Thread: 'Christmas present' WIP

No problems enelef - the only tricky part is managing the glue-ups with only two hands - other than that I'm sure you could do it.

pete

Originally Posted by enelef

Great piece of work.
It is also very informative, i half believe i could follow your instructions and build it myself

Can't wait for the next phase.

Hi Greg, good to hear from you.

I've only ever had luck steam bending if the stock was air-dried - kiln-dried stuff always fails or shatters on me. Maybe it's my technique? Do you know if the Coachwood was air-dried?

pete

Originally Posted by Greg Ward

How can you find the time for all this with your day and night job as well?
I hope the client appreciates all the time and effort you have put into this! It is pretty amazing work and an impressive buiild as well
Coachwood can be steam bent...... and I'm glad you are working through your stock of wood. I'll have those other meranti pieces down end January for you.
Happy New Year

Greg

It's very old stuff, 20 years or more stored at Brookvale, I'm pretty sure it's airdried, I'll give you a 25mm board next time so you can try.

Hot and very dry up here, the grass is so dry it has turned to hay and the cattle are enjoying it, don't know what they'll do when its all eaten though...... Who'd want to be a farmer..... stick to the timber.....
Please arrange some rain for me if you've got contacts.

Greg

Pete

Nice build and thanks for the wip

oh and I think you need more clamps!

Well unfortunately my 'day-job' (or should I say day and night job) has only allowed me about half an hour of workshop time a day for the last two weeks, so I have been doing little bits every day. Result being that I now have all of the ribs for the back of the bench completed.

Kauri ribs complete.jpg

The back slats (or 'ribs' as the Mrs is calling them) are made of Kauri to give contrast to the seat. All of them have been planed and thicknessed to 60mm and had the same 8mm bevel added to the ends that the seat slats have. The front one in this picture has been card scraped and lightly sanded, just to give a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel for the patient client!

I have also been spending a lot of work time with my head in the workshop figuring out the joinery needed for the back, and playing with the angles. I made up a shorter version of one of the seat slats in Meranti, and cut it into 5 x 300mm sections - three for the bench and two to play with. These will be the spacers for the back. I then figured that I'd have to cut them into something like a wedge shape in order to get the ribs 'flying' or curling backwards. I experimented with hand planing, but it was hard work, and the sections were hard to hold - even with dogs and an end vice, so I went to the band saw.

Cutting spacers.jpg

I started with the bed of the bandsaw tilted to 8 degrees, set the fence at 60mm and ran a tester through twice - once on each side. The concept was right, but not enough angle. I tried 10, but eventually settled on 12.5 degrees. That will mean that the third, or top most rib of the back, will end up at a 75 degree angle to the seat - which I think will look about right. I then cleaned up the newly cut faces and the outsides with the block plane. There will be some shaping to do once they're fixed to the back as each of the curves is slightly different.

planing spacers.jpgFinished spacers.jpg

Next time I get into the workshop it will be to work the back joinery. I wanted to go ahead and make the legs, but have realised that I can't draw them out until I know how far the back ribs overhang the seat - the legs must extend that far beyond the seat too to keep the whole thing balanced, so I'll be doing joinery next and then measuring for the legs. I am thinking of routing a 150mm x 19mm mortise into the back ribs and the spacers, and making some floating tenons from 19mm ply. I think with the strength of the tenon, and the large face-to-face glue bond, that this will provide sufficient strength to hold up the pieces - even with the added weight of them being curled backwards. I'm also entertaining the possible need for a couple of coach bolts running up from under the last seat slat into the first spacer and then into the first back rib. That would be a little extreme, but would sure get the job done. I'm hoping to do it with just the floating mortise and tenon ... we'll see.

Hope to update you with more progress soon. Cheers

pete

Well ? You can't start such an informative thread with an excellent progression of photographs and then just put the job aside !!

I don't care that your wife wants this bench. I want to see the next stage (and in due course, the finished article) !

Originally Posted by Ozziespur

Well ? You can't start such an informative thread with an excellent progression of photographs and then just put the job aside !!

I don't care that your wife wants this bench. I want to see the next stage (and in due course, the finished article) !

OK, Ozziespur you'll be happy to know that there is more progress today!

Onwards to the joinery. I started by trying to figure how I was going to cut the mortises - by hand or router? Router was always going to be a better option for several reasons - mainly trying to cut 200x19x30mm deep mortises in a piece that isn't flat and square makes for some interesting holding problems. The trick with routing is that I didn't have a flat and straight face to run a guide fence. I finally decided to use a template with a guide bushing! First step was to make the template - a fairly simple process once I'd measured the bushing at 30mm, and decided to use a 16mm bit, just figure out the difference and make the template to suit. Then I had to figure out how to line up the mortise in the rib and the moritise in the spacer. Rather than trying to get too tricky measuring with rulers and compasses etc, I just 'measured from real life' as Jim Tolpin so often says. Started with the two pieces in place, lined up with the centre lines - then put a mark on each piece, then remove the pieces and used a ruler to join up the marks - simple really!

Marking for mortise.jpg Marked for mortise.jpg

Next, I marked a centre line in both axes on the routing template and screwed it to the piece to be routed - making sure that the screw holes will be covered by the joining pieces.

Template in place.jpg Template on rib.jpg

After that it's fairly simple using the guide bushing and a straight bit to route the mortises to 30mm deep. Routing the spacers was a little more tricky since the pieces were smaller and irregular in shape, so I just opened a space in the front vise, dropped the spacer in and clamped the template to the bench.

