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Thread: Kuffy's Workbench
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6th January 2020, 09:35 AM #46GOLD MEMBER
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I didn't think you were having a go at anything. I agree that once the bar begins to bend, it is nothing but depreciating returns from there. I touched on the issue in the 2nd video about milling. Putting a clamp underneath, and then a clamp over the top during wide glue ups. Doing this overcomes the bar bending and allows me to actually reach the top of the Bessey clamps maximum clamping strength, which I needed all of that strength for the top slab glue ups. More would have been better, but I even said in the video that I'm not the incredible hulk
Bending the bars in the photo above is a deliberate move. I am using the known weakness in parallel clamps, f clamps, sash cramps, pipe clamps, i beam, and T bar clamps to my advantage. By bending the bar, I apply a lateral force on the components pulling the frame into, or out of square.
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6th January 2020, 09:40 AM #47GOLD MEMBER
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Yeah, I could have done that and it would have been slightly easier but would have only saved me about 8 minutes on setup. It would have worked perfectly fine for myself because I am building to my own spec. But I am also selling plans for this workbench on my website and not everyone will be using the same vice hardware as me. They may need to drill holes in the upper side rails to make clearance for an end vice, and it will be much easier to bore large holes through square face rather than needing to angle them.
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6th January 2020, 07:53 PM #48GOLD MEMBER
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Looking at the base frame this morning, it just doesn't seem strong enough In fact it would just be bad form on my part not to do the basic things to make it better. I added some diagonal corner bracing around the top rails, and I may do the same to the bottom if I can feel the front and rear frames walking in use. The corner braces are half housed into the rails, and held in place with glue and a couple of dowels. I know that the corner braces should have been vertical and the full height of the rails, but...KISS, keep it simple stupid!
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I forgot that this dog hole was there. It's hard to see when I am looking straight down on the rail
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I've also added a top center rail. It does a few things. Firstly it pulls the top front/rear rails back to straight as they are both slightly convex. It also gives me something to pull the top slabs down to in the middle of the bench. And lastly, it will spread the load from hammer strikes in the middle of the bench to both rails. It really should be quite a solid surface to strike when operating anywhere directly over the frame. The overhangs will have some bounce I'm sure, but they are tool collection zones anyway. I cut the dovetail on the rail with the bandsaw, and then I hogged out the dovetail mortise with a router and finished up with a chisel by paring straight down. I used a bessey clamp in expansion mode to transfer some of the mallet blows down to the bottom rail as well so it was less bouncy.
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Then I added glue blocks between each rail and leg connection. I do this on most builds if they can be hidden.
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And as I was shutting the garage down for the night, I had a chance to get a nice photo of where things are at the moment. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!!!!! THINGS ARE EVERYWHERE!!!
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6th January 2020, 09:35 PM #49GOLD MEMBER
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I like how you have 3 measuring tapes within a couple of steps of each other. I always loose mine haha
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6th January 2020, 09:39 PM #50GOLD MEMBER
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Oh! You found them for me. I've been looking for those all day
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9th January 2020, 09:28 PM #51GOLD MEMBER
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The two top slabs have been sitting and waiting for their time to shine, and today was the day. I sent them through the thicknesser and over the saw to finish up with two slabs 2100 x 300 x 75mm which were dead flat, and dead square. I want the edge of the top slabs to finish perfectly flush to the side of the base frame. So I smooth planed the edges of the tops first before cutting the mortises into the underside of the top. Got some really cool slo-mo video shots of long wispy shavings
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I measured the location of each tenon on top of the legs and transferred those dimensions to the underside of the top and hogged away the mortise waste with a router. I aimed the router each time to cut the mortise cheeks bang on perfect, and stopped a little short on the mortise length to finish with a chisel afterwards.
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The first panel slipped onto the tenons and bottomed out without any trouble, though it was a little gappy. 0.5-0.2mm (measured with feeler gauges). The second panel didn't bottom out and it also located very slightly out of line with the first panel along the ends. ~0.15mm. After a little investigation, I found the issue to be one of the mortise walls that I chiseled away was tapering in, not 90° like it should have been, or slightly undercut like it could have been. So a quick shave and it seated properly, though still with some gaps.
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There were gaps between the top and rails/legs. I measured them all and it ranged from 0.5mm - 0.2mm. I could hide gaps like that with a small chamfer, which I'll be doing anyway, but I still needed the tops to seat hard down to the legs. After more investigation, I decided the upper side rails were slightly higher than the front and rear rails as well as the center rail. So a quick shave off the tops of the side rails had the tops seating down pretty nicely. The back edge is bloody perfect, though the front edge is still a little gappy. I'll probably finesse this a little more..probably. The numbers on the tops of the legs are what the gaps were before refinement.
