# Building My Roubo Bench



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*Why I Decided to Build This*

So after reading Christopher Schwarz's book *Workbenches: From Design and Theory to Construction and Use*, I decided it was time I built myself a "real" workbench.










I've had various bench-like structures that I've used as assembly tables, clamping areas, clutter storage, etc. My current "bench" is basically a large custom cabinet base with a formica top and an integrated Kreg measuring fence built on it that I use for making cuts on my miter saw. But I've never had a traditional workbench.

I've been woodworking for nearly 10 years now, and I've basically been just a power tool guy to this point. I've since built-out a full workshop in my 10' x 24' one-car garage, and I essentially now have every portable and stationary power tool necessary for a fully-functioning wood shop. However, I've never gotten into doing much hand work. I have a Lie-Nielsen adjustable mouth low angle block plane that I got four or five years ago, and a I have a cheap block plane from a big box store. I also have some other relatively basic and cheap miscellaneous hand tools, but no other planes. Other than playing around at the Lee Valley exhibit at The Woodworking Shows each year, I've never used a bench plane or specialty planes in my work. Part of the reason for me never getting into hand tools and joinery was that when I was building my tool collection, I always found that the additional power tool I wanted would be more valuable to me and my work than a $300+ bench plane. Now I'm at the point where I feel like I've come close to mastering power tools and their functions, and I want to start getting into doing more work by hand. So I'm going to start building-out my plane collection now, and will soon have a bench to properly use them all.

I've built a lot of built-ins, cabinet-style storage units, and other large and relatively boxy things. But I want to start doing more intricate and skillful pieces, and with nicer materials. After reading through Chris's book, I realized just how much planes and other hand tools can add value and enjoyment to woodworking. In addition to letting you do certain tasks that you can't do as easily (or at all) with power tools, I realized how much more fulfilling and satisfying working with hand tools can be. Maybe it is corny, but I feel like I will be more intimately involved with a project if I cut, shape and/or smooth pieces by hand. I think doing more by hand will a) improve my overall skills and abilities and b) most likely provide more enjoyment to the hobby.

So after taking into account all of the valuable information and insight the book has, I thoroughly thought about my own workbench wants and needs. Not just my wants and needs now, but my wants and needs going forward. I'm not saying this will be the last bench I ever build, but I don't want to find myself down the road regretting my choice of style, size or functionality in this bench.

So I'll be building a Roubo-style bench, with a single screw face vise, and a wagon vise on the end. I like the idea of a leg vise (like in the book), but I personally feel the hassle of bending over to turn the screw or reset the peg in the parallel guide outweighs the value such a vise provides…at least for me and my occasionally half-baked opinions. For my hobbyist needs, I feel a traditional single screw face vise with a large jaw pad (4" high by about 12" wide) will do me well. Due to size constraints in my shop, I'm limited to a top that is 5' long. But it will be 2' wide, and roughly 4" thick. So still plenty of beef. The legs will be approximately 5" square. I'll be doing drawbored mortise and tenon joinery at all joints. The material is going to be Douglas Fir. The only thing I haven't already decided on is whether my dog holes will be rectangles or circles. I'm leaning towards rectangles, and making my own wooden dogs. I plan on putting a few 3/4" round holes toward the back of the bench, and in the faces of the legs. These holes will be for holdfasts.

So that's that. My next post will be about my adventures (more like misadventures) in trying to get the material. I finally got the wood today. I don't have a firm timeline for this project, but I'm guessing it will take me months, considering my only free time is a small bit here and there on the weekends.

-Andy


----------



## BrandonW (Apr 27, 2010)

AndyPanko said:


> *Why I Decided to Build This*
> 
> So after reading Christopher Schwarz's book *Workbenches: From Design and Theory to Construction and Use*, I decided it was time I built myself a "real" workbench.
> 
> ...


Looking forward to the rest of the series. Your story sounds very similar to mine--I'm also in a one-car garage.  I just finished my Roubo bench and love it-though I haven't really even had many opportunities to use it.

Instead of the wagon vise, I installed a face vise at the tail of the bench, which gives both the ability to fix boards flat on the table with dog holes and functions as a regular vise-that way I still have my leg vise for edge planing. http://lumberjocks.com/projects/59460


----------



## doordude (Mar 26, 2010)

AndyPanko said:


> *Why I Decided to Build This*
> 
> So after reading Christopher Schwarz's book *Workbenches: From Design and Theory to Construction and Use*, I decided it was time I built myself a "real" workbench.
> 
> ...


you should reconsider puting the leg chop on. you don't have to move the parallel guide very often at all.
the big leg vise is cool looking. 145.00 for the maple screw. don't know how much the bench crafted vise is, that looks pretty cool also. no bending down at all. bought two bench dogs from lie-nielson for 50.00. i was in a hurry and i'm going to use them as a pattern to make more. good luck on the bench build.


----------



## tenhoeda (Jun 27, 2008)

AndyPanko said:


> *Why I Decided to Build This*
> 
> So after reading Christopher Schwarz's book *Workbenches: From Design and Theory to Construction and Use*, I decided it was time I built myself a "real" workbench.
> 
> ...


Sounds like we're in the samre frame of thinking . I just finished reading that book as well and am reading the second. I'm still on the fence of which style bench to build, but I like your idea about the vise. At least for a starter bench. Looking forward to watching your build.


----------



## Smitty_Cabinetshop (Mar 26, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *Why I Decided to Build This*
> 
> So after reading Christopher Schwarz's book *Workbenches: From Design and Theory to Construction and Use*, I decided it was time I built myself a "real" workbench.
> 
> ...


Ditto doordude re: the leg vise. Moving the pin is hardly a pain at all, given the work already required to drive handtools. I'd never give up or trade my leg vise for another kind. That said, of course, build what you want and you'll love it! Looking forward to your build!!


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*(Mis)Adventures in Getting the Material*

At some point in December, I decided I'd be building my bench out of Douglas Fir. As stated in Chris's book, Doug Fir is stiff and moderately hard. It isn't that heavy, but given the amount of material I'll be using on the bench, the final product should be heavy enough. Also as recommended in the book, I realized that a big box store would be a fine place to get the lumber. 2×12s are readily available at every Home Depot and Lowes near me. I have a good table saw, joiner and planer - I'm preapred to do some hardcore stock preparation.

Unfortunately, I don't have a pick-up truck. My wife and I have a mid-sized SUV and a Jeep Wrangler. Neither is safely able to bring home 12 foot lengths of anything. So I debated whether I should A) rent a truck from the store or B) examine each board at the store, layout a cut line, have it rough cut there and then put the pieces in our car. I didn't want to spend hours at Home Depot carefully going over every board to try to strategically lay out a cut around all the knots and imperfections. I'm sort of anal about things, so I figured I'd spend forever combing over each board (which is why it is something I'd rather do at home, instead of in the aisle at the store). Therefore, I decided to go with option A. I've rented a truck at Home Depot many times before, so I know the drill well at this point.

I have a job that affords me literally no free time during the week. And I have two small kids, a house, errands, etc. that give me very minimal free time on the weekends. My first bit of free time was on Jan 3 - I was off from work, and the kids were in daycare…SCORE! I went to my nearest Home Depot, but their selection of 12' 2×12s was horrible. They had some respectable looking 16' lengths, but I didn't think it would be too safe to put 16 footers on the back of the truck. I then went to Lowes, but their selection was even worse. I was frustrated and angry, so I left. I was defeated and without lumber. Workbench: 1, Andy: 0.

I then went back to Home Depot the next weekend, hoping they had dropped a new bundle of 12 footers down in the depleted bottom rack. But they hadn't. I was in a time crunch, so I didn't want to ask them drop a new bundle. Again I left. Again defeated. Again without lumber. Workbench: 2, Andy: 0.

My next bit of free time was this past Monday, MLK day. Again I was off from work, and daycare was open. This means I had another precious free day. I was determined to make sure I used the free time wisely and did not let the day end without me getting the stuff - no excuses. One of the benefits of living in the country's most densely populated state is that within a 10 mile radius, there are literally at least 12 Home Depots or Lowes. I went to my go-to Home Depot. They still had the same worthless selection of 12 footers down on the rack. So I went to another Home Depot. They had a good selection to choose from, but both of their rental trucks were out. I then went to a third Home Depot. As I drove up, I saw they had two rental trucks in the parking lot - it was looking good so far. But their entire batch of 12 footers looked like it sat out in the rain for a year - no longer looking good. At that point, it was near lunch, and I was hungry and frustrated. I figured the only remedy to both problems was a sandwich. I figured I'd come home, eat lunch, and then go back to the second Home Depot. By that point, I figured at least one of their trucks should be back.

After lunch, I went back to the second Home Depot. I saw both rental trucks in their parking lot. Victory appeared to be within reach this time. Knowing the process for renting a truck, I walked into the rental area with my license, credit card and insurance card in hand. After looking at my insurance card, the guy said they can't take my insurance! He might as well have kicked me in the balls. I had rented trucks from Home Depot probably 10 times before, most recently this past summer, and I never had any problems. He said it is a new policy. Apparently my particular insurance company doesn't extend coverage to commercial rentals, and never did. However, up until recently, Home Depot never enforced NOT taking that insurance. So I called my insurer from the Home Depot parking lot. Sure enough, they don't cover commercial rentals. This means I can't rent from ANY Home Depot or Lowes…EVER! This was not good. So I left. Once again defeated. Once again woodless. Workbench: 3, Andy: 0. Things were not going as I had planned.

After going home and wallowing for a while, I realized that if I don't get the stuff that day, I likely never would. So I decided I had no option but to spend the time carefully examining each board at the store, marking a rough cut, and having them cut it. Again, I always knew this was an option, but I figured it would take me hours of analyzing each board - something I would have rather done at home instead of in the aisle at Home Depot - before cutting them down.

