Thread: Workbench questions?

Hi Guys,

I'm in the process of building a workbench (Split top styled), and I am at the stage of getting ready to cut the mortises.

With the tops, I will be locating them as is common, with small tenons atop each leg. As well as a single lag bolt up through the short stretchers in an elongated hole. And a few along the long stretchers in precisely sized holes. I don't mind if the gap between the tops changes, however I would like the top to remain a similar distance from the front of the leg (shown on the right side of A and B in the diagram below), to accommodate the vice chops and hardware.

Below is a diagram showing the legs and stretchers. A) Representing an even recess for the long and short stretchers. B) Representing a shallow recess on the short stretcher, and a centred stretcher on the long side. The red dot is s howing the lag bolt location on the long stretcher in relation to the tenon on the leg. And the arrows are showing the direction of contraction/expansion across the lamination's.

Would I be able to use a tight fitting tenon in either or these scenarios, and would option B give me less worries due to having the tenon and leg in line with each other?


bench..jpg

Cheers, Ollie