Thread: Bench - big, solid, cheap, no tools, no bench to build on

What type of wood did you make the dowels from?

Christos -
The dowel was made from a piece of teak board... I love the smell of teak when it is fresh planed. Teak can be a bit oily, so I wiped it with spirits after planing so avoid any bonding problems with the glue.
All the boards stacked on the sawhorses I'm working against are teak. 130mm to 230mm width, 1" thick. Some 1/4 cut but most rift sawn... My 'packing crate' from when I came back from Timor.

Boz -
My local Bunnings only had pine dowel, so it was either buy a rake/broom handle and plane it down to size, or just do my own.
Yeah, dowel plates are good - but I'm deliberately using as few tools as possile in line with beginners experiences... I didn't want to buy some mild steel plate and a drillbit and make my own plate. Also, I do have woodie hollow plane which would do the job... once again, I'm minimising the tools used.

To go on a bit about the dowel and 'drawbore':
The Dowel doesn't have to be 'spot on' round - if the timber was softer or green, I'd drive in a square peg (the 'square peg, round hole' saying comes from European drawboring). Near enough is close enough, and oversize... as the stock the dowel is going into is large, so the dowel will compress.
Just 'bevel' the end of the dowel to get it started, and/or rip it down the middle a cm or so, allowing it to compress as it works its way through the offset of the tenon.
I'm driving a little oversize dowel into a 12mm hole, and the tenon is the smallest stock at 50mm width (about 50mm square actually). Too big a hole weakens the stock, too small is useless. Just commonsense when deciding what to go with.


To add to the tool list:
2 x sash cramps - $50 for both.
Huge, rusty, old, F cramp - $14
G clamps x 4 - $15 each (3 are 10 or 12" jaw dimension DAWN brand machinists clamps)

Add another $124 for tools... again, these are tools you'll need anyway, nothing 'specialist', and you'll use them over and over again. The overall cost is adding up isn't it? Over $600 so far (?) but most of it is on tools that should do you a lifetime of use.

Epoxy tips:

1. Read the instructions and then call the manufacturer's rep and ask questions.
2. Measure your part A and part B with a measureing cup, or if getting bulk, get the dispensers.
3. Stir it completely, and don't add to each 'pot'... plan it out.
4. understand:
a) the glueing pressures,
b) what to add for extra strength (wood flour or glass beads),
c) understand what it all means. Your rep will answer questions - if not, p@$$ them off and go to someone else.
5. understand the 'pot life' and 'open time', effects of temperature, and plan your glue up... its good to do a timed practice run.
6. Understand, practice, get ready... do it without any interruptions.
7. think about the effects of 'encapulation', what that means to timber stabilisation, and use it to your advantage.
8. understand what you need to do for timber surface prep.
9. know how to plan 'how to bust this joint apart', and prep for it.

anyway, now that the trestle style legs are done, I'm a bit undecided about how I'll do the stretchers and the top.

Stretchers:
'Traditionally' (which I don't care about), I'd run timber stretchers between the legs, use a bolt to create a 'knockdown' joint, and leave it at that. Make 4 strechers out of pine at $7 per 2.4 meter length... perhaps run a threaded rod tensioner as well.

I'm tempted by getting some 1"-ish box section steel, and welding it to create a 'ladder frame' 5 or 6" in height (which means about 8 verticals of 3 or 4" height, or bolting two pieces together to make a 2" x 1" section, welding a piece vertically on the end, and using that as stretchers.
Steel is stable, won't change dimensions, stronger than many times the dimension in timber, and maybe cheaper.


Should I do a solid timber top, or a torsion box out of pine and ply... or go for the laminex product that replaced the HD3 product... or a combination of solid top where I will run bench dogs and will mortice over, and a torsion box or the laminex product for the rest of the top.... ?

Sould I go 'flash' and use up a lot of timber that is valuable, or just go for a work surface that is flat, cheap and stable?

Guess I'll be getting some quotes and doing a 'pro's and con's' matrix... hope I can leave 'I want because I like solid timber' out of the, otherwise, rational decision process.

In the meantime, I'll pull apart a Dawn No9 quick release vice I bought recently, and try out a repair/maintenance job on it.

This weekend is a bit mad, hope Sunday is calmer.
So, up at 7am, walk the dogs on the beach, then garden (weeding), fix a broken waterpipe (why am I doing it and not the landlord?), house clean, a few hours of work.
Then, the good stuff...
Last week I've been scratching my head about the bench top.
I've decided that I'll put some hard wood on the edge I work on (accomodating bench dogs and a 'banging area'), then do a torsion box for the rest of the surface. Thats a weeks worth of thinking!

So, today, I grabbed a hour or so, and sorted out the two hardwood boards that will be the primary work surface.
One 6" wide Silver Ash board and one 4" wide Brushbox. Another Brushbox that I'll put at right angles (making an L) t fit the overhang.