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Looking at those pictures again, the gaps along the front edge are annoying the hell out of me. Looks like a simple job of a quick shave along the front edge and she'll be right. The issue I have is that the two top slabs as they sit now are sitting DEAD FLAT! No twist, no wind, no cupping, no crowning. Bang on perfect within 2 thou. I was quite impressed with myself when I found this. I had expectations of needing to do at least a little flattening with planes later on, but nup! Got lucky
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Everything was good nuff now so I could do the boring job. Using my router table and usual bench as infeed/outfeed supports, I bored out the dog holes with the drill press using a 3/4" TCT forstner bit set to 500 RPM. Pro tip, don't bore all the way through because then you need to fart around dealing with the breakout and splintering underneath after each hole. Bore most of the way and then finish it off with a hand drill later on.
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It's looking kinda cool. I want to get the vices installed, but I'm hanging back on them for the moment. Gonna build the lower shelf tomorrow, deadman the day after, vices on Sunday, roof trusses on Monday I think (havta check I am still employed, I hope I'm not!).
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9th January 2020, 09:52 PM #52
Watch out Kuffy - you are getting into dangerous territory.
Base complete with top sitting on it nicely, holdfast holes in place.
NOW you can use it as a workbench, not fully featured of course but functional.
Now you can stop building and spend the next 18 months working on the bench. (that is working on other projects on top of the bench as opposed to working on building the bench )I got sick of sitting around doing nothing - so I took up meditation.
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9th January 2020, 10:06 PM #53GOLD MEMBER
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Heh, I wish Doug. Although I haven't set a completion date, I have expectations of myself to have a functionally complete bench done by Sunday. I'll polish it up after work for a couple of weeks, and finalise everything before February. There are a few people which have expressed intentions of building one for themselves, so I can't leave em hangin'. I just need to figure out what colour I am going to paint it, and whether lead based paint will be more or less durable...
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9th January 2020, 11:05 PM #54
Yeah, I have people that I can't leave hangin' either. But mine tend to stall bench building progress.
My step-daughter and her daughter just hit me up to help them make a top for their fish tank, which is home to granddaughter's pet turtle - called Shelly, of course.
Now all the materials are stacked on the workbench so I can't do any bench building.I got sick of sitting around doing nothing - so I took up meditation.
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9th January 2020, 11:34 PM #55GOLD MEMBER
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Hmm. Sounds like you need more benches. I have three, soon to be four. Plus my bandsaw, jointer, router table and the panel saw act as workbenches too. I am assuming the definition of workbench is "horizontal flat surface suitable for playing the game of how high can we stack it".
Oh, and my dining table in the dining room is another workbench
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11th January 2020, 05:24 PM #56GOLD MEMBER
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The shelf. I had planned to use a piece of plywood for convenience and for the significant bracing properties it has, but I have some Spotted Gum floorboards which have been sitting around for ages so I used those instead.
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I milled a couple of sticks to be square and screwed them to the inside face of the longer front and rear rails. These will be the cleats which support the shelf slats.
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I cut the floorboards to length and laid out as many as I could fir between the legs.
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Then I cut the final two boards around the legs. Everything is a tight fit between the legs/rails at this point.
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Because I definitely need to account for seasonal movement for a distance of ~1500mm, I trimmed about 6mm off the two end slats to give me 11-12mm of expansion room. It's Summer now, and in Melbourne things will usually shrink in Summer and expand in Winter. I'm expecting the timbers to be in a well and truly shrunken state right about now given how dry it has been.
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Using 1/4" washers as spacers, I could space each slat nicely with a ~1mm gap between each. With everything fitting as it should, I gave each slat a small chamfer all around.
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Then I drilled and countersunk the boards, screwed em in place and had my suspicions confirmed that this is the greatest shelf ever!
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11th January 2020, 06:14 PM #57
I’m going to get a go fund me thingy thing, maybe,running, so you can be knighted as the greatest shelf building guy ever.
Cheers Matt.
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11th January 2020, 09:14 PM #58
Kuffy, I really like the look of that shelf.
I am now seriously considering changing my plans for the shelf under my bench.
I have a heap of shorts of Tassie Oak that I reckon would look great for my shelf and still be in keeping with my "Eucalypt" theme for my bench. I already have the cleats in place for the original plan but this looks better and I don't have to redo anything.
Thanks KuffyI got sick of sitting around doing nothing - so I took up meditation.
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11th January 2020, 11:18 PM #59GOLD MEMBER
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Doug, what were you planning on doing with your shelf? Building from the same/similar ironbarks that you have used for the top?
I like contrasting timbers. I find it an easy way to create an interesting piece without great design skills or spectacularly figured woods.
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11th January 2020, 11:37 PM #60I got sick of sitting around doing nothing - so I took up meditation.
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