After feeling dejected for a while, I man'd up and went back to the second Home Depot (the one with the good selection of stuff). The process ended up not being as bad or long as I thought. I took about 30 minutes to cull through their stack of 12' 2×12s to pick the eight best, and then another 30 minutes to examine and mark a rough cut for each board. Add another 20 minutes to actually buy the wood, then have the guy cross cut each piece, and it was under an hour and a half all said and done. Much better than I expected. So $132 and about 90 minutes later, I loaded the stuff into the back of our car, and home I went. I should mention that I had to take out one of the two car seats to make room. I absolutely despise putting in and taking out car seats. Call me lazy, but that was another reason I wanted to rent a truck instead - I friggin' hate moving car seats. I know, you probably think this whole car seat side story is a waste of words as far as this blog is concerned. But my loathing of having to move car seats is strong enough to warrant a few sentences here in my opinion. Sorry.










The wood was already kiln dried, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to stack it and let it acclimate and dry out a little more. And besides, I'm not going to have time to actually start working on the bench for the next week or two anyway.










So that's it for now. The elusive lumber is finally in my possession. I feel like I'm over a big hump, and now the project should hopefully be enjoyable going forward. I was starting to develop a complex, sort of like the big box store gods did not want me to get my stuff. But in the end, I won. I think…

- Andy


----------



## gfadvm (Jan 13, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *(Mis)Adventures in Getting the Material*
> 
> At some point in December, I decided I'd be building my bench out of Douglas Fir. As stated in Chris's book, Doug Fir is stiff and moderately hard. It isn't that heavy, but given the amount of material I'll be using on the bench, the final product should be heavy enough. Also as recommended in the book, I realized that a big box store would be a fine place to get the lumber. 2×12s are readily available at every Home Depot and Lowes near me. I have a good table saw, joiner and planer - I'm preapred to do some hardcore stock preparation.
> 
> ...


If I were you I'd be cultivating a friend with a truck! What a frustrating saga. You have more patience than I do so I know your bench will turn out perfectly!


----------



## jcwalleye (Dec 26, 2009)

AndyPanko said:


> *(Mis)Adventures in Getting the Material*
> 
> At some point in December, I decided I'd be building my bench out of Douglas Fir. As stated in Chris's book, Doug Fir is stiff and moderately hard. It isn't that heavy, but given the amount of material I'll be using on the bench, the final product should be heavy enough. Also as recommended in the book, I realized that a big box store would be a fine place to get the lumber. 2×12s are readily available at every Home Depot and Lowes near me. I have a good table saw, joiner and planer - I'm preapred to do some hardcore stock preparation.
> 
> ...


I waste all my time after getting material. It must be real frustrating to waste a lot of time just getting your hands on it.

Another thought might be to get in good with a local lumber yard. Their prices are often as good or better than the Borgs and they will often deliver, sometimes even for free. The downside to delivery is that you don't get to select the wood but often it is pretty good anyway.

Keep up the bench build blog.


----------



## gillyd (Feb 26, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *(Mis)Adventures in Getting the Material*
> 
> At some point in December, I decided I'd be building my bench out of Douglas Fir. As stated in Chris's book, Doug Fir is stiff and moderately hard. It isn't that heavy, but given the amount of material I'll be using on the bench, the final product should be heavy enough. Also as recommended in the book, I realized that a big box store would be a fine place to get the lumber. 2×12s are readily available at every Home Depot and Lowes near me. I have a good table saw, joiner and planer - I'm preapred to do some hardcore stock preparation.
> 
> ...


I used the exact same douglas fir for for my work bench, I will be watching this closely to see how this turns out. Good luck


----------



## gillyd (Feb 26, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *(Mis)Adventures in Getting the Material*
> 
> At some point in December, I decided I'd be building my bench out of Douglas Fir. As stated in Chris's book, Doug Fir is stiff and moderately hard. It isn't that heavy, but given the amount of material I'll be using on the bench, the final product should be heavy enough. Also as recommended in the book, I realized that a big box store would be a fine place to get the lumber. 2×12s are readily available at every Home Depot and Lowes near me. I have a good table saw, joiner and planer - I'm preapred to do some hardcore stock preparation.
> 
> ...


One word of caution that I found with the wood you will be using. There are plenty of knots in the wood, and one of the biggest issues for me was sapwood. If you get plenty of stock, which I think you did then you might be able to cut around it.


----------



## RolloMartins (Jan 15, 2012)

AndyPanko said:


> *(Mis)Adventures in Getting the Material*
> 
> At some point in December, I decided I'd be building my bench out of Douglas Fir. As stated in Chris's book, Doug Fir is stiff and moderately hard. It isn't that heavy, but given the amount of material I'll be using on the bench, the final product should be heavy enough. Also as recommended in the book, I realized that a big box store would be a fine place to get the lumber. 2×12s are readily available at every Home Depot and Lowes near me. I have a good table saw, joiner and planer - I'm preapred to do some hardcore stock preparation.
> 
> ...


Thanks for this great blog!


----------



## Sarit (Oct 21, 2009)

AndyPanko said:


> *(Mis)Adventures in Getting the Material*
> 
> At some point in December, I decided I'd be building my bench out of Douglas Fir. As stated in Chris's book, Doug Fir is stiff and moderately hard. It isn't that heavy, but given the amount of material I'll be using on the bench, the final product should be heavy enough. Also as recommended in the book, I realized that a big box store would be a fine place to get the lumber. 2×12s are readily available at every Home Depot and Lowes near me. I have a good table saw, joiner and planer - I'm preapred to do some hardcore stock preparation.
> 
> ...


I have found my HF foldable 4'x8' trailer to be indispensable for hauling wood and sheet material since I only have a 4 door sedan and a 2 dr convertible. But if you find removing car seats a pain, then you'll find the "folding" capability is a nightmare.


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*Rough Cutting the Lumber and Starting the Top*

After letting the lumber acclimate for a couple of weeks, I rough cut all the pieces, leaving them all slightly oversized so I can cut, joint and plane them down to final dimensions along the way. I have a 12" miter saw, but it is not a slider. Therefore, I'm not able to cross cut 12" wide dimensional lumber on it. So I made a basic little cross cut sled to make all the cross cuts on my table saw.










Since the top of the bench is the most important - functionally and visually - I first cut each of the pieces I need for the top, using what I thought were the best boards. I'm going to be laminating 18 strips together. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get EVERY single top piece to be completely clear and free from all imperfections, but I wasn't planning on there being as many hidden imperfections as there were. There were a few pieces that looked completely clear on both faces, but once I ripped it to size, there were little knots right at the cut line, buried inside the board. Jerks. I tried my best to make sure my final top is as clear as possible. I even cut a few more top pieces than I needed, hoping to get as many clear ones as I can. But I still ended up having some sort of knot showing in probably about a third of my top boards. They aren't horrible looking by any means, but nonetheless, I'm let down that I won't have a pristine and flawlessly clear top. Oh well. Since I cut more top pieces than I needed, I sacrificed pieces from elsewhere in the bench. I originally bought eight 12' 2×12s, but I now have to get one more. I have all of the rough pieces cut for everything but one leg. I need more wood for that. But my extra top pieces won't be wasted - the stretchers are going to be made from those pieces.

After making all the cuts, I again carefully examined the approximately 24 pieces that could be used for the top. I picked the 18 best, and laid them out as I want them ordered in the final product.










After internally debating the square-vs-round bench dog hole issue some more, I finally decided that I'm going to use round holes. All said and done, I feel they are more versatile in that they allow you more options of dogs and other accessories. I took the strip of wood from the top that I wanted the row of dog holes in, and I used my drill press and a 3/4" forstner bit to drill holes 4" on center.










I didn't think about this beforehand, but my pieces for the top are over 4" high, and I need the dog holes to go all the way through. It wasn't until I took out my forstner bit last week that I realized its length and that I'll only be able to drill about 3" deep. I tried using a 3/4" spade bit (on a test piece) to finish the hole depth. But my spade bit is actually slightly larger in diameter than the forstner bit. As such, I couldn't get it inside my existing forstner holes. So I went online and ordered a forstner extension bit. It was only $8, and arrived within a few days from MLCS. Not bad. Gotta love the Internet. But anyway, I drilled all the holes as deep as I could with the forstner bit, and left them at that for the time being. I planned on just finishing them later after the extension arrived.

Next step was to start gluing up the top. I decided I'd first glue up the three strips that would be the rows that make up the wagon vise. I jointed and planed those strips, and then set out to glue. I bought a gallon of Titebond Extend, and was ready to make a mess. I laid out the first strip, poured a line of glue down the center of whole piece, and then used a scrap piece of wood to spread it, making sure I covered the ENTIRE surface of the board.










I layered together all the strips, and clamped it with Bessey K-bodies about every eight inches. There was a ridiculous amount of squeeze out, but at least I'm confident that everything is sufficiently glued.










After the first glue up was done and clamped, It felt good to start to see some progress on the bench. It was only a small amount of progress, but it was a big moral victory. Since I'm doing a wagon vise, I only drilled dog holes in the part that will be the stationary section of the bench. The undrilled section will later be cut off to make the wagon block and the end block.










Since I only have eight K-body clamps (and some Irwin quick grips and some wooden screw vises, but I wouldn't want to use either of those on a glue up this big or important) I can only do one glue up at a time. And since I want each glue up to be less than 6" wide so I can run it through the jointer when its done, I need to do multiple glue ups for the top, and then glue up those glue ups… I actually spent some time each night during the last week doing a glue up. At about 9 or 9:30, after the kids were asleep, the garbage was taken out, etc., I'd joint, plane, glue, clamp and then go to bed. I've since gotten all the smaller sections of the top glued up. After planning further, I realized the wagon vise is going to be trickier than I originally thought. Because of the length of the Lie-Nielsen Scandinavian vise screw I bought, and the length of the wagon vise opening I'm going to have, I physically won't be able to put the screw in after the top is finished. So I'm actually going to have to build the vise into the bench during the laminating process. This means that once the top is done, the vise screw won't be able to come out without cutting the top apart. Anyway, the next blog entry will be dedicated just to the wagon vise, so I'll talk about that more next time. For now, it is time to soak in the satisfaction of having actually made some progress on this project.

