Thread: The Outdoor Workbench

Franz Kafka and I probably would have been mates.

Originally Posted by Sawdust Maker

There was movement at the station ...

.
The Banjo was born 100 years ago about this time

I'm glad to see his influence still lingers!!!

Originally Posted by ch!ppy

i haven't read the whole thread or at least not that i remember.

Wouldn't recommend it ... blood pressure and all that ...

can i ask. what is meant by the phrase "a Mark 1 saw draw"?

Hey Chippy, good to hear from you. The above phrase represents a non-existent product at this point in time.
I've had saws sitting "horizontal but upright" in big cardboard boxes inside for a good long time.
It seems a space-efficient arrangement ... but boxes, especially heavy, stacked, cardboard boxes ... not really ideal longterm.

I've had some saws lying on their sides in a little set of (bedroom-type) drawers.
Like the 'drawer-action" ... hate the lying on top of each other.

So ... the plan is for a high set of drawers ... kinda like map-cabinet in a way, but with deep-enough drawers for handsaws.

I found this I picked up off the road in the past either for the wood or ideas ... looks about right for the drawers I'm thinking of, except for height.

Cheers,
Paul

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

damned

... may be be the most accurate description yet.

In my own defense ... that gate which was delivered to my mother's house for her to primer before I hung it in place ... is still waiting for the paint.

It's genetic.

But ... still straight too. So that's something.

I started a thread for this desperate venture ... here ... https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...07#post1900207

Cheers,
Paul

A couple of things. One ... always wanted a lathe ... but these two $10 ones weren't anticipated before they presented themselves as an opportunity!

Two ... I think the rods through the bench will prove to be a good idea for it's longevity. They haven't been clamping anything up to now, and I was pretty dumb in drilling the holes without a template guide - so an xray might be risible ... but do I think they will serve a real purpose over time.

Paul

Well ... hmmm ... I guess I have some things to add here

One thing is that I am a big one for anniversaries. At least ... as much as the next guy. Unless the next guy remembers or enjoys them, in which case we'd have to keep on down the line until we found one that also disguises himself as eg a large teapot until the danger is past ... THEN I'd be as much a one for anniversaries as the next guy.

facebook, for anyone in the know, *is* reasonably big on reminders ... and on the 25th December I was presented with a pic of a certain partially completed workbench top ... dated 25/12/2013.



Looks exactly the same now.

I was looking for photos of the two $10 lathes that came my way, thanks to Homesy, ... mentioned in dispatches above ...
I'm sure I had planned to pop them in there.

I can't see them now, atm, so that might explain the absence. :/

In any case, one was mounted on a jarrah sleeper, mounted on a solid, metal frame.
At a point in the recent past, the sleeper was taken off the frame and they were moved apart ... probably when rain started showing up in winter.

This worked to my advantage on xmas eve.

We don't really use a table - except as an anti-gravity device for the daily flotsam. We have a cheapish, 1m round, non-antique pine thing that was my wife's grandmother's.
When my significant other mentioned the phrase "card table" in conjunction with the incidence of family members on the 25th, I suggested we could go with a large sheet of plywood and quickly make some basic folding trestles like I recall from my earlier years. This was rejected, but I had another idea.

I have already posted about a well-used workbench that came from the Midland Railway Workshops.
The Outdoor Workbench


This was the original bench ...







and it had had a single plywood piece fixed on top of the Holy Surface at some stage.

The lathe stand was sitting "right there" ... and the plywood when dragged inside fit with the size requirements from Central Dogma ...
so I was given the all-clear to attach the one to the other, inside the house.

I measured the stand at 26" ... and when we plonked the plywood on top, it was obviously still pretty low.
I figured we needed +4". So I spent a couple hours planing a treated-pine board/plank of 6"x4", and handsawing off 4 feet (blocks) to lift the table.

In the meantime, I decided the plywood alone was too thin and flexible, so I put the Oregon Pine 3-board section on the stand and the plywood on that. Checking for height now ... it was of course perfectly fine ... and I had wasted a couple hours hand-working on feet nobody needed.
Yay.

-_-



So ... end result ... only required 4 lag screws and about 12 nice 'bugle-head batten screws' ... total cost about $20 ...

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Hmm, careful, Paul. Delivering a required product on-time & on-budget like that could set a very dangerous precedent. Good thing the boss had a suitably-sized table cloth, obviously, so no need to rely on your getting it painted in time.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Hmm, careful, Paul. Delivering a required product on-time & on-budget like that could set a very dangerous precedent. Good thing the boss had a suitably-sized table cloth, obviously, so no need to rely on your getting it painted in time.....
Cheers,

Started and finished in the same day is beyond bizarre for this little wood-chuck
Although, given the dead basic nature of what it ended up being ... it still took me a ridiculous amount of time.

I think it's going to sit there for a while now ... although, if I voice the words "indoor workbench" within earshot of ... someone who shall remain nameless ... they might start finding pieces of me scattered throughout the wider metropolitan area.

It will be a good data-gathering exercise on height, width, length for a future replacement.

There were two table cloths, actually ... although the blue covered 90% of it. I can sincerely guarantee that no painting was considered, offered, or contemplated by myself, nor requested, implied or demanded by The Boss.
If there wasn't a table cloth, the plywood had one quite nice side to it - which was why I had kept it in one piece up 'til now.
I would be more than happy with the Plywood-Industrio-Rustic look if necessary ... it's been tested against gravity.

What I forgot to say - although it's possible I mentioned it in the past in this thread - was that I had previously considered the Oregon top for our indoor table ... plus some of the original jarrah all the way around to frame it out to a better width. My looooong-term aim is a jarrah, medieval-style, refectory table but I had thought that having a go at a simpler pine job would be
a) good practice,
b) lighter to move around, if necessary, and
c) full of character from it's previous life.

The character part was judged "No. Nyet. Uh-uh. It's ugly." ... so that plan did not proceed further.

Cheers,
Paul

PS ... the outdoor workbench, such as it is ... with a simple, surmounted "face vice" ... did serve in the (ultimately futile ) production of the four elevator blocks from a somewhat twisty block of (I think) treated pine. (although the shavings were unusual ... the wood seemed harder and stringier than domestic pine.)

Yep. As they say in the classics ""That'll do""!!

I see you failed to keep the wolf from the door.

I knew I had a !#%$&! "before" photo around somewhere. It was right under my nose. (previous page)