn’t do any math to determine it’s real world weight. Frankly, I don’t know the necessary formulas to accurately calculate what the real-world weight of an object that size would be. I do know that the deflection of the top from level was minor and I attributed a lot of that to the fact that the fit between the tenon and the stacks was not as snug as it would be when actually built. Also, I did put my 17oz #90 shoulder plane on the model but didn’t have the camera close by at the time. (I know. No pic, didn’t happen…) The model supported the plane but I was nervous about the glue holding the beam to the leg so I didn’t push my luck more than 10 seconds or so.

In summary, I truly believe building a model is a valuable undertaking when the design before you is involved or unproven. Were I to do it again, I would perhaps make it at 1/3 scale so the process was less finicky. At that size, a person could also use something like corrugated cardboard or foamcore but that might not provide accurate feedback as to the physical abilities of the design but would likely be adequate for seeing the piece in 3D so you could do as many walk-arounds as it took to be sure you were satisfied.

As always, thanks for following along and your critique is truly invited.

When my turn came to present my concept I prefaced my comments with the fact that I intended to attempt a design with a cantilever in it. I discussed my inspiration piece. Our instructor liked the beam table (see the previous blog entry). This was a good sign… I unveiled my second design concept and Willie (the instructor) instantly commented it was a strong design but in the same breath noted the complexity. I jumped right in and spoke to the ideas I had about how I could strengthen the joint by bolting the top to the main support.

The gap in the torsion was intended as a slot for a flush-front drawer. He ultimately could see that I had put a lot of effort into accessing the problems I would face and supported my decision to build it as long as I 86’ed the drawer. I was ecstatic and surprised at the same time.

After everyone had talked about their proposed projects we each got to spend a little time in one on one !discussions with Willie. He reemphasized the challenge ahead of me but also told me he would like to see me succeed. We set about addressing the top and it’s weight. Rather than execute the design as it was, why not just make the whole top a torsion box? It would further cut down on the weight and since it was a torsion box, there would be plenty of strength even with a 5/16 skin of plywood on the top of the box. I agreed I would take the next week to modify the drawings. The only problem was, at the end of design presentations, our new assignment was to bring a model to class the following week…

Here are some views of the final design where the whole top would be a torsion box.

Plan View

Front Elevation

Right Elevation

Left Elevation

Isometric views

Now, all I had to do was build a model. Here is a sneak peak of the 1/6th scale model. In the next entry, I’ll discuss what the model helped reveal about the design.

Here is the link to the file.

Here is a shot of the cover for anyone interested.

This is the work that gave my creative juices a jump-start:

Copyright 2001 by The Furniture Society. Artist: Gord Peteran, Toronto, Ontario, 1999. Photo by Elaine Brodie.

It reminded me of a marking gauge and the brass wedge is a nice touch too. I like how the height of the ‘table’ can be adjusted by moving the support down the beam. The round pedestal can also be moved up and down the beam. It appealed to me because of the woodworking tool similarity (how cool is that?) and it was ingenious in its simplicity.

Bolstered by this find, I got busy working on some thumbnail sketches and quickly jumped over to Sketchup. A couple of days of playing around and I came up with this design:

I’ve always been fascinated by cantilever designs and thought maybe I could apply that to this project…

I liked where the experiment was heading. Three simple elements. A cantilevered top. An obvious tie to my inspiration. However, the three elements seemed like they didn’t quite work well enough together. Back to Sketchup.

The beam or stretcher was dropped down in it’s elevation. I wanted it to be more subtle so the angle between the beam and the ground needed to be flattened out. Also, the support was a little too simple. I started playing with some different angles on all the sides. I needed to address the weight of the table top since there was probably no way I could pull off this design if I didn’t get that down. I decided a torsion box top might be the way to go because it would be stable as well as considerably lighter. Here is the second idea I worked up.

All I had to do now was show up to week two and see what the instructor thought. I had my plan for a full length mirror project in my hip pocket just in case I was shot down. After all, this was an aggressive design and I knew it. Why not try? It’s all about the challenges.

Front

Doors Open

SketchUp Model File.

Commentary and additional images were added as a separate post below.

Part of what made the event such a good time were the facilities available at MCAD. They not only have a commerical class wood shop, metal fabrication, and casting facility, but their staff was very accommodating and knowledgeable. Over the course of the weekend, I learned from on of the committee members that they offer 10-week Continuing Studies courses for a VERY nominal fee – $385 for ten weeks of 3 hours classes on Saturday monrings and then all the shop time you can squeeze into your schedule between 8 am – 1 pm and 6 pm – 9 pm Monday through Friday. The shop is also open 12 – 5 pm on Saturday and Sunday. For a Minnesotan without a heated shop, this was the best deal I’d heard of in a long time! I signed up for the class the first day of open registration.

The class was led by a guy named Willie Willette. Willie operates a one-of-a-kind studio in Minneapolis. He and his team do some fantastic stuff. His website is WillieWilletteWorks.com. He comes a background of museum work and has been running his studio for about 17 years.

The first day of class was insteresting as we talked about design, function, and what makes furniture “successful” vs. simply a studio piece. This lead us into a discussion about one of the basic tenets of the class. Willie challenged us to stretch our boundaries but to design a piece that was contemporary as well as functional. The class ended with an assignment to research at the library, some suggested studios (in addition to his), and any other inspirational source that we could find. I hit the library.

I had no idea what I was going to do for sure. I didn’t know the class was going to have as much of a direction toward the Contemporary aesthetic as Willie was giving us. I decided this was a good thing though. I had a few things in mind but was going to keep my mind open and just let something that really caught my eye dictate my direction. I checked out 8 books and brought them home and started pouring over them.