- Andy


----------



## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *Rough Cutting the Lumber and Starting the Top*
> 
> After letting the lumber acclimate for a couple of weeks, I rough cut all the pieces, leaving them all slightly oversized so I can cut, joint and plane them down to final dimensions along the way. I have a 12" miter saw, but it is not a slider. Therefore, I'm not able to cross cut 12" wide dimensional lumber on it. So I made a basic little cross cut sled to make all the cross cuts on my table saw.
> 
> ...


Andy, great blog.

I'm also in the process of building my workbench and need to update my blog. I had similar issues to you with lumber. The Garden State doesn't seem to be terribly friendly for lumber. I ended up using SYP LVL for the top.

One thing I found helpful, if it's not too late, is to take three pairs of jointed scraps and clamp them across the boards top and bottom (each end and the middle) with quick clamps before clamping the glued boards together. Assuming you've ripped each to the same dimension, this does a very nice job keeping the boards aligned. I had also planed on putting my glue up through the planer/jointer, but found it unnecessary they came out so close to flat. A little final hand planing will get things into shape nicely.

You might need to be a bit more conservative with the glue for this to work for you. 

Good luck and keep up the blog.


----------



## bigfish_95008 (Nov 26, 2009)

AndyPanko said:


> *Rough Cutting the Lumber and Starting the Top*
> 
> After letting the lumber acclimate for a couple of weeks, I rough cut all the pieces, leaving them all slightly oversized so I can cut, joint and plane them down to final dimensions along the way. I have a 12" miter saw, but it is not a slider. Therefore, I'm not able to cross cut 12" wide dimensional lumber on it. So I made a basic little cross cut sled to make all the cross cuts on my table saw.
> 
> ...


Nice looking start tot he process!


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*Building the Wagon Vise*

I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!

I hadn't planned out the exact dimensions of the vise ahead of time. It wasn't until I first decided on which specific vise screw I would use, and got the screw in my possession, before I worried about final dimensions. After looking around online at hardware for the vise, I absolutely fell in love with the Benchcrafted hardware. It is built like a tank, glides effortlessly, clamps with significant pressure AND I really love the wheel instead of traditional vise handle. However, the thing costs $360! Considering this is the first time I ever built a real bench, I haven't historically done a lot of hand tool work and the wood for my bench is only $132, I thought it was excessive to spend that much on just one vise. So I then narrowed it down to the Lee Valley and Lie-Nielsen small single vise screws. At $70, the Lie-Nielsen was more than double the Lee Valley, but I know the Lie-Nielsen will be great quality, and $70 isn't breaking the bank, so I sprung for it. After it arrived (only about three days after I ordered it), I took it out, sized it up, and figured out the dimensions for my wagon vise.










As I mentioned in the last blog entry, the vise screw is constructed such that I wouldn't be able to put the screw in after I built the bench top. I had to literally build the screw into the bench top when I was laminating the top together. The swivel end of the screw (i.e. the end that attaches to the wagon block), does not appear to be able to come off of the screw. There is an allen screw that holds the end onto the screw, but I couldn't get the screw off for the life of me. Maybe it is because I am worthless and weak. Or, what I hope is the real answer, is that I think there must be thread lock substance on it. So long story short, I wouldn't be able to thread the screw in through the outside of the bench, and there wasn't going to be enough distance in my wagon opening to angle the screw in from the inside of the bench. So it had to get permanently built into the top.

The first step in making the wagon vise was to finish the lamination of the three strips of wood that would create the rows that would make up the wagon block. As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, I drilled the dog holes only 3" into my 4" thick top pieces because that is the maximum depth my Forstner bit. So I ordered an extension bit, which showed up a few days later. I couldn't use the bit and extension in my drill press, because my drill press does not have enough quill travel to go all the way through the 4" piece. So I resorted to using a hand drill drilling guide and finishing the holes by hand.










After I finished drilling the dog holes, I jointed and planed the laminated top piece to get it to final glueable width. This way, both stationary pieces of the top and the wagon block would have dead flat sides and all line up perfectly in the final laminated top. I then cut off the wagon block and the stationary end block.










Next step was to decide where to mount the stationary guide nut for the vise screw. I've seen some people mount the guide onto the outside of the bench. But that doesn't seem like the best way to do it, since the the force of the wagon block pushing against the material being clamped wants to push the guide nut away from the bench. Under this scenario, the screws that attach the guide nut can theoretically blow out of the end of the bench. So I decided to mount the nut on the inside of the bench. Then the only structural concern would be the glue joints that keep the vise's stationary end block attached to the rest of the bench top. I'm confident there is enough surface area of glue that this shouldn't be a concern. The Lie-Nielsen vise mounting nut is a large hex nut welded onto a thick round washer/flange.










I could have saved some time by mounting the guide with the nut sticking out into the opening of the vise. But instead, I decided to go about it the proper way and bore out a recess in the stationary end block for the nut to recess into. It took a speed square, fractional dial caliper and protractor to get the the proper layout marked on the wood.










I then used a 1 5/8" Forstner bit to hog out the majority of the mortis. And I did it on my drill press to make sure the hole is plumb.



















Next was some chisel work to clean out the rest of the mortis










After that, I marked and drilled the holes for the mounting bolts. Also, I had to chip out some material to make room for the three welds that attach the nut to the flange/washer. Finally, I drilled all the way through the block so the vise screw can go through it.










I next screwed in the bolts, and it was officially mounted.










Next step was to drill the dog hole in the wagon block, and attach guide blocks to the sides of the wagon block. I then assembled all the vise parts.










In designing the wagon vise, I wanted to make sure there were no obstructions or guide rails protruding into the vise opening. I've seen some people mount their wagon blocks on continuous rails that stick into the vise opening. However, if you wanted to clamp material into the vise opening (like clamping in a drawer side to cut dovetails, or something like that), the guide rails would be in the way. So I decided I'd mount guides to the side of the wagon block, and have those guides ride inside dados. Furthermore, I wanted to construct it all such that I can remove/replace the wagon block if I ever need to. So I put a 3/4" straight cutting bit in my router, and routed out the dado and a large area where a removable block would screw in from the underneath of the bench.



















So the vise was now constructed, and it was time to glue up the rest of the top sections in that half of the top. I plan on laminating up two 12" sections for the top, and then give each of those sections a final run through the planer (which maxes out at 13" wide) before gluing together the final finished top. Here is the wagon vise half of the top.



















One problem that came up along the way with the wagon vise is that since the vise screw had to get built into the top, I wouldn't be able to easily do a final cut along the edge of the top as I had planned. If you noticed, I let the lengths of my top boards all run a little wild on the vise end of the top. After the top was all glued up, I planned on running a circular saw along a straight edge to cut the end straight and clean. But now the vise screw is sticking out of the side. So what I did was cut the stationary end block of the vise to the final size. Now I don't have to cut those three strips of wood that make up the end block, and therefore don't have to worry about trying to neatly cut around the screw without hitting it with the blade.

So that's it, the wagon vise is done. It was as fun to build as I thought it would be. And its operation is very smooth with hardly any play. I forgot to previously mention that before I laminated together all of the top parts, I hit the sides of my wagon block with a few light passes of a block plane. I did that just to take off a little bit of thickness so that the wagon block wouldn't bind up on the sides of the vise opening. And I spent a lot of time making sure all of the hardware was mounted with precision, and that the guide blocks and dadoes were straight and square. Since there wouldn't be any way to true up any errors after the fact, I had to make sure every part of the wagon vise was dead on the first time around.

I'm very happy with the final product, and I can't wait to actually use the vise when the bench is done. My next entry will be about finishing the top, which will consist of running the two 12" top sections through the planer, doing the final glue up of those two sections, and trimming the edges straight. Should hopefully be pretty easy. Thanks for reading!

- Andy


----------



## Smitty_Cabinetshop (Mar 26, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *Building the Wagon Vise*
> 
> I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!
> 
> ...


Andy - wow, that's nice! Great work, wonderful step-by-step blog, too… Congrats to you!


----------



## Egor (Aug 2, 2007)

AndyPanko said:


> *Building the Wagon Vise*
> 
> I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!
> 
> ...


Very nice. Thanks for the step by step.


----------



## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

AndyPanko said:


> *Building the Wagon Vise*
> 
> I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!
> 
> ...


That was to the point and detailed. Thanks for posting. You are building a bench that should serve you well.
A great build.


----------



## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *Building the Wagon Vise*
> 
> I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!
> 
> ...


Looks really nice. I think you got a good deal on a quality thread.


----------



## 559dustdesigns (Sep 23, 2009)

AndyPanko said:


> *Building the Wagon Vise*
> 
> I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!
> 
> ...


Nice progress, it looks great. 
Thanks for sharing with us.


----------



## Anselth (Apr 19, 2012)

AndyPanko said:


> *Building the Wagon Vise*
> 
> I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!
> 
> ...


Been poking around the internet for ideas on a wagon vise myself, and came across your workbench build. Final product looks great, by the way! Just a quick question: Would it work to run the screw through the bench exterior and attach the end collar to the far end of the vise opening, and the moving collar to the block instead, so the handle doesn't ride out away from the bench edge when you loosen the vise?


----------



## GrimBadger (Oct 24, 2012)

AndyPanko said:


> *Building the Wagon Vise*
> 
> I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!
> 
> ...


I recently built a variant of this vise, where I used some oak for the vise block as well as the runners (I didn't rout the inside of the vise but attached separate runners).

And I have to point out a serious deficiency in this design. The grain of the moveable block must be at a right angle to the rest of the top, or else there must be a piece of steel placed between the block and the vise screw to reinforce the block, or else *you will split the block*, as I just have.

I'm happy to post photos if anyone wishes.


----------



## olivine (Jan 16, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *Building the Wagon Vise*
> 
> I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!
> 
> ...


