Thread: Long-overdue workbench build

Originally Posted by DaveTTC

12° ain’t so bad


Dave TTC
The Turning Cowboy

Turning Wood Into Art

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Dave

12 degs is OK on the outside: Not the inside!

Regards
Paul

Sounds like we need a "GROUP BUY" of the heated jackets......

I have a Bosch 10.8v one and it hardly needs the highest setting it's so good!!

Originally Posted by doug3030

I put a lot of the pieces in place (sort of) for a progress picture, the endcaps an dshoulder vise arm are not shown as they are sitting on the back deck with wet epoxy filling in some minor cracks on faces which will not show anyway. The damn epoxy has been wet since last Friday

I have no idea why it is drying so slowly. I measured the ratios with the kitchen scales and it was blended until it was an even color including the black dye.The day I did the epoxying was cold but within the temperature range fo rthe product so I am at a los sto know why it is still soft.. I will probably have to clean it all off and mix up another batch and see how it goes.

Is it staying within the temperature range? Once it gets to cold epoxy will stop curing altogether.
Is it the type of epoxy that should be mixed by weight? Most 2 part epoxies are mixed by volume. Your ratios will be off if it's done the wrong way as the resin and hardener have different densities.

Originally Posted by CgT

Is it staying within the temperature range? Once it gets to cold epoxy will stop curing altogether.
Is it the type of epoxy that should be mixed by weight? Most 2 part epoxies are mixed by volume. Your ratios will be off if it's done the wrong way as the resin and hardener have different densities.

To quote from West Systems Webpage:

To measure 105 Resin and 205 or 206 Hardener by weight or volume, combine 5 parts resin with 1 part hardener. To measure 105 Resin with 207 or 209 Hardener by volume, combine 3 parts resin with 1 part hardener ( by weight, combine 3.5 parts of resin with 1 part of hardener).

So there should be no problem there.

Temperature may be close to the limit but I mixed up another batch from the same bottles for a test on a much colder day (no heating on in the shed for the purpose of the exercise) and it set ok.

ANyway I have given up wondering why and will just clean off the old stuff and remix and try again.

I have pretty much cleaned up after the epoxy disaster mentioned earlier,so I can redo that job soon.

But before I mix up a new batch of epoxy,I decided I might as well glue up the main section of the benchtop.
That way I can fill in any holes init with epoxy before I run it through the thicknesser.

The glueup went pretty well. During a dry run I discovered I had to trim a bit of waste off the end of one of the three sections so that I could get one of the clamps on.

Always remember to do a dry run before any glueup. It allows you to pick up little things like that.

There's not as many clamps as some might have expected, because there are two threaded rods going right through the workbench top, which I used to help with the clamping, as can be seen in the pictures. After the glueup I stood it up to clean the squeezeout off of the other side.

I've managed to make a bit of progress over the past few days.

With the main part of the top glued together I have run it through the thicknesser for the last time so the ends could now be trimmed. I left the excess attached so that any snipe would be on the bits that get trimmed off.

The plans called for a groove to be routed in the ends to accommodate loose spline in the ends of the bench to fit into a groove in the endcaps. Instead of doing this, I chose to cut the ends in a way that leaves a half inch tongue on the ends to fit into the groove I will cut into the endcaps. Probably a bit more work but it should be a better outcome. Remembering that I am dealing with some of the hardest timber I have ever encountered I decided a new blade for the hand-held circular saw was warranted. I removed the majority of the waste with the circular saw, following a board clamped to the bench and cleaned it all up with a mallet and chisel and a Stanley 78.

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Next thing is the dog-hole row.

Everything else being equal, the best way to cut the dog holes would be to make up a template guide and do it with a router, and that is what I intend to do, but bearing in mind the hardness of the timber I wanted a way to hog out a lot of the waste first and then just finish it off with the router. This was a great job for the Triton in crosscut mode - something you don't often get to use.

I made up a jig to set the 2.5 degree angle for the holes and incorporated a way to create uniform spacing by referencing the next hole from the previous one. Once I carefully measured and cut the sides of the first hole the remainder were easily produced of identical size and spacing exactly how I wanted them. I cut all the sides first then went back and ran several cuts through the middle of each doghole - well half of them anyway. I will finish the rest of them another day.

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Once the dog holes are done I can glue up the full body of the benchtop. Things are really starting to look good.

I continued on with the dogholes.

There are 10 dogholes in the row and I finished hogging out the waste with the Triton WOrkcentre as per the post above. Off the workcentre, the holes look like the one on the right in the photo.

