Finally have gotten around to making a proper work bench. Had a nice bit of 16/4 poplar left over from a job, after much cutting glueing and research this is what I am up to. I opted out on the bolts for the legs for some stout joinery. I am going to wedge the tenons and draw bore them as well, now for some end stretchers. Will post more as i progress.
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go,
those narrowly spaced double tenons are very interesting, not to mention the mortises they're intended to go into. not sure i have ever seen them so spaced. i like them. you cut 'em by hand-right?
eef
Eef, By hand of course... I used my hands to push the wood into the bandsaw then then chisels an hand planes. I wanted more more glue surface area without compromising the timber on both sides of the tenon, the space between them is 3/16.
Is the split tenon an Asian inspired style of craftsmanship.
Looks like this bench will also be a piece of furniture -
Thanks for posting - looking forward to the assembly -
SA
Good ? , might be I don't
Good ? , might be I don't know. the most crucial cut is the 3/16 in the center of the tenons , much time was spent to get these as tight as possible. Just dry fited it one more time to lay out some more parts.
Made some more progress today in between some paying work and the bench. Just dry fitted the stretchers to the end frames, went together very nicely 10 pieces of wood , 24 mortise and tenons. make this thing stout.
Now for some questions. I plan on using a leg vice on the left side where the 7" wide legs are and eventually as funds become available I will add another on the same side on a traveler. on the other end a wagon vice. I like the offerings from Benchcraft.
On their web site they have a PDF file illustrating the layout of these vices, on the leg vice they recommend that the main screw be approx 9 inches from top of table down the leg... one third the distance from the top down to the parallel guide. The parallel guide acts as som sort of adjustable fulcrum (spelling?) I have a double tenon as you can see in pic 10, in the recommended area where the guide would travel through the mortise in the leg . How critical do you think it would be move the guide up above the mortise for the stretcher which woud be approximately the same distance as from the top down to the screw.... basicly 10' from top down for screw and 20" down from top for the guide. I can mortise the hole for the guide through the mortise and tenon for the stretcher if need be. The guide is approx 3/4 x 31/2", the double tenon is 7" long and 4 and 7/8 tall if I reduce the guide size to 3/4" x 3' I would still have an inch of tenon around the area mortised out for the guide .
What I am wrestling with is how much vice strength will I lose, if I go above the tenon? I am thinking it should not be too critical. Thanks
Tom
Tom,
I love those "double
Tom,
I love those "double tenons". I am thinking of taking it a step further and cutting the same thing in to four or eight tenons to get even more gluing strength. If you take it to its illogical limit, you get the paper-thin box joints of Kintaro Yazawa. If you haven't seen those, you should visit his website.
All kidding aside, your work on your bench is first rate. Thanks for sharing the photos.
Mel
kintaro is the master, I have had his link for a while, thanks Mel
Tom
By the way, Mel likes your work or he would not comment on your post!
I see your are in Arlington Texas. I was one of the local Army from Fort Hood... I was very young and I loved Texas.
VERY, very, pretty girl,s and most of the local folks there put up with us.. IF... we acted like normal folks.
I would have stayed in Texas but my new bride had different ideas. I lived off-base at the time with my wife. We rented a very small house in Nonalville Texas from a local rancher/farmer.
She found a baby cat that she loved out in the grass? Out front of the house?.. She let it out one morning and heard a cry from the kitten. I was not there, but she told me, a VERY BIG SNAKE was eating it. She went back to Chicago the next week..
True story..
Those tuning-fork tenons should give the bench a nice ring when you whack it with a mallet. ;-)
Seriously, I understand your objective of having more glue surface. I'll look forward to seeing your progress.
Work bench
Some more progress, actualy quite a bit. Base is glued up , leg vises are in place, ect... I originaly was going to go with the Bench craft set up on the leg vices and then I got to thinking, take a look .This is my first prototype as I have some Ideas of which I think might work out even sweeter for the leg vises, I have yet to implement them. I must say this solution is cheap and simple. I purchased the standard bench screw from Woodcraft and hated how it bind-ed so this is what I came up with . I can now turn the screw easily with one finger and it dose not bind up upon release. the 3/4 " steel guide pin keeps the vise from having to be closed all the way when sliding it from side to side as the parallel guide is down below now. For those of you that wonder if the guide is too close to the screw on these vises, I can assure you the clamping pressure is much more than just adequate, 1/4 turn past contact and your good to go. This is a easy add on for those of you with these older bench screws.
The horizontal placement of the parallel guide came about due to the fact that my bottom stretcher has been placed higher than normal as I want to build a cabinet for my hand tools on that bottom shelf of which I will leave a slot in the back of the cabinet for the screw, and now it is out of the way. I had to add a piece of angle iron below the slot for the guide to reinforce the slot. The metal plates where inlaid on the areas above and below the slot in order to prevent the guide pin from marring up the faces of the stretcher as it is poplar.
This has been a fun project and is my first workbench. So far I am into it for around a hundred bucks. I had the lumber from other projects. I will have to purchase the tail vise as well as the material for the top.
Lookin' Good
It's really starting to take shape nicely. I like the look of the dark wedges in the tenons.
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