Thread: My year of the workbench

nice work

Thanks folks.

A little more progress recently. Put together the end cap that holds the shoulder vise. The cap is bolted on with two captured nuts underneath the bench. Took a fair bit of measuring and careful drilling.

Benchcrafted template courtesy of The Wood Whisperer is used to place the three key holes for the vise scren and flange.
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Here it is all drilled out with two slotted holes for the bolts. The bolts hold the cap to the bench (along with the eventual dovetails) and the slots allow for any movement in the front slab.
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The underside gets two holes which meet up with the holes through the tenon. Took some careful measuring to get them located correctly. The nuts fall into the holes and the bolt runs through them.
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Here's the end cap in place.
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Up next ...
Dog hole strip. That's going to take a lot of repetitive routing.

Cheers,
Af.

The bench is starting to come along nicely I think. This weekend I worked on the dog hole strip. It was a lot of routing and I had a few issues along the way. Unfortunately the guide bushing I have for my router didn't fit in the template so I had to do the initial passes freehand taking it one depth at a time. I then used a pattern bit to do the final passes along the wall. Most turned out pretty well.

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The problem was that the bit tended to get caught. A few times the router almost jumped out of my hands! It happened once when free-handing and once when riding along the template. I took it even slower after that as I realised I was essentially routing against end-grain. One hole got damaged and I had to build a new template. I managed to clean up this particular dog hole nicely so that it'll function just like the others. No-one will ever know!

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The dog hole strip receives a thin backing piece of material that brings it perfectly in line with the shoulder vise. This is pretty much the extend of my large clamp collection - I think I need some more.

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I then started working on the front laminate. This face piece has two dovetails which go into the end cap. I cut the tails out using a jigsaw and a strip of wood as a guide. Still needs a bit of cleanup with the chisels to get them all nice and square.

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Up next ...
The end cap needs to be cut to size and pins need to be marked and chopped out. Then the front piece will be glued into place.

Cheers,
Af.

Looks like you had almost as much fun as me doing this. Glad you got through it with the one piece of timber. With a bit of luck I will get through it tomorrow.
For interests sake which router were you using?

Hey Pac Man,

Do you have a write-up of your build? Would love to follow along. I'm using a Festool 1400. The bit I was using was a .5" diameter pattern bit with a .5" shank. So it's a bit of a beast. Just needed to take very shallow passes and nibble my way towards the line/template.

Cheers,
Af.

Originally Posted by Afro Boy

Hey Pac Man,

Do you have a write-up of your build? Would love to follow along. I'm using a Festool 1400. The bit I was using was a .5" diameter pattern bit with a .5" shank. So it's a bit of a beast. Just needed to take very shallow passes and nibble my way towards the line/template.

Cheers,
Af.

Here is my bench thread. Not sure how much help it will be as you are about to pass me.

Thanks Pac Man. I've subscribed and am watching with interest.

A very quick update ... the "top" is pretty much done now:

• End cap dovetailed and fitted (still need to do some planing and cleanup)
• Glued on the front laminate
• Cut the front half of the bench to final length
• Fitted the Benchcrafted tail vise
• Made 14 dogs to fit the 14 dog holes

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The tail vise glides very nicely. One question for you good folk out there ... I bought this a few years ago and the screw looks like it has a tiny bit of rust on it. What's the best way to treat this you think? What type of oil/lubricant should I use on this?

Cheers,
Af.

A few more pics, now of the legs. A heap of mortises made with the router. These will take the short and long rails.

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Got to use my new dado stack. Cut out the tenons for the top and cleaned up the cheeks with a shoulder plane. Or should it be a cheek plane?

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Here they are. The small holes on the sides are for the drawbore pins which go into the tenons to hold them tight. The front right leg has a few extra holes on the front to take a holdfast. The large hole at the top is to access the dog which comes down right above that leg.

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Feeling like it's coming to an end, but there's still quite a bit to get done here. Have to mill up and make the rails, build and fit the leg vise, mortise the top, assemble, build the shelf, build the stop gap, etc. etc.

Cheers,
Af.

Really enjoying the updates that you are providing.

Thanks Christos. Trying to get this completed as I have other projects lining up to get started.

Spent a little time this evening getting the rails milled up, tenoned, and drawbore holes drilled. Once the tenons were cut and ends curved, I did a dry fit so I could locate the drawbore holes. This thing is going to be damn solid. Took a fair bit of effort to pull it apart afterwards!

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I used the brad point bit to mark the centre of the holes onto the tenon cheek.
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Then very carefully measured back 1/16" towards the shoulder from the point. That's what the holes went. The idea is that once assembled, a timber pin (dowel) is inserted. Since the holes are slightly offset, the pin pulls the tenon deep into the mortise holding it there forever.

A few more holes in the top two rails to take a massive screw to hold the base into the top, a rabbet to hold the bottom shelf, and most of the base is done. Phew!
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With all the legs and rails done, my attention now goes to the front left leg and the leg vise. This is going to be tricky. Some tapped screw holes, careful alignment, lots of drilling, wheels, and bits and pieces. It's gonna be a challenge.

Cheers,
Af.

So, I had to remake the long rails. My legs are slightly narrower than what calls for on the plans, so the two legs don't reach their proper spots under the bench - one should be flush with the shoulder vise, the other should sit between two specific dog holes. Was no big trouble though because the shorter rails have been recycled for other bench parts now.

I'm waiting for my bandsaw to arrive (due tomorrow) so I've been doing a lot of the other bits and pieces. Ledgers for the shelf, glue up of stock for the leg vise and sliding dead man, and the parallel guide.

Stock for the sliding deadman
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Parallel guide - goes in the bottom of the leg vise. A little tearout here and there, but should come up good once I sand and clean it all up.
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Rails, legs, and other bits and pieces.
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Once my bandsaw arrives, I'll be resawing my leg vise stock to the right thickness and start shaping it. Then there's a fair bit of work to get that fitted to the leg properly.

Cheers,
Af.

A big day of firsts today. First time using my new bandsaw, first time tapping a threaded screw hole, first time drawboring.

Cut the profile for the leg vise chop. When I cut the first curve on the bandsaw I felt the blade bind a bit. The second time I made a few relief cuts and it seemed to go much easier. I cleaned it up with a rasp and some sandpaper afterwards.

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I accidentally cut a mortise into the back of the leg instead of the vise chop. Once I got the mortise on the right piece I pinned the parallel guide to the vise chop. It was pretty easy to do. Just chamfer the end of the dowel and hammer it into place.

Here's the problem though ... I found it impossible to get a 3/8" brad point bit locally so used a 10mm one instead. Then I couldn't find 10mm dowel stock, but could find 3/8" (9.5mm!) Go figure! I ended up using the 9.5mm and it seemed to fit quite nicely so I'm all happy with that.

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Then come some threading. The vise hardware uses screws with threaded holes. This way you can easily remove the parts, adjust them, and then tighten it all down again. All without ruining the timber. There are three parts which need this:

• the front flange,
• the rear nut - which is recessed into the back of the leg, and
• the acetal bushing to be recessed into the front of the leg (in-between the leg and the chop).

I haven't done the acetal bushing yet, will get onto that tomorrow. Oh, and then there are the wheels which hold the parallel guide in place.

I did a few practice runs, but once you get a feel for it, it's pretty easy. I opted to do it by hand. First drill the appropriate width hole, and then slowly screw in the thread cutter. Once it bottoms out, you reverse the direction and slowly take it out of the hole. Felt quite proud that I managed to do this without too much trouble.

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Here's the partially assembled leg vise ...
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Cheers,
Af.

Looks great Af.

Nice work.