Thread: WIP- Recyled timber bench, mostly by handtools

Ok, you got me interested. Do you have a clear design or are we working this out on the hop?

I have a clear design, with plans drawn on paper and all, just not sure how practical my method of fitting the top to the base is. That's why I posted the original questions about how to attach the 2 bench tops to the frame. I think I will try to join the two tops together and then handle them as one piece, mortice the tops of the legs into them and then put a cap on one end to take the end vice. Do bench tops expanding laterally cause problems? I am assuming if the legs flex a little as the top expands then the mortices can be tight and I won't have to provide expansion room. I however have two top rails on my end frames that run under the benchtops. I included them to enable me to pull the top down flat to the upper face of these and and screw into the bench top from underneath. These upper rails will greatly constrain the ability to cope with expansion of the top however. Maybe I could leave the back two mortices a bit roomy....

I am considering making the twin screw front vice out of wood as I managed to acquire a 2 inch tap on ebay as well by chance... I wasn't really looking for one at the time. Originally thought about a sliding deadman but I am not convinced I will use it that often so probably won't bother.

The fun of building your first bench is you have nothing to build it on. I had to work off the shed floor.

Look forward to following your progress.

The frame sounds a lot like mine, and I have to say I almost assumed it was going to be a split top. However, if you're planning a solid top the with rails under the top you're likely to have real trouble. Expansion and contraction acros a top ~700mm wide will require more than a roomy mortice I think.

... After readng the other thread I reckon a tight M/T joint on the front apron with some sort of flexible fixing at the back might be best. Otherwise you may want to consider reworking the design to remove the top rails from the frame ends.

Having a flexible rear fixing sounds ideal then I can still use the upper rails to screw the top to and make the screw holes roomy enough to accommodate movement. Any ideas on a design for that joint? I could still make it a mortice, just make it considerably wider than the leg tenon but what is rule of thumb for how much movement over a given width of timber (pine in this case)?

Ah I see this discussion indicates a 1% rule should be used. So over 700mm then I should allow for 7mm of movement. I think I can accomodate that.

Originally Posted by Waldo

The fun of building your first bench is you have nothing to build it on. I had to work off the shed floor.

Look forward to following your progress.

Agreed, making something from nothing - love it.

Good work so far PM, I think I have a number of the same improvised 'vices' around my shop. I use the front face of my bench in that way quite frequently. A proper vice is coming, but while this works, $ can be spent on something else.

Addittional progress to report from weekend just gone. I managed to get the whole frame together for a dry fit. It took a lot of paring with chisels to fit the two tenons of the stretchers into their mortices. I found that I had to relieve some timber from one side of the mortice to straighten them relative to the face of legs as there was a minor tilt off 90degrees in the mortice during their cutting. I was reminded that minor errors of 0.5-1mm in joints are amplified that over the long lengths of the members so I took time to get it right.
The placement of a few clamps and taps with a rubber mallet... et voila!
Attachment 172444
Once together Initially I had a short burst of disbelief and annoyance as I realised that one long side was longer than the other but quickly realised that instead of taking 10mm off the length of one stretcher to to accommodate the fact that the legs are 5mm wider at the front, I had added it. The right side to err on as I could simply trim the tenon shoulders back at one end of that stretcher. A tape measure across the tops of the posts was reassuring as that they aligned in both dimensions and the joinery seems tight.
Attachment 172445Attachment 172446
You can see the recycled nature of the timber via all the nail holes. I had to remove a lot of them! The ex-door frame stretcher is still painted on the inside face and you can see that I laminated a strip to fill the larger rebate on the door jam. The small unpainted patch against the leg is an infill I made to stop up the hole where a lock/latch used to be. The upper rebate I will use to support a shelf eventually.

just before packing up, I couldn't help myself and had to get out one of the benchtops to pop on top. It alligns with the outer side of both legs nicely And here it is, an instant bench pre finished in high gloss by the original makers.
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You can see the marks and holes for gas taps and pipes in the top.
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The benchtop I picked up to use I think is the worse one of the two and is cupped across the underside. The pic is a straight edge placed across the top with the gap at the outside edge. My idea is to flip this one over and screw it to the other bench top hopefully pulling some of the cupping out in the process. I am not yet sure how much flex is possible in 40mm thick pine.
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You can also see that the tenons on top of the legs are uncut. It will eventually be flush to the top of the top rails.