Ready for routing.jpgRouter with guide bushing.jpgMortise routed.jpg

Once both sides were done, I made the tenon stock. I decided to stick with solid timber, rather than ply as I had previously planned, as it would be easier to fine-tune with a hand plane for a snug fit. I made sure that I used a quarter sawn piece with pretty straight grain running the length of the tenon rather than the width for maximum strength. I cut the tenons to 58mm length to give a 1mm space at the bottom of each mortise. Once fitted and inserted, the two pieces lined up very nicely, and I'm really pleased with the fit.

complete with tenon.jpgFirst M and T comlete.jpg

This is only the first - but with only five more joints to go it shouldn't be too long a process, even if I do have to wait a couple of days to get back to it!!

pete

I am loving the way you solve these problems

To be honest, I know that I will never get myself to a stage/skill level where I would attempt a project like this but I can appreciate the skill & craftmanship (not to mention the problem solving) that's going into this one.

Keep up the good work & like many others, I continue to watch with interest.

Cheers,

Scott

More progress to report gents and ladies!

I have now completed the mortises and tenon fits for all of the back ribs. Here is a dry fit - no glue, just the pressure of the tenons holding it all together. I laid out the seat pieces to get a rough idea of the overall size and dimensions.

Back dry fit 1.jpgBack dry fit 2.jpgBack dry fit 3.jpg

As you can see I have also cleaned up all the glue, dings and general markings on all the pieces. Now that I know the extent of the overhang on the back, I can draw up the legs and work on the joinery for the undercarriage.

Hope to show more soon.

pete

So today I had some time to work up the leg design, based on the size of the bench seat and also the amount of overhang at the back. I used the same dimensions for the framing as the bench slats, so that it would look congruous and proportional. Therefore, the leg and stretcher sections are all 60mm thick, which again required glueing two pieces together, as all my remaining stock is only 35mm. As I was flattening, I discovered a few Pringles chips, so not all of the laminates are necessarily even in thickness, but once thicknessed to 60mm, all is good. Cut the pieces on the bandsaw and spent some time with spokeshave, rasp and sandpaper to get all the curves faired. The back legs have quite a pronounced curve, while the front legs not so much. I didn't want the front legs extending so far that they became a trip hazard, but did want enough curve to sit happily wit the back legs. The radius of the curves on both legs is the same, just took a different section for each.

Legs cut.jpgUndercarriage laid out.jpg

After that I toyed with a coupe of ideas for joinery - thought of M&T, Domino, and a half-joint, but finally settled on this finger/bridle joint variant. I had some test pieces, so I tried to get the fingers cut on the table saw with a tenon jig. Sadly, at 62mm (I wanted to leave each joint 2mm proud to alow for final planing and shaping of the ends) the joint was about 7mm beyond the capacity of my 10" table saw blade. I thought of hand sawing, but wasn't sure how well I would do, and I was concerned that there would be either a lot of fiddly fitting, or some loose joints. I ended up doing the test joint on the bandsaw. I was worried that the cut might be too rough for show faces, and that it could be a little ragged or gappy. I changed blades, made sure it was tuned as best I could and leaped in, leaving the centre finger a little fat, allowing me to plane down to a tight fit. This test joint is not even glued, just press in and the ends planed up - and I'm pretty happy with the result.

Undercarriage test joint.jpg

Sadly I'm now going to visit the in-laws for five days in QLD starting tomorrow, so no more progress until at least next Thursday - sigh I'll be cutting and fitting all the under carriage joints then, and hopefully moving into the 'finishing' phase.

Thanks for sticking with me on this one folks ... hope the results are keeping you interested.

pete

Any update Pete ?

Cheers,

Scott

I concur. More progress would be nice, Great build.

Cheers

Hi folks!

Well I have been away from home - and the workshop - for the entire month of February, so no progress. Today I had a couple of hours and made some progress on the legs.

Started by marking out the joints as per the test piece I made back in January. These were then cut, first on the bandsaw being careful to leave the line on both of the joint pieces.

Bandsawing leg joints.jpg

The waste was then removed - on the 'two finger' part of the joint I used a coping saw, on the 'one finger' part of the joint I used a crosscut sled and a stop block on the table saw.

Coping leg joints.jpgCross cutting fingers.jpg

After that it was just a matter of paring the last of the waste out of the 'two finger' joint with a sharp chisel.

Preparing to pare joints.jpg

The resulting pieces look like this:

Leg tenon.jpg Joint pared.jpg

I always like to pare a slight "V" in the bottom of the open ended mortice to allow tight seating of the joint. A little fine tuning of the middle finger with a rabbeting block plane ...

Planing fingers.jpg

and this is the resulting first dry fit.

Leg dry fit 1.jpgLeg dry fit 2.jpg

Once all three were finished, the glue up:

Leg glue up 1.jpgLeg glue up 2.jpg

As you may notice in the second glue up shot, one of the leg laminates had an unsightly opening in the joint. The joint itself seemed solid enough, but the last four or five mm seemed glue starved and not a tight fit, so I used a small syringe, injected some glue and re-clamped the joint. I am hoping it will fill the gap.

Back to work tomorrow so hopefully Monday evening I'll clean up the joints on the legs and move to the finishing stage. The client has decided she wants the Meranti all lightly stained with a Merbau water based stain - just to add a little more contrast to the Kauri pieces - so that will go on first. Then assemble the back, then a couple coats of Malouf mix.

The final stage will be joining the seat slats to the legs. I think I'm going to to use 25mm wedged dowels - but may still skip that and go with stainless coach bolts from underneath. No problem really - at the pace I'm travelling I have a t least two weeks before I have to make that decision!

Thanks for sticking with me folks - I will bring this one home soon, I promise.

pete