I'll be building a bench here shortly and I'm thinking about a wagon vise as well. Well done.


----------



## ScottinVa (Apr 2, 2014)

AndyPanko said:


> *Building the Wagon Vise*
> 
> I decided to put a wagon vise in my bench. I considered a traditional L-shaped tail vise, and also a twin screw end vise. But I really like the simplicity of a wagon vise. Furthermore, since I'm limited on shop space to the tail end of where my bench will be, I thought a wagon vise would consume the least amount of real estate off of the tail. And finally, a wagon vise seemed like it would be a really cool project to build!
> 
> ...


Andy thank you very much for this post. My summer project is to make myself a bench, and I expect to be stealing several of your ideas. I really appreciate all the details you posted - what a help! - Scott


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*Finishing the Top*

I had previously finished laminating the two halves that would make up the top. I made two 12" wide sections, ran each through the planer to smooth and true up the tops and bottoms, and ran each mating edge across the jointer. And as I wrote in the previous blog entry, one of the halves already has the finished wagon vise built into it. The two halves were now all done and ready to be glued.










It was tricky maneuvering the two parts in the final glue up, as each section was heavy and somewhat awkward given their size. But with a little help from my wife, I was able to situate, glue and clamp the two parts together. Here is the top prior to trimming the ends.










In order to cut the ends to final length, I used a clamped straightedge and a circular saw.










I set the blade as deep as I could (the motor of the saw was virtually resting on the top of the straightedge), and made the first cut.










I then flipped it over, and cut the other side. Unfortunately, the depth of the cut was just a hair shy of reaching the halfway point of the 3 7/8" thick top. So there was a thin fin of remaining material.










So I chiseled off the rest, and hit it with a block plane to smooth it all out. It ended up pretty flush and smooth in the end. Plus, I plan on doing a final touch up and smoothing after the whole bench is assembled and done. So this particular cut is good enough for now.










Next was to cut the wagon vise end. As I mentioned in the previous post, the end block of the wagon vise WAS already cut to final dimensions. Since the vise screw is sticking through the end, I didn't want to attempt to have to cut neatly all around the screw. So I just have to try to line up the cut so that it is flush with the end of wagon vise's end block.










As with the other end of the top, the cuts weren't able to go all the way through. After some chiseling and block planing, this end was done too.










And here's the final top. 23 1/2" wide, 61 1/2" long and 3 7/8" thick.










After the bench is complete, I'm going to flatten the top. There is a bit of a cup across the width. So all said and done, the final top will probably be more like 3 3/4" thick when it is complete. And unfortunately, some minor checking and splitting has started happening along the grain of some of the pieces of the top. I thought everything was sufficiently dry - the lumber was already kiln dried, and it all sat in my shop and aired out for a few weeks before I started using any of it. I don't have a moisture meter, but I figured it was all dry enough. Apparently not. Anyway, the checks don't go all the way through the top, so I'm not concerned about the top splitting in half or anything. But I will try to fill the cracks with glue, or a glue/sawdust mix to fill them in before I do the final finishing of the top surface. I also plan on putting in a few more 3/4" dog holes in the top, toward the back side of the bench, for holdfasts. I'm not going to do a full row 4" on-center like the existing row. I'll probably just do three or four holes in a row, evenly spaced across the length of the bench.

So that's it for now. It is a great feeling to see the top done. I'm at about the halfway point in the project, and feeling good. Other than the checks that developed in the top after the final glue-up, there haven't been any real surprises or problems so far. Yay.

- Andy


----------



## 559dustdesigns (Sep 23, 2009)

AndyPanko said:


> *Finishing the Top*
> 
> I had previously finished laminating the two halves that would make up the top. I made two 12" wide sections, ran each through the planer to smooth and true up the tops and bottoms, and ran each mating edge across the jointer. And as I wrote in the previous blog entry, one of the halves already has the finished wagon vise built into it. The two halves were now all done and ready to be glued.
> 
> ...


Almost there, looks good Andy


----------



## bigfish_95008 (Nov 26, 2009)

AndyPanko said:


> *Finishing the Top*
> 
> I had previously finished laminating the two halves that would make up the top. I made two 12" wide sections, ran each through the planer to smooth and true up the tops and bottoms, and ran each mating edge across the jointer. And as I wrote in the previous blog entry, one of the halves already has the finished wagon vise built into it. The two halves were now all done and ready to be glued.
> 
> ...


After seeing this post makes my comment on your leg/posts seem silly. Nice looking top as finished. It would be interesting to weigh it. Once it finds a home in the shop it is permanent. Have you reenforced the floor where it will reside. LOL


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*Starting the Legs*

Now that the top is done, it's time to start the legs and stretchers. I wanted real thick and sturdy legs, so I'm going for 5" square. Prior to starting this project, I had never done any real lamination work. I've glued boards together before, end-to-end, to make wider planks. But that material was only 1/2" thick. I never did anything this big before, but this whole lamination thing seemed pretty easy in concept. Sure enough, it wasn't too bad. Now that I'm done with the top, I'm quite confident in my laminating skills. So I was planning on the legs being a walk in the park. One thing I didn't realize was how much volume wood chips from planing and jointing take up. I have a Jet 1.5 HP dust collector. I've had the thing for two years, and have only changed the bag once prior to this project. But up until now, it has only had to consume saw dust - no planing/jointing chips. Since I started this project, I've already fill up two bags, and I'm about halfway into a third. Nuts.

Anyway, after some more relatively monotonous jointing, planing, gluing, clamping and waiting, the rough legs were done.










After yet MORE jointing and planing, and cutting the tops and bottoms on the miter saw, the legs are all sized to final dimensions - exactly 5" square.










I'm going to be using drawbored mortis and tenons to join the legs to the top. The tenons on the tops of the legs will be 2 1/2" long. I set up a stop block on my crosscut sled, and set the blade height to my desired shoulder depth, then ran the fronts and backs of each leg through.




























After making all the shoulder cuts, I adjusted the crosscut sled stop block and blade height, and then made the cheek cuts.



















As I mentioned in the inaugural post to this blog series, I didn't own planes other than a cheap Stanley block plane, and the Lie-Nielsen adjustable mouth low angle block plane. But after reading Chris Schwarz's workbench book, I became very inspired to get into doing more work by hand…which is largely why I decided to build this bench. Over the last few weeks, I've been all over eBay and Craigslist looking for great condition Lie-Nielsen planes. I figured a shoulder plane, a #4 or # 4 1/2 smoother and a #7 jointer - in addition to my low angle block plane - should meet the vast majority of my planing needs. I think I'll eventually need (i.e. want really bad) a low angle jack plane, but not immediately. At least, I don't think I'll need it to build this bench. But I know I'm going to need a shoulder plane, smoother and jointer to properly finish this bench.

I was able to win myself a barely used Lie-Nielsen large shoulder plane on eBay a few days ago. It showed up today, and I put it to use right away. After I made all the cuts for the tenons, I had to neaten up the corners a little bit…the perfect task for the shoulder plane. Worked like a gem.










The legs are done for now. After I make all the stretchers, which will join to the legs via drawbored mortis and tenons as well, I will then have to mortis out the legs. But for now, there is nothing else I can do with the legs at the moment.

Next I'll tackle the stretchers. I plan on putting tongue and groove decking on the stretchers to make a shelf on the bottom. And I originally wasn't going to make a sliding deadman. However, after some thought, I figured it would be cool to make and convenient to have, even if I don't use it much. So I'll have to incorporate these things into the stretchers accordingly. See you next post. Thanks for reading along so far.

- Andy


----------



## 559dustdesigns (Sep 23, 2009)

AndyPanko said:


> *Starting the Legs*
> 
> Now that the top is done, it's time to start the legs and stretchers. I wanted real thick and sturdy legs, so I'm going for 5" square. Prior to starting this project, I had never done any real lamination work. I've glued boards together before, end-to-end, to make wider planks. But that material was only 1/2" thick. I never did anything this big before, but this whole lamination thing seemed pretty easy in concept. Sure enough, it wasn't too bad. Now that I'm done with the top, I'm quite confident in my laminating skills. So I was planning on the legs being a walk in the park. One thing I didn't realize was how much volume wood chips from planing and jointing take up. I have a Jet 1.5 HP dust collector. I've had the thing for two years, and have only changed the bag once prior to this project. But up until now, it has only had to consume saw dust - no planing/jointing chips. Since I started this project, I've already fill up two bags, and I'm about halfway into a third. Nuts.
> 
> ...


Nice job on those legs, thanks for the update.
I have been following your progress. 
I really look forward to seeing your bench all finshed.


----------



## bigfish_95008 (Nov 26, 2009)

AndyPanko said:


> *Starting the Legs*
> 
> Now that the top is done, it's time to start the legs and stretchers. I wanted real thick and sturdy legs, so I'm going for 5" square. Prior to starting this project, I had never done any real lamination work. I've glued boards together before, end-to-end, to make wider planks. But that material was only 1/2" thick. I never did anything this big before, but this whole lamination thing seemed pretty easy in concept. Sure enough, it wasn't too bad. Now that I'm done with the top, I'm quite confident in my laminating skills. So I was planning on the legs being a walk in the park. One thing I didn't realize was how much volume wood chips from planing and jointing take up. I have a Jet 1.5 HP dust collector. I've had the thing for two years, and have only changed the bag once prior to this project. But up until now, it has only had to consume saw dust - no planing/jointing chips. Since I started this project, I've already fill up two bags, and I'm about halfway into a third. Nuts.
> 
> ...


Recalling your top, mated with those legs, that is going to be some bench. You do Mr Roubo proud. Look forward to seeing the finished product.