Lastly this is the vice I will be using on the end of the bench.
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It's a Dawn 175 and was my late grandfathers. He wasn't really a woodworker, he enjoyed amateur stone masonery more, so it is lightly used. I also inherited one of his bevel edged chisels which was so beaten up and covered in crap that I think he had used it to scrape concrete off timber formwork and had beaten it so soundly with a heavy steel hammer that the handle was broken. I initially thought it a lost cause but resurrected it to find it is good steel and it is now my go-to paring chisel and has been most useful for this build.

Going like a house on fire, great general purpose bench that you will be able to move without a whole football team

Cool work in progress.

ooh

another workbench build to watch

Despite the long weekend I didn't seem to achieve as much as I had hoped, but then I was doing some of the more time consuming parts plus sharpening tools and generally being occupied by related activities. Saturday I set about marking out and cutting the tenons on the tops of the posts which will be mortised into the benchtop. This required a little refining of the teeth on the recently acquired tenon saw as the first effort at shaping the rip teeth was not perfect. The saw cut better but I found the saw tended to drift to the right so the cuts were less than perfect but they cleaned up alright afterwards. I'll have to fettle the saw som more.
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The next job was to drill all the holes for the furniture bolts and the drawbore dowels.
I don't own any long twist drills but I do own long brace bits and a brace so I selected one to suit the furniture bolts (which are 100mm long) and drilled the hole to fit between the twin tenons on the stretchers.
Attachment 173094
I have to admit that for both these and the drawbore holes I didn't trust myself to drill accurately at 90 degrees in both dimensions so I used my cheapo drill press to drill pilot holes to guide the brace bits. It's in the background in this shot.
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I chose a 9.5mm size for the dowels (tassie oak from Bunnies). The holes for the dowel which was from an imperial sized bit was a pefect and tight fit. I was using a hardwood brace bit but wasn't very happy with he tearout at the lip of the hole. Maybe if it was on a presentation piece of furniture then I would want to start the hole with another type of bit to keep the edge clean.
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But the result was good enough.
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The advantage of using the brace is that the thread tip is perfect for marking out the centre point on the tenon surface. I offset the tenon holes by 1.5mm . I then spent some time shaping and cutting the dowells. I thought I was going to run out of dowel but luckily the length I bought was the perfect length with no leftover. The last two (marked in purple) were a little short by 5mm but I just didn't thump them to the bottom of the hole.
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I spent a bit of time smoothing the surfaces of the frames before glue up. I thought I would give scraping a go and tried out a cabinet scraper on the surface. I wasn't very successful having never used one before. (I either couldn't get the edge on the scraper sharp enough or possibly the timber is too hard?) so sanded and planed most surfaces. I felt very nervous having never drawbored before and the fact that you can't really dry fit the dowels beforehand means that a certain amount of trust is required that the joints will go together. The descriptions from other forumites, particularly in the workbench section, were a great help though and gave me confidence. I dithered for a while but then eventually spread glue on the tenons, lubed the dowells and smacked them home with a mallet. The result: perfect! I was most impressed with the immediate rigidity of the end frames.
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I then reassembled the base frame and extended the holes for the bolts into the ends of the stretchers. After that I could start on the tops. I checked the bases to make sure there were no projecting lumps. Found a broken screw to remove. I then put the two tops together with the cupped surfaces facing each other and applied clamps to see if they would pull down flat. They pressed together fine.
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When I evened out the pressure with a timber block, to my delight the tops pulled flat. And I mean real flat, as my straight edge proved. I screwed them together from the underside with 65mm screws.
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These benchtops together are really heavy to handle by myself and are only pine. I can't imagine trying to handle the hardwood tops that other forumites have built.

Good progress pampelmuse.
That's good news about the tops Should save you a bit of work.

Coming together well

I think you have achieved quite a lot. Getting the little bits out of the way and sharpening the saw as you go.