I made up a jig to guide the router using guide bushings to finish shaping the holes to their final shape as per the one on the left in the photo. The router leaves just a small amount of cleaning up with a chisel or rasp to make them right.

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The Triton Workcentre made holes of a consistent size and spacing and the router and jig take less than a millimetre off the sides and widen the top for the heads of the dogs. Even this small an amount of material to remove seemed to be a lot for the router to handle in such hard timber, hence the little bit of cleanup still needed.

In one of the dogholes there appeared an unwanted consequence of using recycled timber. A nail-hole was exposed, showing a black trail and an uneven surface so a bit of epoxy may be needed. ALthough it was unwanted it is a part of the nature of the chosen material and as such in my mind it does not detract form the bench at all. I see it as similar to an interesting patch of grain, adding character to the build.

It seems to be coming along nicely Doug

Looking forward to a full viewing at the gtg

Cheers Matt

Progress is continuing slowly but surely.

Not much has happened that is picture-worthy. Filling holes with epoxy,waiting for it to dry, sanding back and re-epoxying

I hit a snag with the doghole row. My Triton MOF router decided that speed control was not it's thing. It preferred speed-uncontrolled. It would start up on the speed I selected then randomly speed up to full and power was erratic. Exactly what you DON'T need when template routing. Fortunately it damaged the template more than the workbench itself and the minor damage can be fixed without a trace. The template is still usable, with all the damage being on the ends of he holes.

I had bought the MOF router to use handheld so that the Triton TRA router could remain in the router table. The kit I bought for the MOF router templates also included the mounting plate for the TRA router so I had to fit that in. Next snag was that the black plastic base-plate for the TRA, which had been removed for table mounting had been broken. This probably happened when I was moving sheds last year. So today I made a new pretty blue one from an off-cut of perspex. At least that is worth a photo. I managed to piece the old black one together enough to make a template. Now I can mount the template routing setup onto the TRA and finish the dog-holes

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Getting into the "serious" joinery now.

The first of many dovetails required for the fitting of the endcaps, shoulder vise arm and the tailvise.

This one is the biggest of the lot - joining the shoulder vise arm to the long endcap.

The holes you see in the picture were there when I got this beautiful piece of Redgum. This is one of the three pieces given to me by Bob (Oldgreybeard). They came from an old display in Scienceworks. I have been very fortunate to have had so many pieces of beautiful old-growth timber with interesting back-stories given to me to include in my workbench. To get the required length for the Shoulder vise arm, I had to place the dovetail right over the two holes.

I made a little cradle to hold the timber at the required angle to cut the sides of the dovetail on the bandsaw and then chiseled out the waste. I held the workpiece on the yet-to-be-finished benchtop with holdfasts while I chiseled it out. Happy with the result.

Hopefully I will get the other half of this dovetail cut out over the weekend but I will be pretty busy. Two families we are good friends with are having a wedding and I've got a job driving a minibus full of the bride, bridesmaids, mother of the bride and the photographer (my girlfriend Jools) off to nail and hair appointments and various drunken shenanigans so any woodwork that gets done this weekend is really a bonus.

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Looks fantastic Doug
An a great Write up been following along an love the story.

Um you won’t even get to look at your shed till Monday,

Cheers Matt

Everyone loves massive dovetails

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Um you won’t even get to look at your shed till Monday,

Well yes I did.

And I cut the other part of the big dovetail. It is a perfect fit.

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And then I decided I don't like that piece of timber any more, so I am not going to continue with it. It was one of the pieces I had trouble with on the epoxy run that would not harden. I fixed that managed to epoxy the piece until it would be suitable to use for the long endcap but it's presence just annoys me for some reason. I will be using this bench for a long time and I don't want to be looking at that piece of timber every time I do, It was not a nice piece fo timber from the start and though it would be able to perform its function, it is giving off bad vibes. I am laminating up a replacement out of pieces of recycled Jarrah stair tread. Now the long end-cap will match up with the main body of the tailvise at the other end of the bench. That works well for the overall look of the bench with timber selection and more importantly, makes me feel better about the build. Call me crazy if you like - I don't care. It's my bench

Your crazy an it’s your bench !
Looking forward to the next exciting instalment.

Cheers Matt,

Originally Posted by doug3030

Well yes I did.

That works well for the overall look of the bench with timber selection and more importantly, makes me feel better about the build. Call me crazy if you like - I don't care. It's my bench

Nice work Doug. A lot of people don't pay enough attention to the feng shui of their bench.

Tony