Thread: Andrew's Workbench MkII

Cool another one to follow.

Does that mean another one to make after this one is finished?

Third time lucky you mean?

I'm hoping this one will do me for as long as I live here (in a townhouse) but once we sell up and buy a house I'll look at building a hardwood dream bench. I don't want to do that now because I'd have to make it too shallow.

My last build appeared to have disappointed a few people by being too quick - I'm hoping to have the bench standing by itself by the end of next weekend so this one may too, but I'm willing to spend a bit more time on getting it right since most of my other projects are done so will see how good I can get it. I'm interested to see how well construction grade timber can work in this style.

I got a bit more work done on it, and started trying to flatten the piece of the top that's already glued up. It's going to be tough going as there's a few pieces near 2mm higher than others. I would have knocked them down to the same length before putting them together except they were too long for my bench. I might have to resort to a router sled to do it, unless I can get a jointer working while they are clamped to the sawbenches.

Andrew,

Well done thus far, any chance you'd be able to run it through a thicknesser to solve your problem? I glued my top in 3 parts, to make a bench about 30" deep. My thicknesser is only capable of 12" wide boards so I ran the top through in 3x10" parts. Then glued them as accurately as I could. Flattening with a handplane thereafter wasn't too bad.

Nick

Originally Posted by andrewr79

It's going to be tough going as there's a few pieces near 2mm higher than others.

Use the Schwarz, young Jedi....

Go on, get your plane onto it. It's only 2mm. What sort of timber are you using?

Cheers,
Virg.

Originally Posted by Virgil

Use the Schwarz, young Jedi....

Go on, get your plane onto it. It's only 2mm. What sort of timber are you using?

Cheers,
Virg.

It's all pine, so really shouldn't be that hard. It just seems difficult at the moment because it's too big to plane on my current bench. I'm thinking the best option is to actually get it together and then worry about the top since it should be easy then. That might leave the underside a bit rough but what difference does that make?

Ha! Light dawns.

Yes, flattening your bench should be the last thing you do. Be that as it may it makes sense to have it fairly flat before you stick it all together. After all one surface is your reference, then you work on your edge and then take all your readings form there. The bottom can be rough but it should be level and parallel with the top lest when you bung it on to your legs it goes all wonky.

My current bench is an old solid core door on an ex-high school IA bench carcass. No dogs, dodgy Carter vice and that's about it. I have been planing some great lumps of hardwood (for my saw benches. One down, one to go) and I've been using clamps, and screws and all sorts of bits and bobs to hold things in place while I plane. So far so good.

Go on, sharpen that plane and give it a good run.

Cheers,
Virg.

My sawbenches are built and you can see them hiding under the benchtop in the first pic - best things I've built in both construction and usefulness.

I think the bottom is actually closer to flat as I used the sawbenches as the reference for gluing it all up and they are near dead flat, so I will do as suggested, get it flat then put the whole thing together and then see to the benchtop. The old #5 does need a sharpen first though!

Pics of your sawbenches once done please

Cheers
Andrew

I like the look of your sawhorses nice and sturdy

can you slow down a bit on the build - you are making some of us look a little pedestrian by comparison

Originally Posted by Sawdust Maker

I like the look of your sawhorses nice and sturdy

can you slow down a bit on the build - you are making some of us look a little pedestrian by comparison

Thanks - I'm quite fond of them already. They hold my weight, so I don't think much is going to bother them!

It's already been a week and all I've got done is 3/4 of the top and two legs. That's incredibly slow for me . I'm aiming to get the rest of the top glued up tomorrow including the tool rack at the back, and the other two legs built!

Things will slow a little then. I have to mortice the legs for the crossbars, and I want to put dog holes into the right hand front one to support large panels in the front vice.

The front two rails of the bench are going to be interesting to build too - I want dog holes there as well. And I havn't left myself a spot for a planning stop so have to sort that out.

All in all I don't think you have to worry about speed too much

There's a moving van blocking my garage door, and since my car is blocking my workspace there's no movement on this so far...grrrr

I really want to get some done. What could be more Australian than building a French style workbench today?

I'm fairly certain Roubo emigrated to Australia and became an Aussie. I may be wrong but what the heck, we'll claim him anyway.
Oh and in case you didn't realise, vehicles can be started and moved.

sounds right - came out here with La Pérouse

Originally Posted by NCArcher

Oh and in case you didn't realise, vehicles can be started and moved.

Well it went not long after the post anyway, and I got some work done on the legs, then I heard the sound of ball on willow in the complex driveway and before you know it I've got a rasp out putting a groove in a couple of 2x4's so we can have bails on the makeshift stumps