Thread: The Outdoor Workbench

Ok - so where were we?
Oh yes. You've forgotten what the hell I was trying to do, and never cared that much in the first place

Fair call.

I am claiming progress in the areas both of philosophical contemplation and actual woodworking activity ... as well as in the area of picking up wood from the roadside.

I had already had some thoughts about whether wood this nice shouldn't be making at least an inside workbench. And in contemplating making a leg vice, and the need for dog-holes ... it has been nagging at me that I didn't really want to make alterations to the wood that would seriously impact on it being used for something else - like furniture - in the future.

Then progressively over the last several months there have been cropping up large sections of pine in peoples' roadside discards. Maybe it has been there before - I have mostly only looked out for hardwood - and I wasn't that sure about what I might use it for.

I had got to the point of very much wanting to build a sawbench of some kind, but was trying to figure out a way that that I could have a split top without a crossbeam under the top level so that I could saw straight down the middle without having to stop and move the workpiece. I considered X-legs or a U-shaped frame with corner braces like on verandah or gazebo - but upside down. Then I had a vague recollection and eventually tracked down the Super Sawbench again.
Building the Super Sawbench, p. I - The Big Rip by Matthew Cianci
Building the Super Sawbench, p. IV - Finale by Matthew Cianci

That was another solution to the sawing challenge ... make it longer ... and massive
(Interestingly, Matt says somewhere that he doesn't use the middle gap for sawing.)

Ah. Another reason for the big sawbench idea was that I was increasingly getting the picture that good sawing requires good workholding.

So my first ideas were in the direction of the so-so pine I had picked up becoming this sawbench ... but later the penny dropped that it could become the workbench, and no tears shed.

pinus 008.jpg pinus 009.jpg

The other ingredient was that not all that long ago ... somehow, magically ... sections of an ex-power-pole had appeared near my front door.

Let me tell you, they are hard to get out of the ground ... let alone disconnecting live wires! Ok, not really.

So I had these sections ... and I had read (probably on these forums) that the wood has been found to be stringy and not brilliant for woodworking. That - when I thought about it - sounded like it would do a good job making the sawbench.

So this is where I got to a bit of actual woodworking.
I don't have an actual plan yet - but I knew I wanted to get a level surface on the timber, so that's what I did.

There has been some rain about recently. The raw material ...
power pole 1 001 (Large).jpg power pole 1 002 (Large).jpg

and just for fun the sheoak log it is leaning on ...

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I set it up on the ground and put the electric planer to good use ... there was some twist to remove ...

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and eventually ...

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There was more to be done ... one corner was still high .. but I cleaned up the (bin full of) sawdust as a few drops of rain started ... and went away again. I wasn't keen to keep on with the screamin' planer ... and finally twigged ... Duh ... lets try the hand-tools.

I forgot to mention that I also had the thought that the power poles are treated against termites.
I don't know if it is only the outer skin that is treated(?) ... but I figured I would use this timber as the legs to both benches.

I got out the ol' faithful wooden try-plane/jointer ... it is a bit like a 24" long scrub plane and when there was just one corner left to knock down I used the Carter C10 scrub plane.
(A real scrubber - Blogs - Woodwork Forums)
(Jack plane vs scrub plane, what's the difference? - Hand Tool Village - Wood Talk Online)

While the electric planer was pretty handy for removing a significant volume of wood, at this 90% done stage the hand-tools did a great job. The wooden plane has a much longer bed so helps in achieving flat, while the scrub plane digs at an area more efficiently than the square bladed electric planer with plastic body parts sometimes getting in the way. It is maneuverable, non-tailed, non-life-threatening and has a strongly curved blade. The nearest you could get with a planer would be to break the blades in half and fix them into the middle of the slot ... but I don't know if that could be done safely ... and I expect the cut would still be less effective.

Plus it is more fun and a lot quieter!

This is the start of the hand-work ...

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The middle ...





and the finish ...

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And ... the laying on of water ...

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I'm worn out from just watching a couple of minutes of you working!!!

Nice piece of timber!!!

Originally Posted by artme

I'm worn out from just watching a couple of minutes of you working!!!

Nice piece of timber!!!

Me to and I know my knees couldn't work down there anymore either!

Can't be that much work involved ...

(1) I'm allergic to it
(2) There's about 20 spare kilograms following me around that doesn't look like leaving

Cheers,
Paul

Now that's commitment. Getting down on ground for some well grounded wood working.


Sorry could not resist the pun.

Dude! Did you reduce that power pole from round to rectangular with a power hand plane?!

What sort of relationship do you have with your neighbours?

Turns out there was a nice piece of wood hiding in there

Originally Posted by Berlin

Dude!

Sweet!

Originally Posted by Berlin

Dude! Did you reduce that power pole from round to rectangular with a power hand plane?!

Not at all It was a half round -almost- to begin with.
When CS talked about Course, Medium & Fine he left out the extra step of someone driving a car into the timber for an initial roughing down step to more manageable pieces.

What sort of relationship do you have with your neighbours?

Ugh. We've been here 13? 14? years. The first 6 or so years there was a sometime-drunk arguing with the family, f'n and blind'n and sometimes throwing rocks onto our roof. Mostly water off a duck's back to me - until a day when strongly worded sentences ... even verbs ... were called for at 11pm. Since then it's been the quiet reassuring peace that North Korea has with South Korea.

He gets out there with his blower/vac making noise for no clear reason when I get home in the mornings ... but it doesn't bother me, I could sleep on a train-line. And the 40 year old steam-powered thicknesser sits several centimetres from his fence ... it was just convenient that way.

I do wonder what leaf blowers accomplish - blow leaves from somewhere to somewhere else. There they are still somesort of a problem and I'd rather listen to a chainsaw!


Now back on topic
I seem to recall that power poles used to be treated with creosote
I doubt whether it penetrated further than the outer about an inch, but really don't know.

That bit of wood you've planed down looks pretty speccy but I'm not sure I'd like to do such work on my knees.

I wanted to take of some of the rounded side next, so i went to my next largest planer ...

power pole 1 034 (Large).jpg power pole 1 035 (Large).jpg power pole 1 042 (Large).jpg

I did a few passes to establish a flat back, then flipped to clean up my hand-planed side, then back again.
My hand planing wasn't perfect, so there was a small dash of banana about - which is why the extra fuss at the last foot or so of the log.

This is near the beginning ... (yes I had put the safety glasses down)



And this was the final pass.



Next plan is to saw down the middle, which will give a chance to test out several ripsaws.
This is the end-faces ... meant to show them previously.
I might end up with more than two pieces but ... cross that bridge if it comes.

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One thing that occurs to me ... and the same is said about computer software and maybe other applications ...

In some computer languages, when you write software code you have to 'compile' the code before it becomes a running program - the human-readable text is transformed into a machine-readable program. In 'the old days' the compilation step might occupy the computer for ten minutes ... or an hour ... or overnight. So the thinking is that you looked at and thought about what you had written pretty damn thoroughly before pressing the button ... whereas these days compilation might take a handful of seconds, so there's little penalty for a spelling or logic error.

Relating that to sawing this beam in half ... I'm having a good ol' think about what pieces I want to end up with afterwards

Cheers,
Paul

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power pole 1 047 (Large).jpg power pole 1 049 (Large).jpg power pole 1 050 (Large).jpg

That is some machine!
I'm sure it was all safe as houses but with all those flapping belts, the trolley jack, the palm tree and the camera, I was half expecting a 'Fargo' moment.

Very nice chunk of wood. What's the plan for the saw bench?

For those who haven't seen the movie.....
Fargo Woodchipper Scene (gross) - YouTube