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*Making the Stretchers*

I wanted to make the bench's stretchers as proportionately beefy as the top and legs. Since my legs are 5" square, I figured it would work well, and look good, to make the stretchers about 3 1/2" high, and about 2 1/2" thick. So I had to AGAIN joint, plane, glue, clamp and wait some more. I've been getting kind of bored of doing glue-ups, so I'm glad this was the last laminating I'll have to do on this project. I want to integrate 3/4" thick tongue and groove boards on the stretches to turn them into a shelf below the bench. So in the process of laminating the stretchers together, I made a 3/4" deep rabbet along the length of each. I also decided that I want to incorporate a removable sliding deadman along the front of the bench. I planned it like the Roubo in Schwarz's book - the bottom of the sliding deadman will have a concave mitered slot that will sit on top of, and ride along, a corresponding convex mitered edge along the top of the front stretcher. Before I laminated together the two boards to make the front stretcher, I cut the deadman track on my table saw.










I then did the rough glue-ups of each stretcher.










Since the deadman is going to slide on a simple wood-on-wood track system, I figured now would be a good time to make sure the deadman guide on top of the front stretcher is as true and smooth as possible. As I mentioned in the last blog entry, I've been looking for good used Lie-Nielsen planes on eBay and Craigslist over the last couple of weeks. I was lucky enough to find on Craigslist an unused #4 smoother, in bronze, from a guy a half hour away from me. I picked it up yesterday morning, and used it last night to smooth the deadman track on the top of the stretcher. It's sort of funny - in order to plane the this piece, I really could have used a bench with dog holes to hold the material. However, I don't have a bench, which is why I'm doing this project in the first place… Using a few clamps as a makeshift planing stop, and my table saw outfeed table as a bench top, I was able to get the job done. I did a few passes with my new plane, and the track/top of the stretcher was as smooth as glass.










I then cut each stretcher to length on the miter saw. The next step was to cut the tenons on the ends of each stretcher. I set up my dado stack, adjusted the depth of cut and rip fence accordingly, and started cutting the cheeks and shoulders. Dadoed one side, flipped it and dadoed the other side, and then flipped it again and dadoed the tops. I had to change the depth of the dado blades at each flip since I wanted/needed different depths on each side of the stretchers.




























All said and done, I ended up with nice chunky tenons.










After making all the cuts on each piece, the four stretchers were done.










At this point, I definitely have the end of the project within my sight. Not that I'm wishing it was over - I'm enjoying this whole process a lot - but it is always exciting to be nearing completion of a project. The next step will be to mortis the legs to receive the stretchers, and then drawbore all the joints together. That'll be the next blog posting. Hopefully I'll be able to get all that done over the course of this coming week. I hope everyone is enjoying all this so far. It has been almost therapeutic to blog about my progress during this whole thing.

- Andy


----------



## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

AndyPanko said:


> *Making the Stretchers*
> 
> I wanted to make the bench's stretchers as proportionately beefy as the top and legs. Since my legs are 5" square, I figured it would work well, and look good, to make the stretchers about 3 1/2" high, and about 2 1/2" thick. So I had to AGAIN joint, plane, glue, clamp and wait some more. I've been getting kind of bored of doing glue-ups, so I'm glad this was the last laminating I'll have to do on this project. I want to integrate 3/4" thick tongue and groove boards on the stretches to turn them into a shelf below the bench. So in the process of laminating the stretchers together, I made a 3/4" deep rabbet along the length of each. I also decided that I want to incorporate a removable sliding deadman along the front of the bench. I planned it like the Roubo in Schwarz's book - the bottom of the sliding deadman will have a concave mitered slot that will sit on top of, and ride along, a corresponding convex mitered edge along the top of the front stretcher. Before I laminated together the two boards to make the front stretcher, I cut the deadman track on my table saw.
> 
> ...


Sure looks like well done progress.


----------



## wcndave (Jun 29, 2010)

AndyPanko said:


> *Making the Stretchers*
> 
> I wanted to make the bench's stretchers as proportionately beefy as the top and legs. Since my legs are 5" square, I figured it would work well, and look good, to make the stretchers about 3 1/2" high, and about 2 1/2" thick. So I had to AGAIN joint, plane, glue, clamp and wait some more. I've been getting kind of bored of doing glue-ups, so I'm glad this was the last laminating I'll have to do on this project. I want to integrate 3/4" thick tongue and groove boards on the stretches to turn them into a shelf below the bench. So in the process of laminating the stretchers together, I made a 3/4" deep rabbet along the length of each. I also decided that I want to incorporate a removable sliding deadman along the front of the bench. I planned it like the Roubo in Schwarz's book - the bottom of the sliding deadman will have a concave mitered slot that will sit on top of, and ride along, a corresponding convex mitered edge along the top of the front stretcher. Before I laminated together the two boards to make the front stretcher, I cut the deadman track on my table saw.
> 
> ...


Hey, looks great, can't wait to see the next installment!

couple of quick questions.

How do you prevent play / friction in your wagon vice? I would have thought that a flanged nut at each end of the end block would have been best in terms of keeping the thread off the wood inside, and to keep it straight…

Also, when I have done box / dovetail joints inevitably the end grain moves differently than the long grain, so you can feel "bumps" after a couple of years, do you think that will affect your "flatness"?


----------



## LeeJ (Jul 4, 2007)

AndyPanko said:


> *Making the Stretchers*
> 
> I wanted to make the bench's stretchers as proportionately beefy as the top and legs. Since my legs are 5" square, I figured it would work well, and look good, to make the stretchers about 3 1/2" high, and about 2 1/2" thick. So I had to AGAIN joint, plane, glue, clamp and wait some more. I've been getting kind of bored of doing glue-ups, so I'm glad this was the last laminating I'll have to do on this project. I want to integrate 3/4" thick tongue and groove boards on the stretches to turn them into a shelf below the bench. So in the process of laminating the stretchers together, I made a 3/4" deep rabbet along the length of each. I also decided that I want to incorporate a removable sliding deadman along the front of the bench. I planned it like the Roubo in Schwarz's book - the bottom of the sliding deadman will have a concave mitered slot that will sit on top of, and ride along, a corresponding convex mitered edge along the top of the front stretcher. Before I laminated together the two boards to make the front stretcher, I cut the deadman track on my table saw.
> 
> ...


Hi Andy;

I've enjoyed reading your blog on this bench.

You're doing a great job.

Lee


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

AndyPanko said:


> *Making the Stretchers*
> 
> I wanted to make the bench's stretchers as proportionately beefy as the top and legs. Since my legs are 5" square, I figured it would work well, and look good, to make the stretchers about 3 1/2" high, and about 2 1/2" thick. So I had to AGAIN joint, plane, glue, clamp and wait some more. I've been getting kind of bored of doing glue-ups, so I'm glad this was the last laminating I'll have to do on this project. I want to integrate 3/4" thick tongue and groove boards on the stretches to turn them into a shelf below the bench. So in the process of laminating the stretchers together, I made a 3/4" deep rabbet along the length of each. I also decided that I want to incorporate a removable sliding deadman along the front of the bench. I planned it like the Roubo in Schwarz's book - the bottom of the sliding deadman will have a concave mitered slot that will sit on top of, and ride along, a corresponding convex mitered edge along the top of the front stretcher. Before I laminated together the two boards to make the front stretcher, I cut the deadman track on my table saw.
> 
> ...


wcndave:

There is virtually no play in the wagon vise. I sized the wagon block so that it was snug inside the opening. And I made sure the track system that the wagon block rides on has minimal play too. The end result is that there basically isn't any play between the block and the top. Therefore, that translates to there being virtually no play between the screw and the one flanged nut. The Lie-Nielsen screw and nut are machined really well and don't have much play to start with. But since the wagon block effectively takes out any play in the whole system, there really isn't any play between the screw and the flanged nut, so the screw doesn't bump around inside the wood.

Yes, I'm assuming that over time, the square and flatness of the whole bench will shift around. The top can always be re-flattened, which I plan on having to do at some point. But I'm not concerned about legs and stretchers moving too much out of square and/or 90 degrees. Even if things do move a little, I don't think it will be severe to the point that it will affect the functionality of the larger structure.


----------



## tenhoeda (Jun 27, 2008)

AndyPanko said:


> *Making the Stretchers*
> 
> I wanted to make the bench's stretchers as proportionately beefy as the top and legs. Since my legs are 5" square, I figured it would work well, and look good, to make the stretchers about 3 1/2" high, and about 2 1/2" thick. So I had to AGAIN joint, plane, glue, clamp and wait some more. I've been getting kind of bored of doing glue-ups, so I'm glad this was the last laminating I'll have to do on this project. I want to integrate 3/4" thick tongue and groove boards on the stretches to turn them into a shelf below the bench. So in the process of laminating the stretchers together, I made a 3/4" deep rabbet along the length of each. I also decided that I want to incorporate a removable sliding deadman along the front of the bench. I planned it like the Roubo in Schwarz's book - the bottom of the sliding deadman will have a concave mitered slot that will sit on top of, and ride along, a corresponding convex mitered edge along the top of the front stretcher. Before I laminated together the two boards to make the front stretcher, I cut the deadman track on my table saw.
> 
> ...


Just finished catching up on this series. Looks like a good beefy bench to do hand work on. I think this will be the final kick I need to get the material for mine. Thanks for the excellent blog! Looking forward to your next progress update


----------



## wcndave (Jun 29, 2010)

AndyPanko said:


> *Making the Stretchers*
> 
> I wanted to make the bench's stretchers as proportionately beefy as the top and legs. Since my legs are 5" square, I figured it would work well, and look good, to make the stretchers about 3 1/2" high, and about 2 1/2" thick. So I had to AGAIN joint, plane, glue, clamp and wait some more. I've been getting kind of bored of doing glue-ups, so I'm glad this was the last laminating I'll have to do on this project. I want to integrate 3/4" thick tongue and groove boards on the stretches to turn them into a shelf below the bench. So in the process of laminating the stretchers together, I made a 3/4" deep rabbet along the length of each. I also decided that I want to incorporate a removable sliding deadman along the front of the bench. I planned it like the Roubo in Schwarz's book - the bottom of the sliding deadman will have a concave mitered slot that will sit on top of, and ride along, a corresponding convex mitered edge along the top of the front stretcher. Before I laminated together the two boards to make the front stretcher, I cut the deadman track on my table saw.
> 
> ...


