Thread: From log to workbench

Drilling up to 180 mm long x 19 mm diam holes proved somewhat tricky as the 19 mm bit we had was only 95 mm long so we drilled pilot holes in the legs using a 6 mm auger and then drilled from both sides using a DP.


Then we assembled the bench and clamped it square and drilled the holes thru the precut holes into the stringers with a big power drill


Then belt the dowels in with a mallet.
Even the top is held onto the base with 3 dowels - 2 through the apron into the front legs, and one at the back through the top stringer into a brace glued to the underside of the table top

The alignment of the two holes over that distance proved somewhat difficult and a couple of dowels had to be made slightly thinner to negotiate the crooked holes but all the dowels went in very firm - in fact several were too tight and had to be knocked back out and were assisted back thru the hole with a light rub of wax on the dowel.

The big dowels are left poking through at the back so they can be belted out again if needed.
If the bench gets loose new slightly oversized dowels can be be made, OR the whole thing can be glued up.

Here is the bench base with all the dowels inserted ready for the top.



The top was glued up in several stages using biscuits for alignment.
First the two straight boards were glued together .
Then the slightly bowed boards were glued in sequence onto the straight boards
In one case the board was helped to stray straight by gluing the apron to the front, and for the other board a straight brace was glued to the underside.
The brace was also used to affix the top to the back of the base.
The result was surprisingly flat and straight top which will just need sanding to suffice for its purpose.
A small amount of natural edges have also been deliberately left on 3 of the 4 legs.


Here you see some of the final base sanding taking place with Festool RO150 doing it's thang - my joints and muscles are a bit sore after all this!



The holes in the top were then bogged up with black epoxy.


As I will have to go home tomorrow we decided that the base was ready enough for its first oil coat so we did it - so here is where we are at




The bench will be fitted with a Vertias twin screw vice, and possibly round dog holes some time in the future.
It's pretty basic but it sure was fun to build something using mostly timber milled and processed from scratch.

Many thanks to Sandi who did more than her fair share of the work and Jen our able assistant.
Thanks also to John and Hud for muscle power involved in thicknessing, and moving and flipping the top multiple times.

Bob well done and ladies good to see some more female/ladies in the shed. The forum when I joined had quite a few Ruffley, Toni, Shirley and a few others all seem to have taken flight.

Sounds like you enjoyed you little trip down south

nice bench!

A good basic design and solid. All a bench needs to be.
Regards
John

I have made some dowels in the past for a jarrah and blackheart sassafras dining and coffee table. Same as you couldn't find any jarrah dowels (10mm) so made some using a router and a 10mm fingernail/ bullnose bit it seemed to work out fine. Heck of a lot easier than pounding away at an anvil with a mallet.
Mark

Originally Posted by msrampant

I have made some dowels in the past for a jarrah and blackheart sassafras dining and coffee table. Same as you couldn't find any jarrah dowels (10mm) so made some using a router and a 10mm fingernail/ bullnose bit it seemed to work out fine. Heck of a lot easier than pounding away at an anvil with a mallet.
Mark

Yes there are heaps of ways of making dowels - I presume you used a router table? which we did not have and even if we did we were over 100 km from a store likely to stock the bit we would need.

In terms of ease of making it was not at all hard, plus it was extremely satisfying to belt the bits of wood through the holes.
What surprised me was that none of them broke while being made or belted in.

Originally Posted by wheelinround

Bob well done and ladies good to see some more female/ladies in the shed. The forum when I joined had quite a few Ruffley, Toni, Shirley and a few others all seem to have taken flight.

Cheers wheelin and others. Yeah the ladies are pretty game. The process was I would demo something and then the ladies would have a go with me watching and then I would leave them to it and move onto something else. Jen was very handy but only around for a few hours at a time. Sandi is a very enthusiastic and quick learner and was there most of the time, but at the same time she was also feeding calves, looking after some cows and cooking up a storm.

Sorting through the slabs and extracting and sizing the timber from the slabs and sizing the the pieces took 2 days - most woodworkers that purchase sized wood forget how long it takes to extract these from a raw source.

Beautiflul work Bob and sandi. I love it.

More fun than any one person is entitled to have!!

Now wipe the smile off your face!

Sandi finished sanding and putting the first coat of oil on the top this morning.

I'm green with envey

It has come up a treat! You must be feeling good about it.
Well done! From start to finish.
Excellent.
Mark

I can see one major fault with that workbench...


It is about 3000 Km too far west of my workshop.



It must have been very satisfying for all involved to create that from a log. So, well done, congratulations all.