Silver Ash is 'long grained' and is not 'interlocked grain'... long splinters and needs edges beveled because of that, but a pleasure to work with.

Brushbox, on the other hand, is interlocked, dense as hell, and a bugger to work.
It makes up for it by being a bugger of a timber tough and hard wearing.

So, the two boards are placed on the trestle legs and lightly held in place with clamps... they are bowed by about 3mm in the worst area.
I can plane it out (take forever as the Brushbox is such a bugger)... but its quicker (and just as good) to cut the bow out.

So, this technique is an old, seldom used, technique... a bit of a boatbuilder/shipwright 'patching/matching' technique.

Shove the saw between the bow, and start ripping down the 'join'. It will cut easy, as you are just taking out the tight area between the boards. I leave a small area uncut at the worst of it, as this can be knocked off with a plane later. This stops the saw 'binding'. This area will be taken out, progressively, and the uncut area 'shifted' to a new position. This allows the bow to be cut out, and the saw to be kept free to work.

Rip down the meeting faces, adjust the boards together, repeat... the last cut should see the same amount of sawdust coming off each edge... easier to see with different colour timber (or stain one edge).

Finish with the plane as per jointing... all you really need to do is to take off the saw marks, and you'll be on the money.

You can do this with a circular saw or table saw if you have one.
Rather than using the western style saw, I'd suggest using a Japanese pull saw... but being the pig headed bugger I am, I'm sticking to the minimum tools that I've set out with.

Planing - yeah, this is on a wonky surface, I'm using the trestel legs, but they are braced with one board and g-clamps only. You hear the 'smick' of the cut... the wobbles of the surface will stop a 'full length' shaving coming off... but a second cut will get those raised bits. In the last pic there are shavings that add up to the total board length.
This can be a quicker method of jointing boards, particularly 'compound 'matching' fittings'.

Anyway, the two top boards are jointed, the edge board is fitted... tomorrow is another glue and dowel, making the torsion box, fitting the stretchers...
then pretty much done, except for vices and bench dogs, and maybe a cabinet and bench slaves.

Pic 4 is the 3mm bow cut out, and a knife fit ready for dowel and glue. Cool for an hours work (with beer).

Some new information for me.

Pic 3:
Here I've cut down the board join, then reversed direction and cut down the board join from the opposite end of the boards.
In the middle is the uncut area. I drop a bit of folded up paper or shavings in between the boards, to space it right, then cut through that little uncut area.
Then shift the boards together, identify the area of biggest gap, put the saw back in there, start cutting again.

Yesterday, I just ripped that join line twice... and I'd taken that 3mm gap out.

Easier (espesh on a wonky surface) than trying to joint 3mm off the edge of a 1" thick Brushbox board, then match plane it to the Silver Ash 1" thick board.

Brushbox - its good, for the same reasons that its bad.

Mucked around this evening.

Fitted the stretchers, bolted them in. Nice piece of left over Silver ash as the front/bottom stretcher.

Used a 1/4" bit for the pilot hole, then stepped up with 2 x progressively larger drills... then used a 13mm Irwin Speedbore 'forstener' style bit to drill out the bolt holes.

19mm yellowtongue flooring sheets for some ot the top.
Pine framing to put the 'members' on for the torsion box.

I flipped the bench upside down on the yellowtongue, cut and laid out the internal members, marked the yellowtongue with marker pen, drilled through pilot holes for the flooring screws, put in the screws so they 'just' protruded..
Check again (flipping that frame is heavy), liquid nail glue lines, hold up the sheeting and pull it all tight with the screws.
I'll let the glue cure, then fit the bottom sheet, and a few more of the internal members... still figuring out their best placement.

Another 4 hours today of faffing around... but it is getting closer.

Very solid there Clinton!! and great work considering the limited tool supply!

I've been mulling over the torsion box top and don't really see why you went that way.

Two pieces of yellow tongue, laminated, would have been easier and very solid

A few reasons:
1. I like them for the strength vs few extra $ for the solid timber used in them.
I've used up $21 of pine 90 x 45's, $3 of glue and $4 of screws.
A cost effective return and there isn't much time requirement.

2. Dimensions between the inner edges of the trestle tops are 1800mm.
I will get sag when I cover the top with hardboard and put heavy stuff on it... e.g. me, motors, random bits of metal.
Rather than working the top stretchers into the support for the top (which adds 130mm to the bolt length and 103mm to the hole I need to drill 'freehand'), I am free to place the stretchers into the rebate that was in the trestle 'beams' when I bought them, or place the top stretchers lower to reduce racking. Widely spaced stretchers = more distance between the stretchers = greater movement as a function of the angles. Poorly explained!

