My obligatory workbench build thread

[michael_m]

awww thanks guys, I'm blushing .

I'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself at the moment. As part of mother's day, my wife went for a walk/"me time" leaving me with the kids. So, time to go and play outside and in the garage! With number 3 helper banging in nails and drawing over everything and the other two terrorising the chooks, I got a good hour in on the bench. Then, after putting the kids to bed, I've just had another hour.

This is what I've finished with. I've pretty much broken the back of the tail vise.

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In the morning session, I went to plane the top flat, and found that it only needed about 5 passes of the plane to do (I went to bed last night convinced I had about 10 degrees of warp to plane out, so that was a good start). Then, I measured the top piece (again, last night, I thought it wasn't long enough). Turns out one end isn't square, so after flipping it over it was long enough (provided I angled the join at the rear) and glued it in place. That was pretty much it until this evening.

With the vise off the bench it was easy to line up and drill the dog holes in the top piece. Then, I planed it flush with the sides and top and went to put it on the bench.
There's a reason most builds of tail vises I have seen on the internet put the top piece on with the vice already attached. It's because it won't go on with it in place! But, nil desparandum, after looking and pushing and twisting and trying to get it in, I decided that all I needed to do was remove a bit of wood from just beside the screw nut, and put a chamfer in the runner, just near where it joins the pad. 2 minutes later, it slipped on, and because I put it on the bit of the runner that's always hidden by the bench, no-one will be the wiser.

So don't go telling anyone .

Here it is fully closed

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There's meant to be a gap - I'm going to screw or glue (probably glue) a pad to the bench there, and actually designed it with that gap there. What I also planned (but didn't hold out too much hope for) was that it would be square horizontally and vertically; and blow me down, it is!


This is it as open as it goes.

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It slides freely without sagging or changing height to here, then sticks. The good news is, I know exactly where it sticks and it will be an easy 10 minute fix, tops. I will get another 10 cm or so of openness out of it when I do that.

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I haven't put on the rear top piece yet. That can wait for another time; it is cosmetic only and I don't want to fire up the bandsaw at nighttime. I haven't added the screw yet, because I only spray-painted it the same colour as the leg vise screw 10 minutes beforehand and because I need to pull the vise off again to fix the sticking.

But I'm very happy with it and myself. And to top off the night, I came inside just in time to catch Poland's song on Eurovision! Talk about lucky. (If you haven't seen it, it's worth catching on Youtube - it's gloriously inappropriate).

[michael_m]

I've cadged a little bit of time here and there, and have got the tail vise finished

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The screw caused me a little bit of grief. I bought it over a year ago and haven't used it until this week, but it seems to be damaged. The head of the screw is angled and isn't in line with the screw, which means once every turn it catches and grinds a bit against the garter. I don't know if it was that way when I bought it, or if I dropped something on it, but I don't recall doing so. Anyway, it works and is getting easier to turn as the contact point wears down so it's low on my priority list for replacement. I'll get around to doing so sometime soon - maybe in the next 5 years or so.

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The jaws fully open:

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They open just over 28cm.

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They also (funnily enough) close to 0cm, because I added a pad to the leg/base area.

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Then, I drilled some dog holes (not all of them, just a couple to test out the vise) and tried to clamp a piece of wood flat.

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It works! Not the slightest bit of movement when planing.

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It also holds wood between the jaws (again, quelle suprise!).


There's not a huge amount left to do to finish the bench now. Turn a handle for the vise, turn some dogs, drill a few more holes, add leather to the various vise jaws, add battens and bolt the top down, make a centre-till to fill the gap between the top pieces, add some retractable wheels, flatten the bench and give it a wipe with some BLO. Nothing at all, really.

But that won't be happening this weekend. I'm off to camp tomorrow morning.

Cheers, Mike

[IanW]

....There's a reason most builds of tail vises I have seen on the internet put the top piece on with the vice already attached. It's because it won't go on with it in place!...

Hmmm, yes, I could have warned you about that if you'd thought to ask, Michael! I found myself in a similar situation, except in my case, I wanted to dismantle the vise some years after it was made, and it turned out to require a bit of dismemberment to get it off. Fortunately, the reason it was coming off was to rebuild it a little, so it wasn't a major problem, but it did remind me of that famous quote from the Vietnam war, "...in order to save the city we had to destroy it".