I won’t go into all the subject matter i reviewed or the designers. However, something did jump off the page at me. It was in a book titled Tradition in Contemporary Furniture edited by Rick Mastelli and John Kelsey. The title alone was not that inspiring but it did have a great piece of furniture on the front.

I’ve been quite busy with things lately both woodworking and regular work and so my blog I started on the Hand Tools Journey has woefully not seen any entries… I’ve also enrolled in a Continuing Studies Furniture coures at one of our local colleges. This has been a great experience so far mostly because I have a warm space to work. It’s also been envigorating since the class is led by a successful custom furniture studio owner. So we get a little theory and also a little practicality too. My project is quite complex and maybe more so than it should be for a 10 week course but I’m getting the support I need from the instructor so I’m blazing forward.

Hopefully I can carve some time to take a few progress photos soon. I do have a SketchUp file of the project and wil post that for feedback. Let me just say that SU has been a saving grace for me on this. There are many things I would have messed up so far had I not had this as a prototyping tool.

Lastly, thanks to those, especially Martin for the site, from whom I’ve received encouragement, feedback, and excellent knowlege over this last year.

There seems to be a lot of chatter about hand tools in the world of woodworking lately and I am glad it is occurring. As most of you probably know, this can be a decidedly partisan discussion. I don’t want to get into that type of discussion because a person’s tool choice really comes down to what makes them happy and gets them from Start to Finish in the manner that suits their needs. I’m not a zealot. This is just where I’m at right now.

I recently became inspired to start this seires by Tomcat1066’s Ponderings blog (a good discussion). It reinforced my ideas about working with hand tools as an intentionally therapeutic experience that could also improve craftsmanship.

Flashback to about 2 years ago. I researched and purchased older hand tools almost as much as I researched power tools. However, when I actually started putting tool to wood, I became enamored with the immediacy, the power, the jigs you can make (which I still get excited about), and other things inherently associated with “power” tools. What woodworker new to the craft wouldn’t? My 30-something generation typically doesn’t have access to muscle cars to fiddle with (I have long since parted with my 1966 GTO; one of the more foolish things I’ve done in my life.) I couldn’t care less about a “hot rod” gaming system. You can have them. What’s left? There is not much for us to put our hands on that allows us to tinker, refine, modify and just generally “make our own” that also has a power or speed factor associated with it. Except for our tools and the castles in which we do said tinkering that is.

Fortunately for me, I think I’m coming full-circle on my need for speed and power. It’s more about finesse. I want to truly get to the point of being able to accomplish complex projects without needing power tools. The ultimate goal though is to combine the two schools of thought and make smart decisions on tool usage. For now, the focus is on building the basic hand skills needed to effectively use both skill sets. My ‘tinkering’ is going to be tuning my tools. My ‘refining’ is going to be about sharpening (with and without jigs) as well as developing the muscle control and muscle memory to use the hand tools with a beneficial outcome. As far as making it my own, I will be able to take the skills wherever my tool bag and I go. You can’t beat that!

At a philosophical level, my own selfish hope is that hand tools continue to make inroads back into the everyday woodworker’s tool chests and strategies for solving woodworking problems. I feel the craft as a whole would benefit. After all, we have the perfect place – LumberJocks.com – to share the information.

Selfishness and personal opinion aside, I think our own Thos. Angle sums it up nicely when he says, “The worm forgives the plow and doesn’t care what pulls it. The wood doesn’t care how it was shaped, only the quality counts.”

Next: Milling stock for a simple box design by Gary Rogowski

The simple solution is to widen the crosspiece at the top of the leg assembly by 2 inches. Widening the bottom two supports that are part of the bench top assembly is also required. This allows for 4 to 6 bolts to be used on the “flanges” that are created by doing this. The bolting is done in lieu of screwing the two assemblies together with the deck screws as called for in the design.

Here is what it would look like when the top is separated from the legs. The blue element is top of the leg assembly that is widened by 2 inches (from 3” to 5”).

Here is what it looks like assembled.

My rough bolt renderings don’t show the usage of washers but I would recommend it to avoid crushing the fibers.

A detail illustrating the “flange” created by widening the supports. The blue support is not widened, just the green one. The blue and green elements are still joined with deck screws per the original design.

The other aspect of making this a knock-down design is the easy separation of the stretcher from the legs. I didn’t modify the SU for this but it is a simple matter of using bed bolts rather than lag bolts. These can be purchased from a number of suppliers. Here is a link to the ones Lee Valley sells. (Ding! That’s an endorsement.)

I think if the bench is built this way, a person with limited room to work could move their bench around from season to season. When broken down, you have four pieces that can be easily stored (top, planing beam, and two legs). I guess it would really be 6 pieces if you count the two clamp bars the planing beam rides on.

I kinda wish I had built mine this way now. I would be much easier to move when we get a new house.

Whaddya think Bob?

Here are the pics.

I don’t have a pic of the planing wedge but it’s pretty straightforward. I’ll post one when I get the secondary support for the top of the planing beam made. This secondary support (added as an afterthought by John White and is discussed in the FWW video) and an clamping block to straddle the face clamp is all that is outstanding. Those, and a finish of some sort to preserve the wood a little. I’m also considering using some hardwood scraps for a facing all the way around the edge to give it a little nicer finished look as well as for protection.

Future entries will be about a much-needed cabinet I plan to build for storage. The cabinet will roll under the back part of the bench and be flush with the stretcher. There will also be entries for ideas I have for jigs on the well inserts. The first being a sharpening station for my irons and chisels.