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My obligatory workbench build thread
Apparently we are contractually obligated to post a thread here when we build a workbench. It's in the fine print somewhere :D.
I've been the past year and a half without a workbench since I started re-doing the interior of the garage. The old bench was made from angle iron and old doors and was cemented into a moving slab and bolted on to a shifting wall and was about as far from a flat, useable surface as it is possible to get. So I pulled it out and turned it into shelves, which are much more useful (and full).
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Anyway, after over a year of using the top of the table saw and a piece of plywood on sawhorses, I started building the bench in January. I had meant to start a lot earlier (I had got the vice hardware in Christmas 2012), but stuff and available time had gotten in the way. After a year of thinking and planning and some serious thinking about what sort of things I was likely to build, I decided on the following features I wanted/needed:
- made of either cheap recycled timber, or construction pine. In the end I went for construction pine, not only because it was about $50 cheaper, but I am making the bench with mostly hand-tools. I don't have a jointer or thicknesser, so it is all being done with handplanes. Also, I like the idea of the bench being made of more forgiving wood that gets dinged, rather than the piece I'm working on.
- A thick (80-100mm) top.
- legs flush with the front of the bench and the stretchers as well
- an l-shaped end vise
- a leg vise
- I was agnostic about whether to go for a split-top or a solid top, but decided on a solid top as I saw a split top adding an extra layer of complexity and cost (for the filler wood to make the saw/chisel till/planing stop)
- make it left-handed. This was actually really hard for me to picture as I had seen thousands of images of RHS benches, but only a handful of LHS ones. I'm ok now, but at the start I had to keep double-checking I had everything in the correct orientation.
- needs to be able to hold wood up to 2m long. I'm sort of hoping it can do that. I made it with a 1.9m top, but with the L-vise extended I'll be theoretically able to hold up to 2.4 m between dogs. (we'll see. I haven't built the vise yet)
- round dog holes. I'm planning on using holdfasts as well and using the dog holes for things other than just pinching boards, so round is more versatile (and a lot easier to make or add later)
- about 90 cm high. I've read Chris Schwartz, I've read Paul Sellers, I've read pretty much every opinion there is on bench height, and in the end I chose a height I've used before for planing, that feels good and doesn't hurt my back when not planing. If I want to have a lower bench, I'll stand on something.
My main sources of inspiration (apart from looking at all the other builds on this forum) came from Chris Schwartz's The Workbench Design Book, Jord's Woodshop Roubo Build series of videos (I also bought his sketchup plans for the princely sum of $5 - They particularly helped crystallize how to put together the base) and the 100th issue of Australian Woodsmith which had a bench build that had a lot of the features I wanted (but I'm doing the l-vise totally differently - more like the tail vise by Mr. Carter on youtube.).
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we've reached base station!
I had a couple of hours this morning and another this afternoon in the shed with my no.2 helper, who takes great delight in hitting things with hammers and gluing stuff together. Today was right up her alley.
I started by cutting the drawbore pegs from some tassie oak dowels. I had bought the dowels from another forum member a few years ago, and only have another 80 or so to use.
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After trimming them down, it was time to join it all together! I've never drawbored anything before (drawn yes, bored yes, drawbored no), so I wasn't sure how well it would work. Plenty of glue and a firm, nerveless grip on the mallet saw tenon seated home and the first peg in with ease. It was a bit weird putting the peg in straight, seeing it anle as it entered into the offset tenon whole, then a couple of whacks later straightening up again, but it worked, and worked well. The results can be seen below, with perfect right angles in both planes, and a rock-solid join.
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Funnily enough, the square is also one I bought from the forums, part of a set of laser-cut squares and angles that have come in very handy over the last few years.
Then I remembered I needed to put battens on for the shelf to attach to, which would be much easier to do if the base wasn't joined together. So I ripped a bit of 90x45 offcut on the bandsaw into some 25x25 battens, planed them flat on two faces (below) and glue and nailed them to the backs of the stretchers.
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30 seconds a side - easy peasy. Then, it was back to pegging and gluing the base together. I did the two long sides first, then put the side stretchers in. Almost there...
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And with a ease on three of the stretchers and a little "gentle" persuasion on the fourth, it was all done! Hurrah! It's all square, all sides equal and level and as solid as the proverbial.
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Next week, time and the wife permitting, It'll be time to add the top to it.
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So I went away for a few day's relaxation...
And did work in my parent's shed instead. However, their shed is about 5 times the size of mine. Their lower platform had a broken joist (or bearer? I'm never sure which is which) as well as 40+ years of accumulated junk and miscellania.
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There were also several stacks of wood that dad has collected over the years which have taken over one of the car spaces, that needed moving on to the platform.
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The first day was a full 8 hours of moving, chucking, moving to the bonfire, sorting and shifting to get to this stage:
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That meant the next day we could repair the joist. Which we did. It was easier than we anticipated and only took a couple of hours. Which left us time to clean out the storage cupboard at the back of the platform (harder than fixing the platform).
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The third day was moving everything we were keeping back on to the platform and shifting the wood on to the platform. There's some lovely woods there too, mostly local species such as myrtle beech and blackwood, but also miscellaneous planted species such as apple, almond, melaleuca, several allocasuarina species and some others dad has located over the years like lancewood. And now, the car fits and there's space on the platform for the first time in decades. Mum was very happy :).
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So, I came back home for a rest from my rest. On Tuesday I only had less than an hour to work on the bench, and found that my #2 helper was there ahead of me, clamping up some wood, ready to make something herself.
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She wanted to make saw cuts. While she was doing that vital work, I set up the base over the inverted base and marked out and started chopping mortises to join the two together.
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And that was it for the day. I only got 2 and a bit done, so sleep that night was filled with dreams of finishing the mortises and attaching the top (I'm serious; every night before going out to work in the shed, my dreams were basically planning how to go about doing the job. It's made it a lot easier the next day).
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MA 15+ no longer, the bench has put its top on.
Thank you to everyone who has read, liked or commented on this build so far. I'm glad others are enjoying it too (although not as much as me; I can tell you now, I'm real enjoying the building of this bench. I even did a little dance yesterday at one point around it).
Yesterday was a big day of work on the bench. The kids were playing around in the back yard all day, we had nowhere to be, and lots got done. I firstly finished the mortises in the underside of the top pieces, which only took about half an hour. Then, it was time to put the top on the bench.
Except it wasn't. It had come to me in a dream the night before that I should put the shelf in before I put the top on, because that would be a lot easier all round. I made the shelf from some 12mm ply I had lying around, and screwed it into place only, in case I want to replace it with something a bit more high class later down the track. My #2 helper made herself indispensable by handing me the screws.
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Then she and #1 helper tested the shelf for strength by using it as a trampoline, then a car, then a boat.
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So finally, the moment of truth - would the top fit? First, I put the back piece on. A little push here, a little thump there, and presto! - one snugly fitting (half) top.
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Then, the front piece. A little shaving off one of the tenons, a little nudge here and the whole top went together as though it were destined to be.
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Now, some people have shed-dogs, others have shed-cats that keep them company while they work. Me, I have shed-chooks who delight in turning over the shavings in search of food, and have no fear of the noise or movement.
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After lunch, and after my little dance of joy I set about flattening the top. Not too flat, because there's still a bit of other stuff to do (vises to add, cleats to fasten, screws to lag). #2 helper helped out some more and took some photos of me planing down the top. Not bad for a four year old.
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And that was it for the day.