tsdahc's Blog at LumberJocks.com http://lumberjocks.com/tsdahc/blog Thu, 03 May 2012 21:18:31 GMT Building Myself a Workbench #2: I have Lumber!!! http://lumberjocks.com/tsdahc/blog/29806 I decided to take the trip out to CP Johnson today before work and pick up my maple. I had spoken to Chris a few times and he had some maple that was an in between that I was able to get for a great price, well at least I think it was great ($2.25 bdft) for some semi curly maple. I picked up just shy of 130 bdft and was on my way home. Got it home and stacked it in the shop/garage where it’ll sit for a few weeks until I can begin working on it. Im hoping to steal some time here and there to start ripping to size etc; but who knows. Most of the boards are 8ft long. The thinest board was just shy of 6 inches and the biggest was around 11 inches wide, all were called 5/4. We sent them through his planer on 2 light runs to get them all the same thickness and they are currently sitting at 1 1/4” thick, so I cant complain. I did the calculations and it looks like I’ll be needing about 80-90 board feet depending on design which will leave me a 40-50% extra incase of excess waste and or screw ups etc. Some of these pieces though I may have to keep out of the bench pile because they actually have some nice figure to them.


As you can see in the one picture my shop has to share wall space with a kayak, actually two 14 foot long kayaks. If it weren’t for those two guys I’d have about an extra 20 sqft of space (they stick of the wall about 2 ft). But I cant, they allow me to go fishing in the river so they must cohabitate with my tools.

]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 21:18:31 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/tsdahc/blog/29806 tsdahc tsdahc Building Myself a Workbench #1: Doing the initial leg work http://lumberjocks.com/tsdahc/blog/29792 So I have decided that after I finish my current three projects, 2 boxes and a hutch, I need to build myself a workbench. I recently got some hand planes and have found that my current set up is very inadequate for that work. Matter of fact anything other than assembling projects is not well suited. I use a pair of plastic saw horses and one sheet of MDF cut lengthwise just resting on top. It moves shakes bowes you name it it probably does it. This was always was meant to be temporary, well 8 months later Im still using it and fed up.

So I went out and bought Chris Schwarz new workbench book, The Workbench Design Book: The Art & Philosophy of Building Better Benches. I decided on this one leafing through both at a local bookseller. This one is larger and has a bunch of different bench ideas. In his books he says that he really wants people to just use the ideas and plans as a basic map with the woodworker making decisions on how to get to their final destination in a bench.

What I have decided on is to build a cross between a traditional workbench, his power tool bench and the bullet proof bench.


This is the bullet proof bench from the book, The Workbench Design Book: The Art & Philosophy of Building Better Benches by Chris Schwarz

Unfortunately I have a one car garage with limited space and cant make a huge bench so I have settled on a bench that is a little smaller than some of the monsters in that book. My dimensions are going to be 72×27x34. It going to act as a sort of outfeed table for my table saw (well thats when I can get a real cast iron saw and stop using my bosch, saving for a sawstop.) For the material I will be using 5/4 soft curley maple. Im getting a great deal on it, Ill post the haul in this blog when I pick it all up, shooting for tomorrow or the day after. Im working on getting a rough idea of how much I will need and then adding about 40% to it for waste, screw ups etc. Figure I wont complain if I have a lot of lightly figure maple hanging around to work with.

This is going to be a long process I have a feeling with lots of “learning experience” to go along with it. Im hoping to have the build finished by the end of May with vises being installed later as the budget permits.

]]> Wed, 02 May 2012 23:55:53 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/tsdahc/blog/29792 tsdahc tsdahc