Thread: WIP - Groggy's Workbench

Its a great idea to do that Groggy. Versatile machine isnt it The end grain might not look as good but will be heaps stronger when the bench is being used (like whacking it with a hammer)

I like the way you are thinking(bit bucket). Try something and if it does not work come back to it later with a different thought.

Since the timber is recycled it was full of nails. To extract the nails it was necessary to drill around the nail with a drill so I could get a grip on it. Now it is time to fix the damage.

The simplest way I could think of was to use dominos made of the same timber. This was shown in a previous post. Today I've been plugging away (pardon the pun) at fixing the bad bits. One of the best things about using dominos is that you can repair a large area by simply joining two or three together.

Pic 1 - Make a hole or two
Pic 2 - Insert the domino and glue
Pic 3 - wipe the excess
Pic 4 - slice off to length (25mm domino hole)
Pic 5 - viola!
Pic 6, 7, 8, etc

Time to make the holes (about 80 of them) ten to fifteen minutes.
Time to plug them all was about an hour and a half. Some of them I need to finish tomorrow because they will need to overlap to fix a few chunks.

Once the posts are thicknessed and planed I am hoping the repairs will give the benchtop a 'well maintained' look.

Went through a second pass today to complete the large areas that needed filling. Couple of pics to show a large area being filled in, in one case, pic #2, a saw kerf had gone halfway through the post.

Groggy you should think about doing a whole 2400 x 1000 table top like that, it would look great

Maybe after 20 years of patching it will be

You're only a few days into what is gonna be 20 years of patching before you finish your bench? Sheesh.

I'll be finished my b/case hutch slash thingo in no time then.

I have been looking at some gum pockets I was going to epoxy, now I am toying with the idea of a string of dominos

I should mention that the Domino plugs are not my idea. I think I saw it done ages ago by Lignum or LGS, or maybe it was at the Domino course I did, I can't remember now

Very nice work with what you are plugging away.

I finished the first round of plugging (second round will be after joining the top) and decided it was time for thicknessing. I looked at the 105x150x2500 posts, then looked at my little lunch box DW733 thicknesser, hmmm. That isn't going to work. Too big and heavy for the little feller, what I need is something with grunt.

As it happens, I have a friend nearby with a CT381 15" jobbie which is about to have its blades replaced, perfect for this job as the timber is old and has some grit in it. So I load up the yoot and head off on a 10 minute odyssey to his place.

It took a good three hours and many, many passes through his thicknesser to get what was needed, here are a few pics of the days activity. Each post is about 40kg.

Pic #1 - measuring and marking, checking for bow.
Pic #2 - We checked the thickness of each end and the middle to avoid the posts jamming part way through.
Pic#3 - Getting there, the sides are coplanar but we still need to shave some ugly bits off.
Pic #4 - Break time!
Pic #5 - Just about done.
Pic #6 - The Groggymobile loaded and ready to head home. I'm glad I got a slightly longer tray than normal. Each length is 2500mm and the diagonal piece is 3000mm.

We filled 1 1/2 bins with shavings, now that is a good day

Thanks for the use of the thicknesser KiwiBrucee

There's plenty of satisfaction to be had in firing up the Thicky and turning rough sawn timber (or similar in your case) and seeing it come out as nice smooth stuff that you just have to caress it.

What Waldo said. Nice looking bunch of timber there Groggy. One monster bench coming up.

Cheers
Pops

Starting to think about the best way to prepare these for glue up. Since the faces are 140mm dressed I am considering running a finely set plane down the centre to create a hollow of a few thou, this should let the edges and ends seat better.

Has anyone had any experience jointing large posts want to comment?