Thread: Another workbench WIP

DTs finished today. I'll take some pics in the A.M.. Not my best job, by any stretch of the imagination, but serviceable. Now it's time to start on the undercarriage.

Definitely do the end caps first, you get better access to the work if you can move it around. Take your time with the dovetails, the bigger they are the more fun they are!

Endcaps are now dovetailed in.

My half-blind dovetails are not things of beauty (but hey it's a workbench). Here are some pictures of the benchtop in its current format.

Attachment 173138 Attachment 173139


BTW the endcaps are too wide and will need to be planed down to the bench level (next task and then we will start of morticing the benchtop for the legs)

It looks good and stout.

Originally Posted by Woodwould

It looks good and stout.

What you mean is bl()()dy heavy

The weight is definitely a disincentive to work which requires manhandling the top - I need to feel strong to do that!! At least the bench won't walk across the shed when I am planing!

Little bit of planing and the top is done.

Long time no post

I held off trying to cut the mortices in the benchtop until the 3/4" upcut router bit arrived from Lee Valley - many thanks to Nick for letting my bit travel in his parcel from LV

The great pity is that I do so much of my woodwork using handtools that my "skills" with the tailed router apprentice are, how do I put this politely, sub-standard at best (or to be frank, complete rubbish). So the cavities I created were somewhat less than straight-sided - you can see some of the squiggliness in the phots below, but the "before" was even worse.

That result led me to hold off working on the mortices at the other end of the bench for a few weeks while I worked out a better strategy. That pause for reflection was very useful and I did a better job of thos mortice starts. I call them starts because even at full extension, the router bit only goes halfway through the bench top! But once I finished extracting as much as I could with the router, I bored through using an Irwin bit in a hand brace and, to try to stop blowout on the bottom, I used a forstrner bit in my brace for the final 1/8". So the mortices at that end just need to be squared off.

I decided to see if I could square up some of the first mortice starts at the first end of the benchtop with the router and that worked OK and then I completed them by boring through in the same way. That just left the horrible gash in the top surface.

My solution was to excavate the mess and inlay a 3/4" thick piece of spotty into the top. That was the task of this weekend - cutting out the inlay mortice required a fair amount of chopping with my mortice chisels and some excavation using the forstner bits, and the bottom of the inlay mortice was smoothed and leveled using a Carter C71 router plane (I like it much more than its tailed cousin of the same ilk

At least that way, so long as my renewed router skills still work, the benchtop end of the mortice will have a better look and the tenon will fit squarely in it (I hope).

The photos show the inlay mortices and the inlaid pieces. I will give them a week to get fully stuck in and then re-acquaint myself with that tailed devil of a router!

After letting the glue set, I took the tailed router apprentice down from the shelf and, using the spiral upcut bit, tried to create the basis for the mortices for the legs.

Not perfect, but a lot better than last time!

Attachment 184294

Now I just have to square up the mortices all the way through, and cut the front dovetail mortices, and we'll be ready to move on to the tenons in the legs.

Well done!

Is the remote control for the dusty, the glue, or both?

Yes


Screwing up in new ways every day

Here's on of the mortices squared up.

Attachment 184348

Now for the front dovetailed mortice for each leg!

All the dovetailed mortices for the legs have been cut and the first leg has had the tenons cut and been fitted.
Attachment 187171

I hope (but do not expect) that the rest of the legs can be tenoned and fitted quite quickly

Then it will be time to do the mortices and tenons for the rails. Is the end in sight?

If you tip your head to the left, the picture actually makes sense.

Yeah - it's crazy - the picture shows rightway up on my screen before I attach it, but goes sideways then.

So Cliff (and others) just lie down to look at the picture