Thread: The Outdoor Workbench

Back to 'work' after rain monday? tuesday? ... canvas cover seems to work well and it was a very nice day wednesday to be out at the 'bench'.

I've dug out some jarrah (abandoned pergola) to make end rails ... unless they want to be big and thick which is also here.

I will dovetail them into the front rails ... maybe not condor tails exactly, but big and simple at least.

I want to do it all if possible without glue ... see what can be achieved. Worst case would be take it apart and use glue, so we'll see how it goes.

The top I'm not yet decided on. First whether the side-rails come across under the top and the top goes all the way across, or rather I'm thinking to have the top sit inside the 4 rails - all level to the top.

Then there is the configuration of the two 'planks'. Chippy mentioned a split-top, which sounds good for clamping and wood movement - I just haven't paid much attention to those articles I've seen so I need to go find some to read up on that and form an opinion. The other thought I had - a bit like tongue and groove flooring was to ship-lap them along the middle join, with a 10-20mm separation so there could be movement, but no void in the top.

Also need to think now about workholding ... I can do a leg vice in the front left easy enough. I need to figure out what else would suit me. I like the idea of holdfasts but wasn't planning on buying any ... but have now been wondering if something good enough for this bench might be made with round bar, some scrap and a welder???

It has been quite good to start using it as a bench (kinda) ... the height is about right. I think the wood is going to ding-up pretty good pretty quickly.

I liked the Logan Cabinet Shoppe workbench build - it was interesting.

Well - that's as far as I've got.

Cheers,
Paul

Nice work
you seem to be enjoying this

I've seen a piccy of a diagonal vice somewhere - I'll look through my books later
It may have just been a leg vice which was slanted to match the lean of the leg, dunno

Originally Posted by Sawdust Maker

Nice work
you seem to be enjoying this

Mustn't be working hard enough

I've seen a piccy of a diagonal vice somewhere - I'll look through my books later
It may have just been a leg vice which was slanted to match the lean of the leg, dunno

That's really what I meant ... didn't realise it when I first wrote that ... but when you think about it ...

I looked at this short vid of Marc's. Lots of ideas there:



and this screen shot shows the design ...

Mine won't look like those

This Logan Cabinet Shoppe video on his workholding was very interesting to me:

http://logancabinetshoppe.com/blog/2010/05/episode-23/

Found it in
Workbenches: From Design And Theory To Construction And Use by Christopher Schwarz

I googled "schwarz english bench" and came up with this page which is Schwarz's build of an english style bench.
I'm sure this is what came into my mind when I read your post

Lots of effort there Mr. McGee!!

Looking forward to the finished bench.

Welcome to the recyclers union!!

Originally Posted by artme

...Welcome to the recyclers union!!

There's a union?

Originally Posted by Christos

There's a union?

yep and you're behind in your dues

Originally Posted by artme

Lots of effort there Mr. McGee!!
Looking forward to the finished bench.
Welcome to the recyclers union!!

Excellent. I'm already with Scroungers Anonymous.
Although, if it's so anonymous, why do I always have to start with "Hi, I'm Paul and I'm a Scrounger" ?

- - - - -

Nick - thanks very much for the link!

I'm sure that is the picture that I was vaguely remembering.

I've been thinking about the benchtop.

I started off with the thought that I would laminate two pieces of that jarrah at either end for big solid end-caps.

Then I thought I could do the dovetailing to one board, and add the second in front like adding a draw-front. This seems like cheating - cutting a through dovetail instead of a half-blind ... but then I reasoned that time was important, and I'd already cheated with the thicknesser, so I'm damned to hell anyway.

I also have been thinking about laminating a reasonable-size strip of jarrah to the top of the front and back rails to harden up those edges that might suffer knocks pretty easily. I also thought of arranging the planks of the top as a split-top, with a removeable jarrah insert in between.