You've done a pretty thorough job on the vice then, I was just wondering if for us who are less perfect having two nuts with the thread passing through both would eliminate play "without any effort". I guess there's one obvious way for me to find out ;-)

With regards to the top, I don't think the legs / stretchers will do anything you need to worry about for a while, and if the top is well seasoned, and given it's laminated, should not need much attention once it's tuned.

I was really wondering whether you'd looked in to what the tenons from the legs will do, as on other tenon joinery I've done, they've resulted in little bumps, so you'd have 4 uneven places on the top. Having to deal with this well before the top itself needs re-tuning could be a pain. However I've seen others do it too, so can't be that much of a problem!

looking forward to the next one.

Dave


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*Attaching the Stretchers to the Legs*

I had thought that I previously finished the legs (except for mortising for the stretchers). However, after visualizing how the top would mate to the legs, I realized I needed to adjust the tenons on the two legs on the left of the bench. I'm going to be putting the left legs flush with the left edge of the top. I don't want to be able to see the tenons from the side of the top when the project is complete. Using the table saw, I notched the tenons on the top of the legs so they won't go all the way to the outer edge.










Another great tip I got from reading Schwarz's book was that he put a small chamfer on the bottom of each of his legs. Since he planned on having to drag the bench around the shop every now and again, the chamfer would help prevent the edges of the bottoms of the legs from catching on the ground and tearing out. Using my router and a chamfer bit, I put about a 1/4" chamfer all around the bottoms of the legs.










Now the legs were done, so it was on to cutting the mortises for the stretchers. I ran into a fair bit of trouble when I started actually cutting the mortises. My stretcher tenons were already done and sized. I've never actually cut mortises this big before, but I figured it would be easiest to bore out the majority of the mortis with a Forstner bit on the drill press, and then chisel the hole square. I marked my first mortis, brought the leg to the drill press, set the drill press table's fence and stop blocks accordingly, set the quill's depth stop for 2 5/8", and started drilling with a 7/8" diameter bit. The first hole went as planned - straight down into the wood with no problems. But when I started drilling the second hole, which overlapped the first hole by about 1/2 the diameter, the bit kept wanting to travel to the side as it went down. Unfortunately, even though my drill press table's fence and stop blocks were real tight, AND the workpiece was clamped onto the table, the drill press table itself kept slowly shifting. After investigating, I realized it is sort of a flaw in the way the table was designed. It is the Rockler full size drill press table. I've had it for five years, and up until now, it has performed flawlessly. However, I guess I've never before put it to task with something that exerts a lot of lateral force like this. The hold down clamps on the underside of the drill press table that hold the table onto the small metal table that came with the drill press weren't holding as tight as they needed to. End result, the table felt tight to the bare hand, but under heavy lateral force, it would nudge sideways. Not good.

If nothing else, woodworking is about problem solving. Faced with this relatively large problem, I decided I would ditch the drill press idea and instead use my 3/4" diameter spiral upcut bit in a plunge router to bore out the mortises.










However, using the router bit method meant another slight problem - my stretcher tenons were already 2 1/2" long, but the upcut bit only plunges 2 3/8" below the base of the router. This was a hassle, but not a huge deal. I simply shortened each tenon 1/4", which would still allow an 1/8" of space between the end of the tenons and bottom of the mortises.

After thinking about the best and most efficient way to guide the router to make straight and consistent sized mortis holes, I realized I should make a rectangular guide jig that would sit on top of the workpiece, acting as a straightedge on each of the four sides of the mortis. I had some 1.5" wide 3/4" popular lying around that fit the job perfectly. After some quick measuring and pocket holing, the jig was done. I also added a guide to the underside of it. This guide served two purposes: 1) keep the jig square to the leg and 2) set the mortis back the proper distance from the face of the leg.










I tried to size my jig so that it would make mortises that had a very small amount of play around the tenons. I made a test mortis on a scrap piece of wood. Unfortunately, the mortis had TOO much play. It was about 1/16" too big around each side of the tenon. This was way too much play…unacceptable. Round 2 - I took the jig apart, sized it down a little bit and put it back together. This time I erred on the side of being too small. Sure enough, after making a test cut with the resized jig, it was about 1/32" too small on each side of the tenon. I was starting to get angry at this point. After huffing and puffing and letting out some choice expletives, I calmed down and came to the decision that I'll keep the jig as is, and nibble down all my tenons a little bit. I first started to use my large shoulder plane, but it was taking too long. Given my level of frustration with how the whole mortis and tenon process was going so far, I wanted as fast a fix as possible. So I put the dado stack in my table saw and buzzed down all the tenons that way. I now had tenons that were perfectly sized to the mortis holes from the revamped jig. Score. Finally.

Now it was time to take the leap and make the first mortis in the legs. I clamped up the jig onto the leg, and made the cut. It was a mess of wood chips and sawdust while I was making the cut. But all said and done, the mortise came out clean and pretty.










I cut each of the eight mortises needed, and then I had to square up each hole. After thinking it about for a little bit, I realized it would be probably be quicker to round over the tenons instead of squaring up the holes. Since the tenons are so large, there is plenty of room to round the corners and still have a sufficient amount of straight face surfaces to mate with the walls of the mortises. With a sharp chisel, I sliced down each edge to give it the approximately 3/8" radius needed to fit in the mortises.










I tested the fit of each tenon as I went along. Most of them were all a little too snug the first go around, so I used a rasp to knock a little extra off each edge, where needed. Each tenon ended up rounded pretty well.










I'm very happy with how everything came out. The tenons all fit well, with just a touch of play. Again, since I'll be drawboring, it's okay to have a little play in the fit (or at least that's what I'm told by Schwarz's online video lesson on how to drawbore. Let's hope he's right…)










I dry fit all the legs and stretchers to see it all together. It feels GREAT to see these basically done. Especially considering the bumps along the way in trying to do the mortises. I'm glad this part is over.



















All I have to do now to complete the leg/stretcher assembly is drawbore the joints, which should be pretty easy. One problem though - the drawbore pins I ordered a week ago from Lee Valley have not yet arrived. I'm surprised they're not here yet. Maybe I've come to expect faster ship times that I should. Even with Amazon's free "Super Saver" shipping - which is supposed to be 5-10 business days or something - the stuff usually arrives within 3-4 days of when I ordered it. Even when I ordered the spiral upcut bit from Lee Valley a few weeks ago, it was here within 3 or 4 business days I think. Oh well. The pins should be here in the next day or two I'm guessing. And for the record, I went with the Lee Valley drawbore pins over the Lie-Nielsen pins because they were a third the price. I love Lie-Nielsen stuff, and their quality is top notch. With almost all tools, I'm never hesitant to pay up for good quality. But in this case, it is literally a set of steel rods with a wooden handles. I don't think the $90 Lie-Nielsen set can possibly be that much better than the $30 Lee Valley set. Sorry Lie-Nielsen.

That's all for now. I'm REALLY starting to feel good about this whole thing now. The end is definitely within sight! Lovely. See you next time.

- Andy


----------



## RGtools (Feb 18, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *Attaching the Stretchers to the Legs*
> 
> I had thought that I previously finished the legs (except for mortising for the stretchers). However, after visualizing how the top would mate to the legs, I realized I needed to adjust the tenons on the two legs on the left of the bench. I'm going to be putting the left legs flush with the left edge of the top. I don't want to be able to see the tenons from the side of the top when the project is complete. Using the table saw, I notched the tenons on the top of the legs so they won't go all the way to the outer edge.
> 
> ...


How the heck did I miss this blog for so long?

Thanks for sharing, I totally agree on the draw bore pins…the price difference between the two is staggering and I doubt the change in functionality could be that different.


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*Finishing the Underside of the Top*

Since I couldn't start drawboring the stretchers and legs together, I thought I'd spend my wait time finishing all the work on the underside of the bench. First, I had to make sure the underside of the top was reasonably flat. Prior to doing the final glue-up of the top, I had two 12" wide sections, each of which was run through my planer. So I knew those two sections were identical in thickness and were very flat. And I used my jointer to joint the mating edge of each section. So I figured the final slab should be really flat and consistent. However, the mating edges must not have been exactly 90 degrees, because the bottom was crested at the glue line in the middle. It was basically an upside down "V". I put a straight edge piece of wood across the underside of the top, and it basically teetered, with the exact middle as the fulcrum. The only explanation was that the jointer wasn't exactly 90 degrees. Each edge sloped away from the center by about 1/16". You can see it clearly below: if I teetered the straightedge to one side, you can see the straightedge rested cleanly along that whole side, but the gap on the other side started as nothing the center and went out to about 1/8" at the end.










I needed to plane down about 1/16" down the whole center of the underside, and then smooth that out to edges. I could have hand planed the whole thing, but I fortunately have a power planer, which would save a lot of time by roughing out the majority of the material.










Sure enough, one 15 second pass down the middle at a depth of 1/16" took out a nice clean strip. Removing this much material by hand would have been at least 15 minutes and lots of arm fatigue, especially since I don't have a scrub plane or anything else than would easily and safely remove lots of material quickly.










I then worked outward toward each edge, overlapping the first pass, with the depth set at 1/32" to help fan out the thickness as necessary.

After the few passes with the power planer, I busted out my new Lie-Nielsen #7 jointer plane and smoothed out the whole surface. As I mentioned in a few previous posts, I did not have any other hand planes, besides a block plane, prior to starting this project. So I hit up Craislist and eBay to find good condition Lie-Nielsen planes that that I would need to complete this project. Over the course of two weeks I bought a bronze #4, a large shoulder plane and this #7 (with the cocobolo knob and tote). All were effectively brand new, and priced accordingly. It was an expensive couple of weeks…










I did a series of overlapping diagonal passes across the whole thing, and then used my #4 smoother to clean it all up a little bit. The end result, after about 45 minutes of total work surfacing this thing, it ended up well within my tolerance of acceptable flatness for the underside.