Actually, something else I ought to have mentioned to you before, but didn't think of til now, is to give some thought to the spacing of dog-holes. By having different spacings on the vise & bench, you can save yourself a lot of winding of that vise screw. I'm very pleased I finally got around to fixing mine, it's made a very big difference. I think you'll be extremely pleased with your tail-vise when you start using that bench in earnest, they are worth every bit of the extra time & fuss it takes to include one on a bench!

Top marks for tackling a tail vise so successfully on your first serious bench build - many have said they'd have liked to have one, but were intimidated by the apparent complexity of building it. Now that you've done it, you can support my contention that they are not half as difficult as they look, and it only requires a bit of care to get a good result....

Cheers,

[Christos]

I must say I have enjoyed following this build.

And only a few more things that need to be done.

[michael_m]

Actually, something else I ought to have mentioned to you before, but didn't think of til now, is to give some thought to the spacing of dog-holes. By having different spacings on the vise & bench, you can save yourself a lot of winding of that vise screw. I'm very pleased I finally got around to fixing mine, it's made a very big difference. I think you'll be extremely pleased with your tail-vise when you start using that bench in earnest, they are worth every bit of the extra time & fuss it takes to include one on a bench!

hi Ian,

I did think about the spacing of holes, and made the vise holes a tad under 3" apart, and the bench holes 5". The plan is to have a dog in each vise hole, at least (if I get around to it, maybe one in every bench hole too).

In hindsight, I would probably put the top on before attaching to the bench again. The chamfers I put in are invisible once assembled, and I like being able to take it on and off if I need to.

many have said they'd have liked to have one, but were intimidated by the apparent complexity of building it. Now that you've done it, you can support my contention that they are not half as difficult as they look, and it only requires a bit of care to get a good result....

I couldn't agree more. The hardest thing was doing the dovetails; it's just essentially an upside-down box without a lid. And surely if you're building a workbench and want a tail vise you should either

1. have the skills to make a box or
2. use the vise as a chance to practise the skills needed to make a box (which was how I approached it).

[michael_m]

Sorry to throw this at you after you've already done such an excellent job building your wonderful vise Michael, but I just thought it might be interesting to look at.https://www.woodworkforums.com/newrep...5499&noquote=1

Bob

Hi Bob,
unfortunately, your link just opens up the "post reply" page, rather than pointing to anywhere else.

Don't worry about showing me different types of vises; one of the side effects of building this bench is that I've developed a taste for looking at workbenches, workbench builds and other peoples' designs. The same also goes for vises. My heart goes all a-flutter when I see a nicely shaped leg-vise or what's under the apron of a newly-built Nicholson bench.

[IanW]

... The plan is to have a dog in each vise hole, at least (if I get around to it, maybe one in every bench hole too).

Michael, one of the reasons I ended up making a dog for each hole was for convenience - I don't have to retrieve a dog from one end of the bench when it's needed at the other. But possibly the main reason I ended up filling each hole was to prevent shavings from accumulating in them, and making perfect places to lose small parts. Can't tell you how many nuts or screws or other small bits went AWOL before that!

... In hindsight, I would probably put the top on before attaching to the bench again. The chamfers I put in are invisible once assembled, and I like being able to take it on and off if I need to.

I think here are several ways to get around the problem, and yours is obviously one that works. On my 'portable' bench, I screwed the top on the vise. I can't remember why, but I'm sure I had a good reason at the time. . Certainly, doing it that way makes it a lot easier to mark out & chop the dog-holes to match the slots accurately (I'm a square dogger). The screwed-on top worked perfectly well, so after repairing the vise on my regular bench, I screwed the new top on it rather than use glue again. I hesitated to do that, because I didn't like the idea of a bunch of visible screws along the edges of my vise, but in no time at all I stopped noticing them, and it will greatly simplify things if the vise ever needs dismantling again. I'm thinking it should be easy enough to build the vise so it's easier to dismantle should that become necessary. Next time I make a bench (if I'm foolish enough to do it again! ), I'll try making the trenches that carry the brace wider, and screw in filler blocks to close the gaps. As you say, this part of the works is out of sight, so appearance is secondary, & if the vise has to come off, it should be a simple matter of removing the blocks & sliding the vise sideways enough for it to drop down & come off without any further surgery...

Cheers,

[michael_m]

"Wife," I said, "I'm going to finish the workbench this weekend!"
Apart from indicating a dislike of being called "wife" to her face, my beloved didn't seem too fazed either way. So with her indifference bolstering the fires of my soul, I sallied forth to do battle with the bench.

First order of business was to add battens to hold the tops down. I don't have any pictures of that, but trust me when I say it was very straightforward. Some 90x45 pine split down the middle, some coach screws into the stretcher and then up into the top pieces, and the bench is now one solid immovable piece.


