| Blog series by Olaf Gradin | updated 706 days ago | 5 parts | 3342 reads | 23 comments total |
Part 1: Setting Up the Scene
My first big project will be the Holtzapffel cabinetmaker's workbench. If you’ve kept up with Christopher Schwarz, you already know well what I am talking about. It’s a beautiful machine, and I want to start my shop off with this cornerstone of hand tool work. I’ve long sought after the European benches you see in the magazines, but the money put them well outside of my reach. Just as I was about to fold and build a modern design on the same, I found some articles rega...
Part 2: A Lumber Jock Meets Lumber Jack
Last weekend I made my first trip to a local lumber yard for the Holtzapffel bench project. After much deliberation, I had made a firm decision on White Ash as my choice of wood. I’ve not been to many lumber yards, and I’ve never gone to pick out my own rough-cut slices before, so this was quite exciting for me. In my haste, I planned poorly for the hauling of big, heavy woods and had to rent a Home Depot truck for the duration. I drive a Mazda3 which, while Zoom-Zoom and util...
Part 3: The Hard Choice of Hardware
A fellow Holtzapffelian, Roger (here at Lumberjocks), is writing about his project regarding the same bench. He started out by purchasing his hardware for the bench and is now in the process of picking out his wood. That reminds me of a deliberation I’m going through with my own bench. What hardware to use? The plans call for a quick-release end vise – nothing too fancy, I suppose. I want the Jörgensen version – I think it had a 12” maximum opening. The maximum...
Part 4: Plane Old Planes
Last night I decided to commit to some face planing to get my boards ready for the glue-up. I’ve cut rough dimensions of the four stretchers and two boards each to make up two legs. To do this, I need to joint plane the faces so I get a good flat surface to merge. Afterwards, I will be finishing up the dimensions to exact measurements and smooth planing. Unfortunately, I don’t have a quality hand plane in my arsenal. I worked the face of one piece last night for about an ho...
Part 5: 8/4 < 2 (Lessons in Math)
My grade school arithmetic left me with some rather incomplete lessons in the basics. I learned yesterday that 8 / 4 is not equal to 2 in the real world. I took my rough-dimensioned ash over to a friends shop yesterday to get some time on his 8” jointer and planer. As we began to surface the slightly more than 8/4 boards, it quickly became apparent that I was not going to get the thickness on these boards that I had hoped. A small amount of bow and twist on a board nearly 4’...
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