Hi All,
Just returned from my hardwood candy store with a load of 10/4 maple to build the top for my new workbench. Currently I have 4 slabs about 8″ wide and 74″ long rgh. My objective is a stable top of about 60″x 20″x 2’ish…I may include a tool tray..that would add another 5-6 inches to the width.
My initial thought is to get the slabs to 4 square and then cut 2″ strips for the glue-up. The strips would be turned 90 degrees to increase stability?
The base will be a sperate issue, I’m concerned how to attach the base to the top.
I’m thinking about making wooden screws for the vises. It that tricky?…bad idea?
I have not determined final design yet…looking at about three different options…looking for opinions.
Lastly, I want to do more hand work eg. planing, dovetails, etc. Also want top stable enough to withstand gnashing of teeth, swearing, and lots of tears. Thanks for your help. BG
Replies
If the maple is flat now, there is little reason to rip it into thinner boards. My workbench is similar to the one of those in the Workbench Book and uses three 12/4 x 7" boards edge glues. It was flattened once 15 years ago when it was completed and has maintained its flatness since.
Trying to glue many thin strips will be a chore.
Howie,
Hmmm...that is a lot easier. I just looked and the cup is between 1/8-1/4 of an inch....not too bad. Did you use splines, biscuits or anything to align?
I am currently doing the same thing with some 10/4 ash. It was a bear to mill those 8 foot long 10 inch wide boards. I had a buddy help and we used a 8 inch Rockwell jointer and a 14 inch Jet jointer.
If you rip them at all, rip them narrow enough to properly flatten them on your jointer. Otherwise I'd handle them as little as you can as all errors seem to multiply when throwing around such big stuff.I have a litttle hand plane work to do prior to glue up.
I'll probably biscuit them every 6 inches and try to get them flat as possible.it realy isn't easy to do this if you aren't set up for big stuff.
Good luck
Frank
Frank,
Did you leave them 10" wide...mixed widths? Single #20 biscuits every 6-7 inchs? Breadboard ends? Assuming you did some ripping, did you joint first on edge then rip, then plane? ..or did you rip first?
Stanley is my jointer, but my planer is Delta 12 1/2. Between the planer and the hand tools it should work fairly well...however, lots of horsin around bi stock. Of course, I have no workbench to plane on....lol
Edited 9/14/2002 10:43:27 PM ET by BG
BG
Each one was 10 inches wide. I think if you want to do this absolutely correctly, rough joint one edge, rip the board to the width of the jointer and then flatten a face and rejoint an edge perpendicular to that face. Then finish rip an edge parralel to the jointed edge. Re joint that face and then plane both sides. That should give a dead flat board. Then you can glue up, bread board etc.
I am doing this as an accessory bench. I am not in the dead flat bench camp so I just planed and jointed the edges and left them 10 inches wide. There is always heated debate about these things, but to each his own.
Frank,
Thanks, I had no idea there were two camps. In reality, given that it's wood, I would assume 'dead flat' is probably not a constant anyhow. I'm more concerned with finding a level spot on the basement floor.
Do you see a problem gluing together 2 pieces of flat sawn with 3 narrower pieces of quarter sawn? I'm thinking of slicing up one or two boards because of the cupping and have a narrow, wide, narrow, wide, narrow pattern...with the wide pieces flat sawn and the narrow pieces quarter sawn.
Thanks
BG
I think it would certainly look good to alternate the two types of lumber. I am not certaini f it will case problems. I think it probably won't.
Frank
This starts to get complicated but the way my benchtop works is that main part is made up of a 7" wide board, a 1 1/2" wide board that contains dadoed bench dog holes and then another 7" wide board. The lumberyard surface planed the boards for me so they were already of equal thickness and I jointed the edges myself. I used white glue for its longer open time and made alignment cauls from 2x4's that had a threaded rod running through the dog holes. There were five sets of these cauls as I recall. Then the boards were edge clamped every 6" inches or so. My wife, then 12 year old son and I went through probably 6-8 dry fits so we could get everything done before the glue set up.
The front part of the bench is made up of three 1" boards and one 1 1/2" board containing another row of dog holes. I built this as a separate assembly and then edge glued it to the main section of benchtop using a spline to align this sub-assembly to the main top assembly.
I belt sanded and planed the top as flat as I could then came back after a year and used a router to reflatten. It wasn't much out of flatness but now it is dead nuts on and has been since 1989.
Howie,
Am I correct in assuming you have two rows of dog holes, seperated by a seven inch board? How large is you bench..and how big your vises...and do you rent out your wife and son...lol
Overall, the bench is about 72 x 22. The first row of dog holes is about 1" in from the front, the second row is about 11 - 12" in from the front.