Next job was to make the centre till. By dint of careful planning, the gap between the two top sections is 46mm, a standard, easy to find size. To fill it, I planed two pieces of 19mm tassie oak down to about 16mm, and then cut and planed some more tassie oak to 11mm to place in between. I arrived at that width because it allows backsaws and chisels to freely fit down. A bit of glue, a few small nails and it was good to go.

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The bench is 87mm deep, and the wood I made the till out of is 110mm deep, so I cut some rebates, to allow it to sit flush on the stretchers and battens. It can be raised up to its full height by lifting and pulling it across

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I hollowed out a larger storage area near the left end using the 78 plane and a router plane, and put a bottom on it, to give myself a place to put things like the marking knife, pencils and other small bits and pieces. The two dividing pieces either side are longer and sit either side of the stretcher and batten, to stop lateral movement when it is raised as a planing stop.

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Then, on to finish the tail vise. I turned a handle,

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made dogs for each hole,
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and then put leather faces on all of the vises.

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Then, I put a hook on on of the legs. It's a cool wrought iron hook made by a blacksmith down in Yinnar. It was a christmas present from my mother. I'm going to use it to hang the most-used tool in this build from.

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Then, I drilled some dog holes and holdfast holes in the benchtop. I went a bit sparse, since it only takes about half a minute to drill extra holes if I ever need any more.

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And that's it, the bench is finished! I flattened the top this afternoon and put a coat of BLO on it about an hour ago. The only possible thing left for me to do is to put wheels on it (I just need to buy some hinges first), but they're an optional extra and don't count. The bench is officially done.


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Thank you all for having a look

[Christos]

Really enjoyed following this build. What a great journey.

[ian]

[rwbuild]

Excellent, really enjoyed the running WIP, now, lets see what you produce on it.

[IanW]

Well what can anyone say? That's got to be the best 'first bench' I've seen in quite a while, & puts my first effort well & truly in the shade. And all that from a bloke who claimed to have little skill - you certainly learnt on the job!

I do wonder how much use your centre till will see if you work on a lot of furniture-sized components? Many years ago, I saw a similar idea in one of those 'handy hints' columns. In that case, it was an add-on rack, attached to the back of the bench. I thought it a splendid idea, and a great way to keep the clutter off the bench top while working, so spent a day cobbling up a similar rack & screwing it to the back of the bench. I think it lasted a couple of weekends, after which it became kindling. It turned out to be a very bad idea for me, because the tools sticking up along the back of the bench were continually getting in the way & being knocked, or having to be removed to fit things across the bench, etc.

So I am a staunch advocate of the tool well, though I know there are many who detest them. I admit I was a bit ambivalent about them myself, to begin with, but the 'traditional' bench with its heavy end caps needs a bit of room to move, and the well provides for that very nicely, so it was settled. True, they accumulate junk, & having to search for some small part that has decided it will lose itself forever amongst the shavings rather than form part of your creation can be annoying, but at least the mess isn't getting in the way of what is happening on top of the bench. My tool chest is about 2 steps from where I most often stand, & I have tried to train myself to put tools back in the tool chest as soon as I finish using them, to protect sharp edges & prevent clutter & even more importantly these days, so I can find it next time its needed! After 50 odd years, I'm getting there (well, I'm a bit better than I was when I started ), but the tool well is still a useful receptacle for all the other paraphernalia that insists on being on my bench when I'm in heavy woodworkng mode.

Whatever, give yourself several Brownie points for the build, & I'm sure you are going to congratulate yourself many times for having made it, in the years to come....
Cheers,

[orraloon]

Michael,
I hace really enjoyed watching this bench take shape. A first class job.
Regards
John

[MatMann]

Great stuff, enjoyed the read, and hope the bench serves you well

[Canoath]

I have to add my congrats as well Michael. I've been patiently reading updates and others' thoughts to find myself no nearer starting my build, partly because quality threads like this make me rethink what I need versus what I want and how to accomplish the build with what materials. So many ideas cloud my decisions I'm still without any clear plan of what I'll do. So whilst I continue to work off the shed floor and groan each time I have to get up, I'll keep your work in mind along with some others for inspiration and hope one day I'll have something similar.
Oh, and great to see the bsaw in use! I've been ripping up some rotten sleepers on mine to get 4' lengths of 4" x 5" usable lengths for a bench. But since this thread started I'm thinking of just going down the pine route too. Anyway, congrats again on the build and thanks for sharing.