3. The ply on the bottom of the torsion box will be screwed to the stretchers, if needed. This means that the torsion box 'solid members' are placed exactly abuting the top of the trestle legs, with a 90mm bearing surface. That = free bracing.
By offsetting the stretchers and torsion box members, allowing screwing of the bottom torsion box sheet to the stretchers and access for screwdriver... I retain the knock down function, and add even more bracing (not free... for the cost of 10 screws )

4. Design (e.g. what pleases me).
My design will have a 6 x 2" solid board set on edge on one side (where the other solid boards are). This will allow me to place dog holes for holding long boards in the front vice for planing.
The torsion box design will allow me to face the other sides with a bit of redgum flooring I've got, hide the fact that it is a torsion box, and I can have a nice 6" thick top, to the casual view.

5. hardware/benchdogs fitting.
This is a pro and con.
19mm yellowtongue X 2 = 38mm of particle board. Will that hold all my fittings and bench dogs? Dunno.
But 38mm of particle board and the 90mm of pine judiciously placed and marked out on the top, and all screws marked out... its just 'more'.

So, I stuck all that in the mix, and for what will be $35 of pine, $3 of glue, $4 of screw and maybe a few coach bolts... and some 'found' redgum flooring... $42 ish for a 6" top that is pretty flexible.

The next bench will probably be a boat assembly bench. That will just have a sheet of yellowtongue on pine members. No need for a torsion box there.

Actually, there are a few 'tricks' to the bench... I'll try to cover off on them soon.

Above post:
Point 2 - "which adds 130mm to the bolt length and 103mm to the hole" should read "130mm to the bolt length and 130mm to the hole".

6. I suppose another reason is that I want to also build in some jigs to the bench top, I really want a protracter inset to the bench and permanent fittings for a adjustable 180degrees shooting board. I'll make it adjustable in 2 dimensions if I can figure out a cheap way to do that.
To me, more 'meat' = more flexibility to fiddle around.

7. The way the inner members of the box are laid out allow me to adjust the overall height of the top to sit 'just right'.
If I lift it a little, I can 'pack &/or glue' hardboard between the gap 'bottom of the top layers and top of the trestle beam'.
This will allow me to have the top higher than the solid timber edge, creating my shooting board, then I decide if I want to keep the raise/lower aspect, or cover over the solid edge with hardboard (sacrificial top) when I just want a totally flat surface.

Its all just fiddling around on the design, following the sketch in my head, and taking advantage of 'whats cheap' at Bunnings, what fits in the Camry stationwagon, what I find, and what I get out of skip bins.

I also may have not been clear.
The top is 2 layers of yellowtongue, the torsion box solid members, and bottom skin is ply. OVERKILL.

Tricky bit 1

Diagonal bracing.

The trestle beams had a rebate in them when I bought them.

The stile/ upright leg is 900mm long.
Thats a long section, think 0.25 degree movement/wracking over 900mm.
Needs diagonal bracing, right?
Use the rebate and stretcher and a $5 bit of recycle shop pine (6 x 1.5").
See pics and think it out. There is a L brace.
L + length = 2 x triangles.

I've got a stiff neck from trying to view the pics!

Yeah, I'd rotate them... but I'm lazy, and don't have the software I'd usually have on this 'puter. This computer needs the rubber bands wound to get it going.

Today is a slow one.

Added a 'beam' and cut out a packing plate - both are to fit the vice, and also to add an edge 'stiffner' to the solid edge piece.

Glued up 3 short sections of pine to pack out one end, (90x45 x3 = 135x90) - just filling an overhang, then put on one end's 'cover board' of redgum (floor board short/scrap)

Pulled it apart to give it a coat of Cabots PolyU CFP floor treatment - leftover from another 'job'.
Just trying to seal the timber a bit to minimise/slow moisture penetration and subsequent movement. Its a bit of a rainy/humid day here, so its a good time for it.

I'd prefer to use epoxy to encapsulate it all, but I don't have any left.

I'll call it finished, except for a bit more PoyU.
Its missing the tail vice, but I haven't found the vice screw for that yet, so that will wait until I find something reasonable.

I'll let the coating finish, put it together and put up a pic.

Yeah, its stupidly heavy and overbuilt.
Its also rock solid, 'my height' and reasonably cheap.
I'll call it 'not bad' for what it set out to be... Big, Solid, Cheap, No tools, No bench to build it on.

Most used tools were a story stick, saw, 25mm chisel and hammer, a small 6" square, drill and bits, rasp, G and Sash clamps.

Least used tools were a jointer and smoother plane... just for squaring edges and making the dowel...100 grit sandpaper and sanding block, paintbrush, spanner and screwdriver

I really don't think I used any other tools but I'll think about it and post that when I put up the final cost and a few "pointers for what I'd do next time."

Its good enough, and I'm happy.