Thread: WIP- Recyled timber bench, mostly by handtools

This weekend I achieved what I set out to but it took some long hours of effort. The first job was to drill the holes for the cylindrical nuts in the stretchers, put the bench frame back to gether and tighten up the bolts. I wanted to do this to mark out the mortices directly from the leg tenons. This pick shows the bolts I refer to.
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Unfortunately I don't own a flat bottomed drill bit to drill these holes and instead used a regular twist drill bit but it meant getting the depth right and not overshooting was always going to be tricky. I was annoyed to see the tip of the drill emerge out the front of the stretcher on one of the holes.
I had a change of heart about the sliding deadman when I realised that it wouldn't be too much more effort to add one now and I would probably never go back and take the bench apart to add one later. As I don't own a table saw with an angled blade or a rip handsaw yet I had to think of another approach to cut the 45deg bevels on the front stretcher. I decided to route out most of the waste using a 45deg V-groove bit appraoching the cut from the face and then the edge of the stretcher. This left a thin strip I could chisel off and then plane to the lines with my #7. My routing was bit bodgy but I was happy with the end result.
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Luckily the offcut from the stretcher will make a perfectly good sliding deadman and I have found a good work-around from someone's blog to make it removable without having to route an extra deep groove in the underside of the benchtop so as to clear the ridge on the stretcher.
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On Sat in the few hours I had available I spent preparing tools for the job ahead on Sunday. This mostly involved flattening the back of this beast.
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This monster is a Ward 1 inch oval bolstered mortice chisel which I planned to use to cut the mortices in the benchtops. It came into my posession in a terrible condition having been abused in it former life but after considerable effort I have restored it to a usable state. It is actually very difficult to sharpen and flatten the back of it cos it is so heavy and the centre of gravity is at the handle end. It took about 2-3 hours on Sat flattening the back to get it to a usable state plus the several hours on seperate occasions grinding away metal to establish the bevel and remove some huge chips.
Once I aligned the top on the tenons and marked them out I could start on morticing.
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I initially ground the secondary bevel on the ward at 30deg but found after one mortice that edge had failed so I rehoned it at the traditional 35deg and it lasted much longer. I was wailing away so hard on the Ward that evetually the handle, which already had a small split, had started to crack and come loose. I managed to finish the front two mortices and then changed strategy for the rear two. I used a 1 &1/4 softwood bit to remove waste which meant I could have 6mm for movement of the top and then chiseled out the waste. As it is so cold and dry here at the moment I left most of the gap on the inside of the leg tenon for expansion. Several hours later and after repeated attempts I got the top to slide onto the tenons. Whilst I was thumping away I had a spectator fly in to observe.
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After all that lifting of the benchtops my arms were pretty tired but the bench was really stable and leaning on it heavily there was no wracking perceptable. Next step to route the deadman groove and get the end vice on. I think I might use a loose tenon and bolts to attach the endcap although unsure whether I should attempt to make a breadboard style end to 'capture' the two separate benchtops. Any recommendations?

It's looking great Pampelmuse ... and all from recycled wood.

My Gawd but I am learning so much from these WIPs. I still have to develop the skills, but these WIPs have to be the best way for a novice like me to pick up ideas that in the old days probably took a lifetime to gather!

Your thread has given me some insight into the need to accomodate the effects of expansion that I would never even have considered.

Sure you will elaborate in future posts = "I have found a good work-around from someone's blog to make it removable without having to route an extra deep groove in the underside of the benchtop so as to clear the ridge on the stretcher." ?

Andy

I agree Andy. The innernets really speeds up knowledge acquisition and I have gathered lots of design ideas from the forum and other sources. I would refer you to the blog I saw the workaround on but I can't for life of me remember where it was. It is basically cutting the deadman to fit under the benchtop, cutting a rebate at the rear of the top and screwing in a block that can fit into width of the routed slot. To install/uninstall you just undo the screws when in position. Simple idea but I might not have thought of it myself and would have run into trouble routing a deep enough groove with my puny router.

Speaking of this very problem, I was talking to Groggy about how to do this very thing as well as limiting the width of the groove for the sliding deadman. He gave me the ide that a steel lip would require less material removed and would have to be attached with a mechanical system anyway so the depth would only need to be a function of strength required, not geometry.

I'm thinking a big bit of 100x100 angle (6mm wall thickness) cut to suit with a couple of 12mm nuts welded to it would do the job nicely. Just unbolt it from the outside of the deadman when it needs to be removed.