Now that the bottom was well surfaced, it was time to cut the mortises to receive the leg tenons. As with the mortises in the legs (to receive the stretchers), I made a custom guide jig so that I can use a 3/4" spiral upcut bit in a plunge router to hog out the mortis.










Instead of leaving the mortises rounded and then rounding the tenons to match - like I did with the stretchers - I decided I would square up these mortises. No particular reason why I decided to square these but not the mortises in the leg. I just felt like mixing it up a bit. I used a chisel to square up the holes.










It took a little shoulder planing of the tenon to get a good fit on each joint. But after cleaning up each tenon, I tested the fit to see how it looked. Came out pretty good.










Now the leg mortises were all done, so it was time to rout out the dado that will act as the guide/track for the top of the sliding deadman I'm going to make. A plunge router with 3/4" spiral upcut bit and a router base guide worked perfectly.



















I have to give credit where credit is due: the 3/4" spiral upcut bit I bought for this project was exactly what was needed for a few different parts of this bench. It was $40 well spent at Lee Valley.

The final step in finishing the underside of the top was to mount my front vise. I bought the Rockler single screw quick release face vise. It is built really well - lots of heft, two well-machined guide rails, smooth operating screw.










Ideally, I would have loved to use the Benchcrafted vises for both the front vise and wagon vise. Those things are ridiculously awesome. But at $300+ a piece, I couldn't justify it. Even with the two relatively inexpensive vises I used on this bench ($100 for the Rockler front vise and $70 for the Lie-Nielsen Scandinavian screw), the vise hardware ended up costing slightly more than all the lumber I used. Go figure.

Now the top is ready to be attached to the legs. But first I have to put the legs and stretchers together. I need the drawbore pin to arrive before I do that though. Should be any day now. Cool.

And in other news, the Woodworking Shows is in my area this weekend (the Somerset, NJ show). I'm going tomorrow morning. It has been one of the highlights of my year each year since I first went in 2003. Although, I'm convinced that the shows keep getting increasingly smaller each year. I guess the Internet has slowly been cannibalizing the economics of vendors participating in such expos. Anyway, it is still an awesome event for a woodworking hobbyist and tool junky like myself. Maybe I'll see some of you there…

- Andy


----------



## RGtools (Feb 18, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *Finishing the Underside of the Top*
> 
> Since I couldn't start drawboring the stretchers and legs together, I thought I'd spend my wait time finishing all the work on the underside of the bench. First, I had to make sure the underside of the top was reasonably flat. Prior to doing the final glue-up of the top, I had two 12" wide sections, each of which was run through my planer. So I knew those two sections were identical in thickness and were very flat. And I used my jointer to joint the mating edge of each section. So I figured the final slab should be really flat and consistent. However, the mating edges must not have been exactly 90 degrees, because the bottom was crested at the glue line in the middle. It was basically an upside down "V". I put a straight edge piece of wood across the underside of the top, and it basically teetered, with the exact middle as the fulcrum. The only explanation was that the jointer wasn't exactly 90 degrees. Each edge sloped away from the center by about 1/16". You can see it clearly below: if I teetered the straightedge to one side, you can see the straightedge rested cleanly along that whole side, but the gap on the other side started as nothing the center and went out to about 1/8" at the end.
> 
> ...


This thing is turning into a monster. Thanks for sharing, I can't see enough of these builds because everyone takes a slightly different tack to get the job done.

Makes me almost want a router.


----------



## doordude (Mar 26, 2010)

AndyPanko said:


> *Finishing the Underside of the Top*
> 
> Since I couldn't start drawboring the stretchers and legs together, I thought I'd spend my wait time finishing all the work on the underside of the bench. First, I had to make sure the underside of the top was reasonably flat. Prior to doing the final glue-up of the top, I had two 12" wide sections, each of which was run through my planer. So I knew those two sections were identical in thickness and were very flat. And I used my jointer to joint the mating edge of each section. So I figured the final slab should be really flat and consistent. However, the mating edges must not have been exactly 90 degrees, because the bottom was crested at the glue line in the middle. It was basically an upside down "V". I put a straight edge piece of wood across the underside of the top, and it basically teetered, with the exact middle as the fulcrum. The only explanation was that the jointer wasn't exactly 90 degrees. Each edge sloped away from the center by about 1/16". You can see it clearly below: if I teetered the straightedge to one side, you can see the straightedge rested cleanly along that whole side, but the gap on the other side started as nothing the center and went out to about 1/8" at the end.
> 
> ...


looks great so far.i got my draw pin from sears for $8 bucks. just the other day i cut some of the length off,and turned a nice cocobollo handle for it. now i just leave it in place at the parallel guide.
keep going on your bench,look to see your progress soon.


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*Connecting the Stretchers to Legs...to THE TOP!*

These posts haven't been exactly chronological. For example, in the last entry, (about finishing the underside of the top) some of the stuff I did prior to finishing the legs and stretchers, and some of it I did after. But for the sake of giving better flow to this blog, I thought I'd lump stuff together in logical parts. I digress.

My drawbore pin arrived from Lee Valley recently, so I was able to finally connect all these mortis and tenon joints. As I had previously mentioned, I bought the Lee Valley drawbore pins instead of the Lie-Nielsen pins because I thought the Lee Valley pins were a third the price. I pulled a bonehead move and thought I read that the Lee Valley pins were $30 for A PAIR. Whereas the Lie-Nielsen's are $90 for a pair. After the Lee Valley pin arrived, I realized it was just one pin. After checking their website again and reading it in better detail, sure enough it is only ONE pin for $30…not a pair. But the Lie-Nielsen's are definitely TWO for $90. So therefore, the Lee Valley's aren't as comparatively cheap as I thought they were. But still, I don't know why you'd need two of the same pins. So I still don't regret my decision to NOT buy the Lie-Nielsen set of pins. Just thought I'd share this meaningless story with you. Sorry.

For the mortis and tenon joints between the stretchers and legs, I thought one 3/8" drawbore pin/dowel would suffice. I measured the center of the pin 7/8 " from the shoulder of my tenons. Each tenon is 2 1/4" long, so 7/8" seemed like a decent distance from the shoulder. No hard science here, just a subjective decision. I bought a brad point 3/8" bit, and drilled all the holes through the mortises in my drill press.










After drilling through all the mortises, I then placed each tenon in the joint, and marked the center of the hole with the drill bit.










This picture isn't great, but it gets the point across - after I marked the center on each tenon, I then marked an offset closer to the shoulder by about 3/32". According to Schwarz's online tutorial about drawboring, you generally shouldn't offset your tenon hole by more than 1/8". Since this was my first time drawboring, I didn't want to push any limits. So I played it somewhat conservatively and did 3/32".










I then drilled each tenon on the drill press.










Next I dry fit each joint, and used the drawbore pin to prep each dowel hole. It took a lot of elbow grease to ream each hole. I ended up with a good blister on each of my palms from having to push and twist so hard (that's what she said).










I bought 3/8" oak dowels from Home Depot, and cut them all to length. Using a box cutter, I tapered the tip of each to allow me to driven them through the offset drawbore holes.










Before assembling each joint, I applied a liberal amount of glue to the mortis, put the tenon in, and then drove in the drawbore dowel with a deadblow mallet. There was a healthy amount of resistance in driving in the dowels, but not as much as a I thought there would be. I definitely could have gotten away with doing 1/8" offset on the drilled holes. Maybe even a little more. I guess since my tenons are so large and I'm using relatively thick dowels, I could have used a bigger offset. Oh well. The joints all still came out PLENTY strong. I cut the dowels so that there was some extra that I'd have to come back and saw and plane down flush.










Here is the finished assembly of the legs and stretchers.










Now the top was ready to be put on. I should mention that I had previously drilled the drawbore holes through the mortises in the top slab. Since the top slab was too big and heavy to try to maneuver on the drill press, I drilled those with a hand drill. I then marked and drilled the holes in the tenons on the legs. I did those on the drill press. Anyway, with some help from my stronger than I thought wife, we lifted the top onto the leg assembly, and I drove in all of those drawbore dowels. And here it is…










It was awesome to see it all together. There are still some finishing touches that I have to do to get it completely done, but as you can see, the project is basically finished at this point. It's kind of sad - putting the top and legs together was more anticlimactic than I thought. I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe some balloons falling from the ceiling. Possibly some confetti? Perhaps some loud sirens and disco lights, as if I was the one millionth customer at a supermarket and won a prize for the random accomplishment. No, I had none of that. But still, it was a great feeling to see it all together. I guess it is better than balloons and confetti. After all, those would have just been more things I would have had to clean up off the floor.

So now all that left is:
- Flatten the top
- Make a wooden jaw pad for the front vise
- Drill some more 3/4" dog holes in the top and possibly some in the legs, for holdfasts
- Apply some sort of coating/finish to the whole thing (I need to research this more to see what sort of product would be best). I'm thinking Danish oil at this point, but we'll see
- Put on tongue and groove decking on the stretchers to turn that into a shelf
- Make some bench accessories: bench dogs, sliding deadman, batten, maybe some other stuff
- I'm sure I'm forgetting something else that I'll realize later

I guess that's it. The next post will presumably be my last. I'm getting a little teary-eyed that this whole thing is drawing to a close. I need to go find someone to hug. As always, thanks for reading!

- Andy


----------



## RGtools (Feb 18, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *Connecting the Stretchers to Legs...to THE TOP!*
> 
> These posts haven't been exactly chronological. For example, in the last entry, (about finishing the underside of the top) some of the stuff I did prior to finishing the legs and stretchers, and some of it I did after. But for the sake of giving better flow to this blog, I thought I'd lump stuff together in logical parts. I digress.
> 
> ...


A pencil sharpener works well to taper the pins as well.