Two problems that I could see were -
1. the depth of the top. It is about 73cm/29" now which seems deep enough. If I moved them further apart without ripping any off it would obviously get deeper.
2. the top side-framing. I was a bit stuck on the fact that the front and back side-rails are 2.2m (87") but the shorter of the top planks is 2.4m (95"). Attaching the end-caps across and dropping the top inside that 'case' would mean reducing the top to maybe 2.1m (7') and I didn't really want to cut that wood down so much.

A part of my job is driving around for a few hours in the early morning ... which can give you time to mull things over.
It occurred to me that - getting further away from the original 'donor' bench - what I needed was to use the roof-planks as the sides and the previous sides as the top. They are narrower and a nicer, tighter grain - as well as shorter.

So I need to edge joint all those planks to square (which needed doing anyway) and rearrange the mock-up to see how that idea looks.

And try and get it don this afternoon. Sounds do-able.

Cheers,
Paul

Ok. Trimmed the other roof beam with a 6tpi D8 and checked the ex-side rails for square and touched them up a little.

Then re-arranged the beams into the new idea.

It is now 62cm (25") deep with a 1" strip of jarrah spacing the top planks.

I will try it with a 100mm x 75mm (4"x3") jarrah beam.

Next (tomorrow) to practice some normal-size dovetails before I try it on the rails.

Prepare the jarrah infill - flatten and square the end-caps properly - decide on the face-sides to the new side-rails and trim and square as needed.

Dovetail and build the top-case.

Bloody hell.

Paul.

Holy hooting heck - what a day. Today, ticked off the list - flatten end caps.
Yay.

I had gotten one hardwood plank pretty well flat on one side, and the other close before today. (First 2 pics)
I pulled out the evil power planer to help me get the second one to a decent flatness to match the first.
I had scrubbed off the other side in both cases. As it turns out, I'm pretty sure these two are Karri.

I needed two more planks for the other end-cap, so I grabbed out two more ex-pergola planks.
One was long enough to become the whole end-cap, but what the heck right?

They both had a dark brown paint on one side, and a griitty green paint seemingly over bitumen on the other.
The brown side wasn't impossible to scrub, but the green side was like scrubbing granite. Or glass-paper ... over granite.

My trusty #40 scrub wasn't making an impression, so I rehoned it ... Nope. It had suffered a bit since the regrinding, so I reground it to a curve again, and reformed the bevel and rehoned it. It made some impression for about 40 seconds and then it was basically dead again.

Planing cobblestones embedded with sand would be a good analogy. I went and got my C10 carter scrub - which I have never found a good use for since getting it - and treated its blade to the same preparation. The Carter came into its own on this job - it is wider than a #4/#5 and heavier than the #5 I think. It t is the #8 of scrubbing planes and had the heft and inertia to start to make an impression on this green plank from hell. The paint part has its own story, but the wood of these two planks was definitely Jarrah - very seasoned and dense - I'm guessing maybe from the 70s.

The third pic the the brown side of the shorter new plank. Went ok. Then we have the green side and the extent the #40 managed before dying. The next with the C10 shows how far I got with that blade from 'new'. On resharpening, I set the depth lower again and did a bit better because (a) the edges had been scrubbed a little and (b) the blade was digging into the wood and carrying the top surface away with it.

With the long board I first scrubbed the brown side with the Carter and that went ok - the wood still very hard, and not (a bit) ropey like the karri. The green side got paint remover and a scrapiing before I contemplated putting any of my planes to it. Even when scraping the soft paint it felt like chewing sand. I don't what this damn finish is, but I have a fair bit more of it. It came back to a thinnish black layer over the wood which I judged that I would leave to the thicknesser.

There are pics of the boards pre-thicknesser, and the matching pairs after. Plus some wet-down pics to demonstrate the grain of the Jarrah and the Karri.

Well 10am to 4pm ... only 6 hours. No problem.

Tired now,
Paul

I am loving this work in progress.

From the actual progress that you are making and that it is you doing the work.

Nar just kidding, really giving some great results.

There's been progress?

It's hard to tell ... it may have to do with my motto of "Where the hell am I going? ... What the hell am I doing?"

Cheers,
Paul

Now that jarrah will lend some REAL class to the bench!!