Originally Posted by kman-oz

I'm thinking a big bit of 100x100 angle (6mm wall thickness) cut to suit with a couple of 12mm nuts welded to it would do the job nicely. Just unbolt it from the outside of the deadman when it needs to be removed.

I am trying to envisage this and can't seem to get it. Do you mean the bolts pass through the deadman? I can't see how the angle works if the flange is at 90 degrees to deadman rather than projecting in line with the length of the deadman into the underside of benchtop. Is your deadman 100mm thick? That is some serious heft and seems like overkill but I prob have the wrong end of the stick.

Angle isn't really the point, plate would be perfect, I just happen to have some 100mm angle laying around is all.

But yes, bolts through the deadman to attach the plate.

OK I am on the same page as you now. A plate of steel would certainly make for a rigid runner in a hardwood top. In mine I fear it would wear away at the pine but maybe I the risk is not that great as the deadman won't be moved constantly like a window. I'll have to see what's lying around but I think timber is more available than steel at my house. As you may have noticed in the pics I have a stockpile under the car spot. I was short of timber when I started this project and now I have more than I can use.
One thought i did have though is how to get a smooth action on the slide so it won't grab if I push it across at the top end? Should I make the deadman wider at the base (and/or the top if I want symmetry) by adding some pieces on the side to produce the hourglass-style shape? I presume with some more width it'll have less chance of tilting in its track.

I'm perplexed here
what's wrong with having the bottom bit ie the upsidedown v detachable at one end. I mean you would then be able to take the last foot or so out - they're screwed on anyway.

You could do that too I suppose. In my bench the runner is cut into the front stretcher and I wouldn't want to cut it. I also plan to have a flat projection at the bottom of the deadman below the runner to allow me greater clamping support which would make this idea harder also.

A worthwhile exercise in using recycled timbers..........more fun than buying ready to go!

Looking good fella. Lotsa fun using recycled timber without the whiz bang machinery eh... I am enjoying following your progress. For my 2 bobs worth, i reckon the bread board ends are the way to go for your caps.
Skippy

Spent most of the weekend routing it seemed. I needed a parallel guide for the router (I bought a second hand router cheap without any accessories) so had to make up a Frankenguide out of some parts of guides I bought off ebay. This is what it looks like.
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Ugly but does the job. I needed it for the groove for the sliding deadman. I was also going to use it for the making the tenons on the ends of the bench for the endcaps but I wasn't convinced that (a) the ends were straight lines or (b) they were accurately 90deg to the front edge of the benchtops. Not having a long square to use to check the latter I decided to use the edge of some factory-cut melamine coated shelving from the kitchen reno which was the longest 90deg 'square' I could find and line up a straight edge along that to run the router against.
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I am not sure in hindsight that was the best approach. I may have been more efficient to spend some time making the ends flat and using them as a reference. Anyway I got the ends routed. You can also see the space I cut to mount the end vice. I didn't mount the vice as I don't have the coach bolts yet to attach it.
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I then set up the router table to cut the groove in the end caps. I couldn't be bothered making it a stopped groove as this added unnecessary complexity. The piece of hardwood I chose for the non-vice endcap turned out to have some extremely funky grain that wandered all over the place. It was very noticable when routing that this twisty grain it was much tougher to cut through than the straight grain in the other endcap. I had to remove a lot of timber for this and it was noisy and dusty work. The Triton router table top I have has no grooves for featherboards so a moments inattention on the last pass over the router resulted in an annoying slip up as the workpiece moved away from the fence. I had to fill this as it was at the front end of the endcap.
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A bit of fettling with the Stanley #71 to clean out the grooves and the #78 to even up the tenons and they slipped into place. Some fine adjustment was needed to get them to sit flush against the edge but I got there eventually. There is an unsightly gap at the end of the tenon (a downside of the through tenon) as a product of poor measurement or uneven tenon length, that I will have to plug up.
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Last thing I did was to drill the holes in the endcaps for some bolts. I think I'll drill and chisel mortices in the underside to allow positioning of the nuts. I was going to bore a large diameter hole but I don't like that idea as much as it removes more material than needed and doesn't provide a flat surafce to tighten against. I will keep the front bolt as the pin and cut larger holes to allow for movement for two bolts toward the rear. Hopefully I can fit in a few hours during the week and then I will have done enough to the bench to move it out of the way so I can put the car back in the carport.

Comming along nicely Pamps, your funky grain piece looks like a nice piece of Blackbutt. That blood line is a dead giveaway.

Thanks Claw. The Blackbutt is the nice straight grained piece to enclose the vice but it does have long gum veins. That piece routed very smoothly. It's possible to see the swirly grain on top of the other endcap in the last pic.