----------



## AndyPanko (Jan 16, 2012)

*THE FINAL PRODUCT!!!*

It's a wrap - my workbench project is now complete. The only thing I have left to do is to make the sliding deadman. But honestly, I don't really plan on using that much, if at all. I built in the ability to have one because I thought it would be cool, and I figured it wasn't too much work to allow for one, so I did. But I'm in no rush to actually make the deadman, so I'll officially consider the bench project complete at this point, and worry about making the deadman at some point later. Also, I originally planned on making my own wooden bench dogs. However, after looking more into all the different 3/4" dog products on the market, I decided it would be best to just buy some. I bought a pair of 4" long metal dogs from Lee Valley, and I just learned this weekend about the plastic dogs that Kreg makes. They are only $8 for four round dogs that have rectangular heads. Great value. I have many other Kreg products, and I'm impressed with the quality of everything they makes. So I'll probably pick them up at some point too.

Since my last post, I had to still flatten out the top, put in the stretcher shelf, make the jaw pad for the face vise and put some sort of finish on the whole thing. If you recall from previous posts, if you looked at my top across it's length from the end, it was shaped like a "V". I previously flattened out the bottom, but I obviously had the top to deal with too. As with the underside, I used a power planer to take off the majority of the unevenness. Then I used a #7 jointer plane until the whole thing was flat, and then a #4 smoothing plane to touch it all up. Below is the mess of shavings just from the hand planes - the power plane chips went into a collection bag.










I used straightedges to make sure there were no twists and that the top was flat and true. Here is the final flatness check…dead on.










I then gave the whole thing a quick sand with 220 grit on a random orbit sander.

I next made the shelf for the stretchers. I was tired of planing and jointing at this point in the project, so I just bought some 1×6 select pine boards from home depot, made some quick tongues and grooves on them on my table saw, and then laid them out across the stretchers. I didn't mechanically fasten them, as I want to be able to take them out and/or replace them if I ever need to.

I then drilled a few more 3/4" dog holes in the top for holdfasts or other dog accessories.

Finally, I finished the whole thing with a 4-to-1 mixture of boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits. I gave it all two coats, three on the top. And here she is…the final product:




























The Rockler face vise I used came with a handle. However, the vise screw I bought for the wagon vise didn't. Fortunately, Rockler sells extra handles, so I bought another one to use on the wagon vise so I can have matching handles on the two vises.



















And here's the stretcher shelf.










So that's it, the project is done. For anyone who's interested, here are some stats about the project:

DIMENSIONS / WEIGHT:
- 34 1/2" high
- Top is 63" wide, 24" deep, 3 3/4" thick 
- 5" thick square legs
- I don't know the weight, but it is best classified as "friggin heavy"

COSTS:
- $200 in wood (nine 2×12 x 12' Douglas Fir joists, four 1×6 x 6' select pine boards, three 3/8" x 3' oak dowels)
- $180 in vise hardware ($100 Rockler quick release face vise, $70 Lie-Nielsen small Scandinavian vise screw and - $10 extra vise handle from Rockler)
- $25 in glue (gallon of Tite Bond extend glue…I used almost all of it)
- $30 in boiled linseed oil (I bought a new large container of it, but only used a small fraction of it…figure about $5 worth)
TOTAL COST…right around $400 all in

TOOLS NEEDED:
Too many to list, but I basically used the majority of the tools in my shop in one way or another. However, I have to give special credit to the undisputed workhorses of this project: planer, jointer, table saw

TIME:
Not exactly sure, but probably somewhere around 60 hours, give or take 10 hours. And that's not including drying time after all the glue-ups. I wish I would have kept track of the time, as I'm now curious exactly how long it all took. Oh well.

So that's that. It's all over now. My next blog-worthy project is going to be a playhouse I'll be building for my two daughters in the next month or so. It will be probably 6'x8' and about 7' high at the peak. Should be fun. So thanks again to everyone who has followed this blog. I hope you enjoyed and/or learned something from it. It was a fun project to do, and I'm really looking forward to now doing more hand work. Until next time…

- Andy


----------



## kaschimer (Nov 10, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *THE FINAL PRODUCT!!!*
> 
> It's a wrap - my workbench project is now complete. The only thing I have left to do is to make the sliding deadman. But honestly, I don't really plan on using that much, if at all. I built in the ability to have one because I thought it would be cool, and I figured it wasn't too much work to allow for one, so I did. But I'm in no rush to actually make the deadman, so I'll officially consider the bench project complete at this point, and worry about making the deadman at some point later. Also, I originally planned on making my own wooden bench dogs. However, after looking more into all the different 3/4" dog products on the market, I decided it would be best to just buy some. I bought a pair of 4" long metal dogs from Lee Valley, and I just learned this weekend about the plastic dogs that Kreg makes. They are only $8 for four round dogs that have rectangular heads. Great value. I have many other Kreg products, and I'm impressed with the quality of everything they makes. So I'll probably pick them up at some point too.
> 
> ...


Excellent! You did a great job on it, and I must say, I am a bit jealous…


----------



## FatherHooligan (Mar 27, 2008)

AndyPanko said:


> *THE FINAL PRODUCT!!!*
> 
> It's a wrap - my workbench project is now complete. The only thing I have left to do is to make the sliding deadman. But honestly, I don't really plan on using that much, if at all. I built in the ability to have one because I thought it would be cool, and I figured it wasn't too much work to allow for one, so I did. But I'm in no rush to actually make the deadman, so I'll officially consider the bench project complete at this point, and worry about making the deadman at some point later. Also, I originally planned on making my own wooden bench dogs. However, after looking more into all the different 3/4" dog products on the market, I decided it would be best to just buy some. I bought a pair of 4" long metal dogs from Lee Valley, and I just learned this weekend about the plastic dogs that Kreg makes. They are only $8 for four round dogs that have rectangular heads. Great value. I have many other Kreg products, and I'm impressed with the quality of everything they makes. So I'll probably pick them up at some point too.
> 
> ...


That is a good looking bench. Thank you for blogging your build.


----------



## davidroberts (Nov 8, 2008)

AndyPanko said:


> *THE FINAL PRODUCT!!!*
> 
> It's a wrap - my workbench project is now complete. The only thing I have left to do is to make the sliding deadman. But honestly, I don't really plan on using that much, if at all. I built in the ability to have one because I thought it would be cool, and I figured it wasn't too much work to allow for one, so I did. But I'm in no rush to actually make the deadman, so I'll officially consider the bench project complete at this point, and worry about making the deadman at some point later. Also, I originally planned on making my own wooden bench dogs. However, after looking more into all the different 3/4" dog products on the market, I decided it would be best to just buy some. I bought a pair of 4" long metal dogs from Lee Valley, and I just learned this weekend about the plastic dogs that Kreg makes. They are only $8 for four round dogs that have rectangular heads. Great value. I have many other Kreg products, and I'm impressed with the quality of everything they makes. So I'll probably pick them up at some point too.
> 
> ...


she ain't heavy, she's a monster. i bet you could pound on one end all day long and not even make a ripple on the other end. love the vice screw.


----------



## dczward (May 23, 2011)

AndyPanko said:


> *THE FINAL PRODUCT!!!*
> 
> It's a wrap - my workbench project is now complete. The only thing I have left to do is to make the sliding deadman. But honestly, I don't really plan on using that much, if at all. I built in the ability to have one because I thought it would be cool, and I figured it wasn't too much work to allow for one, so I did. But I'm in no rush to actually make the deadman, so I'll officially consider the bench project complete at this point, and worry about making the deadman at some point later. Also, I originally planned on making my own wooden bench dogs. However, after looking more into all the different 3/4" dog products on the market, I decided it would be best to just buy some. I bought a pair of 4" long metal dogs from Lee Valley, and I just learned this weekend about the plastic dogs that Kreg makes. They are only $8 for four round dogs that have rectangular heads. Great value. I have many other Kreg products, and I'm impressed with the quality of everything they makes. So I'll probably pick them up at some point too.
> 
> ...


I really enjoyed reading this blog/build. If I ever finish the kitchen project I'm on, I'll hopefully have time to tackle a bench like this. Thanks for being so thorough.


----------



## kenn (Mar 19, 2008)

AndyPanko said:


> *THE FINAL PRODUCT!!!*
> 
> It's a wrap - my workbench project is now complete. The only thing I have left to do is to make the sliding deadman. But honestly, I don't really plan on using that much, if at all. I built in the ability to have one because I thought it would be cool, and I figured it wasn't too much work to allow for one, so I did. But I'm in no rush to actually make the deadman, so I'll officially consider the bench project complete at this point, and worry about making the deadman at some point later. Also, I originally planned on making my own wooden bench dogs. However, after looking more into all the different 3/4" dog products on the market, I decided it would be best to just buy some. I bought a pair of 4" long metal dogs from Lee Valley, and I just learned this weekend about the plastic dogs that Kreg makes. They are only $8 for four round dogs that have rectangular heads. Great value. I have many other Kreg products, and I'm impressed with the quality of everything they makes. So I'll probably pick them up at some point too.
> 
> ...


Congrats! I know you love her and will love using her.


----------



## DanielBK (Apr 19, 2016)

AndyPanko said:


> *THE FINAL PRODUCT!!!*
> 
> It's a wrap - my workbench project is now complete. The only thing I have left to do is to make the sliding deadman. But honestly, I don't really plan on using that much, if at all. I built in the ability to have one because I thought it would be cool, and I figured it wasn't too much work to allow for one, so I did. But I'm in no rush to actually make the deadman, so I'll officially consider the bench project complete at this point, and worry about making the deadman at some point later. Also, I originally planned on making my own wooden bench dogs. However, after looking more into all the different 3/4" dog products on the market, I decided it would be best to just buy some. I bought a pair of 4" long metal dogs from Lee Valley, and I just learned this weekend about the plastic dogs that Kreg makes. They are only $8 for four round dogs that have rectangular heads. Great value. I have many other Kreg products, and I'm impressed with the quality of everything they makes. So I'll probably pick them up at some point too.
> 
> ...


Well written build. Now, 4 years later, how has the choice of using Douglas for played out relative to how much use it's seen? Thanks.


----------

