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Thread: My year of the workbench
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2nd January 2014, 01:12 AM #1Golden Member
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My year of the workbench
After a year of travelling through Europe, spending a little time in Devon training at David Savage's workshop, and a long time sitting with the Benchcrafted vises and plans, I'm ready to build me a Roubo workbench.
First step - select my timber.
My local timber merchant has a ready supply of kiln dried Vic Ash. Wondering if people think this would be a suitable timber for my build. Or, should I look elsewhere for another option?
Cheers,
Af.___________________________________________________________
"The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me."
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2nd January 2014 01:12 AM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
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3rd January 2014, 10:23 AM #2Skwair2rownd
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So that's where you have been!!!
Vic Ash should be fine, but why not try recycling some other timber?
Do you want a work of art or a good, solid, no nonsense workbench
that will get a bit battered no matter what?
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3rd January 2014, 12:59 PM #3
I would be keeping an eye out for timber on the side of the road or a recycle center.
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3rd January 2014, 03:37 PM #4Golden Member
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Thanks folks. Have certainly been looking out for recycled/reclaimed timber and will keep looking for another few weeks yet until I bite the bullet. So something of the hardness of Vic Ash / Messmate would be ideal.
Want the workbench to look nice, but it's going to be used so it's not for eating dinner off.___________________________________________________________
"The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me."
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6th August 2014, 11:37 AM #5Golden Member
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So, my "year of the workbench" hasn't been progressing so well! Back on track now and finally about the bite the bullet and purchase that timber.
Spent a good few weeks checking out various places for timber, incl. the recycled non-specific 'hardwood' variety. Have opted to go for Vic Ash. It's readily available for me and at a good price. It's not the prettiest timber, but I think it would do nicely. Will use some other timber (perhaps Spotted Gum) as highlights.
Anyone else built their bench using Vic Ash? How have you found it? Does it plane well when flattening? Much difference between the Kiln Dried and Air Dried variety (I can pretty much only find Kiln Dried at a reasonable price).
Cheers,
Af.___________________________________________________________
"The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me."
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14th August 2014, 07:13 PM #6Golden Member
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I got wood!
24 lengths of sawn kiln dried Vic Ash, 125 x 50 / 2.4m. It'll sit in the garage (where the bench will eventually be) for a week before I dress the pieces for the top. My QA supervisor has inspected the timber and they are all quite straight and show no huge twists. Hopefully they stay that way after dressing.
photo 2 (4).jpg
Now that I have the timber, my next step was to disassemble (i.e. smash apart) my old bench to make room for this project. The workshop is a total mess at the moment. Need to get rid of some old broken equipment and bring it all to some level of organisation. Should have it all in order over the weekend. Hopefully will be back in a week to report on progress with the bench.
photo 1 (4).jpg
Cheers,
Af.___________________________________________________________
"The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me."
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15th August 2014, 02:13 PM #7Senior Member
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Watching and waiting for the next installment.
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15th August 2014, 05:34 PM #8New Member
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I'll be interested to see how this turns out as I'm in a similar situation. Keep the photos coming.
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18th August 2014, 10:08 AM #9
I don't think your garage is all that messy.
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6th October 2014, 10:58 AM #10Golden Member
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After some relaxing (for me and the timber) I got started on the workbench this weekend.
First step is to get the timber for the top jointed and dressed. Skip planed the pieces (quicker than jointing all the faces!) and started jointing one edge. Got part way through in an afternoon before I needed to stop making noise. Planning to get these all dressed and the top glued up this week.
Rough in one side, pretty out the other. Pity all these faces will be hidden!
photo 2.jpg
All the faces are dressed, but only got to joint 5 edges yesterday before needing to close up.
photo 4.jpg
One of the sawdust bags from this job. All in all, the top will create 0.03 cubic metres of sawdust. That's around $55 of waste so far!
photo 5.jpg
Cheers,
Af.___________________________________________________________
"The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me."
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6th October 2014, 07:11 PM #11
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9th October 2014, 11:27 AM #12Golden Member
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Glue up of the bench top
There is the front and the back piece. The front one is slightly narrower for now but will come up to full width later on when I add the dog hold strip and face piece. I used a few dominos in each piece just to help with alignment and save me from heaps of hand planing later. These two parts took almost 1litre of glue!
photo 2.jpgphoto 1.jpgphoto 3.jpg
Once these come out of the clamps I'll need to flatten/joint one face then pass it through the thicknesser to bring them down to 4".___________________________________________________________
"The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me."
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11th October 2014, 10:17 PM #13
You are right about the glue. Anyone thinking of building a bench better just get a 4 ltr bottle to start with.
Regards
John
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13th October 2014, 09:13 PM #14Golden Member
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Spent the weekend jointing and thicknessing the front and back slabs for the benchtop. Had a friend over to help because these pieces are damn heavy! Here's a little vid of us doing the back piece which is ~100mm x 280mm x 2.4m (I'm the one in the green t-shirt). Also exposed a large tenon in the front piece which will go into the end cap. This took me some time to get right. Used the track saw to cut the shoulder lines and remove most of the waste. Then a handsaw, chisel, and block plane to get it all cleaned up.
This evening I excavated the gap for the Benchcrafted tail vice. Required a jointed and square sacrificial piece to rest the router fence against and lots and lots and lots of small passes.
IMG_0506.jpg
Up next is the end cap. It's currently sitting in clamps ready to be cleaned up. It'll receive a huge mortise and a hole for the vice screw.
Cheers,
Af.___________________________________________________________
"The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me."
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13th October 2014, 10:17 PM #15
Wow. 100mm thick bench top. I think that might be a forum record for top thickness. And weight. Looking good.
Those were the droids I was looking for.
https://autoblastgates.com.au
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