I have a Record 52 1/2D on the front and a homemade single end vise on the right end.
If someone could direct me to the instructions for attaching a photo, I cound probably learn how to do that. It's easier to see than to explain.
Howie,
I'd love to see it. Maybe if I use ESP Forrest Girl will come over here and help us out.
I started doing some hand planing of the top before dinner on the edges....need scarier edges, this maple is hard. You metioned a home made vise in addition to you Record. Does the home made have a wood screw? thanks
No, I bought the screw mechanism.
On thing I can never find on this board is the help section. <<<<<<<<<HELP>>>>>>>>>
> .....<<<<<<<<<HELP>>>>>>>>>
Hey Howie ....
Scroll up and down when you're replying to a message and you should see below message panel that contains the message to which you're replying, a button marked "Attach Files". Assuming you have either a digital camera or a scanner to convert a normal photo to digital format, use the "Browse" button that will be part of the next window that pops up to find the digital picture on your confuser's hard drive or wherever. First lesson in all this is to remember where you stored the file! (grin)
Once you've found and selected the image file, hit "Upload" to send the photo to the forum. When it's done you press the "Done" button and complete your reply.
It seems to be the same either in Netscape or MS/IE.
Hope this helps .... I wanna see your bench, too!
Dennis in Bellevue WA
[email protected]
Thanks Dennis, Forest Girl pointed me in that direction also. Now I just need to scan the pictures. Tonight maybe.
I just need to scan the pictures. Tonight maybe.
Lookin' forward to seein' 'em.
Dennis in Bellevue WA
[email protected]
Here is my try at posting pictures. Thanks to those that helped.
The bench is about 90% from one I saw in the Workbench Book. The benchtop and frame is all solid hard maple. I built it in 1988 and have had no problems. There are two rows of bench dog holes--one running down the front about 1" in and a second row in the center. The row near the edge lines up with the end vise and the center row is used for irregular shaped panels. There are homemade dog assemblies so that a large panel can be clamped vertically in the front for accessing the edges of large panels.
The tool box underneath is mostly my own design made from edged birch ply and maple drawer and door fronts. It just sits on the stretchers an adds some weight. However, I would think hard about it if I did it again as it is difficult or impossible to get to when a large panels is being held vertically.
The finish is one coat of Watco followed by a coat of paste wax. I wipe the top down every year or so with mineral spirits and 00 steel wool to remove the gunk. Then a quick scraping with a card scraper and a recoat with an oil/varnish and another coat of wax.
Meant to add that the benchtop is removeable from the frame by loosening two lag bolts and the stretchers remove from the leg assemblies by removing the bolts from the homemade cross dowels.
Certainly nothing wrong with your attachment technique, Howie. Nice bench, too.
Thanks for posting.
Dennis in Bellevue WA
[email protected]
Howie,
That's is very nice and almost exactly what I want...thanks for sharing. I've been searching the free plans out on the web to see how the the end vise is constucted.
You can find what you need in the Workbench Book by Scott Landis published by Taunton Press. Your local library may have it. If not, send me an e-mail and I'll see what I can do.
Howie,
Thanks, i just got back from a business trip, hence the delayed response. I'll check out the library for Scott's book. I don't like buying a book for a single purpose (very cheap)...let's hope they have it. BG
BG,
I built my bench a year and a half ago. I edge glued three 12" wide x 3 1/4" think slabs together. No biscuits. Used polyurethane glue. Flattened it after glue up with a smoothing plane, followed by a belt sander then ROS. My base is motise and tenoned stretchers lagged together, no glue. The top is motised to accept tenons in the top of the legs with no fasteners, just it's own weight. I used round brass dogs and drilled the holes with an auger mounted in a magnetic drill press fastened to a large steel plate. Finished with four coats of poly.
TDF
Tom,
" Finished with four coats of poly."
awRIGHT! You and I are the only ones who finish our benches with varnish. Good man!
Rich
Guys,
I started working on squaring up the stock yesterday for the base and sketching out approximate measurements. The base will be 16/4 poplar and 7x6/4 ash stretchers all M&T. With an overall height of 33-34 inches, the feet will be four inches square by 24, legs four inches square about 25 inches. I'll M&T the top of the legs into a 4"x2" that will have slots for bolts to connect the top. My question is two fold: first, do you think I need stretchers between the front and back legs (distance will be about 13"), second, will the 4" base and the 2'ish top look out of proportion to one another? Is there anything else in that base design that you would incorporate ? Thanks or your help
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