Workbench Build

LaneC · September 25, 2015, 12:27:05 AM

They may be thick enough for tomato stakes. If not put a little glue between 2 of them and they then will be.

jueston · September 25, 2015, 02:56:01 PM

i had that exact table saw and had trouble with the fence too, i made due with it for 2 years i think then i upgraded to a sawstop contractor saw(not the jobsite one). its a lot bigger and not mobile, but it is a good solid saw, and it gives me peace of mind, because i love my fingers just the way they are....

i still have that table saw in my garage, i had intended on giving it away when i upgraded, but i actually feel bad giving to someone else when i know the problems with the fence will make it hard for them to get good results, so its just been sitting there since i upgraded...

lowpolyjoe · September 25, 2015, 03:06:01 PM

Lane - good plan, maybe i'll glue a few together and see how stable they are. Don't think they could do the job as singletons.

Jueston - My goal is to get a SawStop as soon as I upgraded electrical outlets in my garage (and some extra money ;). Funny, I had a similar thought about getting rid of the Crasftsman. How could I advertise it for sale: "awful saw for sale"? Then I was thinking about giving it to a friend of mine, but was just thinking about the headaches it might cause him.

jueston · September 25, 2015, 03:14:09 PM

exactly.... it was my brother in law who i was going to give it to... but then i know every time i see him he will be complaining about how he can't get a decent cut out of his free saw and its all my fault... :D

lowpolyjoe · September 27, 2015, 09:53:41 PM

I followed Paul Seller's suggestion and hand-planed the 2x dimensional lumber to remove imperfections to improve the glue-up surface. There are plenty of blights on these boards. I tried to pick the best ones of the lot at HD, but they were all pretty bad.

Before

After

I stopped short of going deep enough to completely remove the mess on this board (and others). In some cases I felt I was doing more harm than good as I was getting some tear-out. I sanded the end of my chip breaker for tighter contact and then adjusted it very close to the blade edge and than helped a good deal. Still not perfect though.

Today I glued up my first few boards. I have a plan to glue up the benchtop in several stages.

One thing I was not careful about was taking consistent material across the width of the boards during my cleanup passes with the plane. In several places, I took a bunch of shavings off the edge of a board and it was enough to give it a bit of a curve or chamfer in that spot. Result was that these locations produced large gaps in the glueup, regardless of how tight I made the clamps. The center of the board was in solid contact, but the edge was a bit thinner and couldn''t close up. Very frustrating. I know now to be very careful. I may give up on the planning altogether going forward. It's a ton of work and may be causing more problems than it's fixing.

LaneC · September 27, 2015, 11:43:48 PM

Don't give up now. You are doing fine. It may not be perfect, but you will learn a ton and you will end up with a useable bench. If it is tearing out, have you tried it from the opposite direction? If not try that. Also like someone on here informed me one time, try to keep all the grains in 1 direction. Hope it helps and carry on. You will do fine.

lowpolyjoe · October 03, 2015, 11:55:59 PM

Yeah - I'm learning a lot and getting good practice with some hand tools. I have tried planing in both directions to determine which produces less tear out, thanks for the tip. I think my handplane setup skills still need some work even though I've spent quite a bit of time trying to get the iron sharp and sole flat. I recently read that the frog-adjustment screws are there to allow you to move the cutting iron closer to the front of the mouth, which could help my problem. I haven't looked into that yet - not sure if the mouth my plane is too wide. I didn't think to align the grains of the boards. Next time

Today I glued up the second segment of the benchtop (same as the one previously pictured). Then I started work on a center planing stop board. I've seen this feature on a few benches and think it's an excellent idea. I didn't research how you're supposed to build one, I just sorta thought about how it could work and started at it. It will consist of 2 boards, one that slides into the other and is hidden most of the time, but can be popped up and rest on ledges to allow it to be used as a plane stop. I'm a little worried about the glue-up process when I try to sandwich this between the other pieces of the benchtop because only the bottom piece will be glued in place. If it doesn't look like it's going to glue up square, there's a chance i'll ditch the idea. But I'm hoping I can pull it off

Marked up 2 boards

Started sawing an rough-chopping. Gonna take a lot of cleanup.

Got my first serious use out of my home-made mallet

lowpolyjoe · October 11, 2015, 07:53:57 AM

I thought I had a brilliant design for my plane stop board that would allow me to set it at several different heights by sliding different tenons into different mortises.... but after a few screw ups I decided its operation would be simplified. Now it should sit flush with the top and then I can flip it over and it will stick up a bit. I may make a replacement board at some point and try to get my original design working, but it was taking too much time

This will get glued down the center of the table top

Crazy (and somewhat disturbing) was all this mold that appeared the day after I glued on this board :(. I wiped up the glue squeeze-out with a wet rag and left the wood pretty wet, but didn't expect this to result.

lowpolyjoe · October 11, 2015, 08:04:28 AM

Starting on the lazy man's joinery. Instead of cutting mortises for the legs, I just leave a gap in the 2x6 board in this location. This is not an original idea, I've seen several people on the web do it.

Since things tend to slide around during glue-up, I predrilled for some alignment screws during dry fit. I then used them to help keep things in place for the glue-up and removed them afterwards. Don't want any metal in the benchtop since i'll be drilling for hold-fast holes eventually.

The squared up 2x10's came out to near 8 5/8" wide. I made the gap about 8 1/2" and planed 36" lengths of 2x10s to fit. These are the first layer of a 3 layer lamination that will make up the legs. I debated how complex I should make the joint and went with the easiest possible configuration. I expect it will be weaker than some alternatives, but I really want to make some progress on this bench

WDH · October 11, 2015, 08:21:03 PM

That joint will work just fine. You are making good progress.

jamesamd · October 11, 2015, 09:31:39 PM

It will all work out in the end , Don't fret ,push forward.

Jim

lowpolyjoe · October 12, 2015, 07:50:16 AM

Preliminary flattening of half of the benchtop. My lamination glue-up was pretty ugly and before I worked any more on the joinery for the legs I wanted it flattened on the bottom . Also made it square to the face that will attach to the other half of the benchtop - well, tried to.

And finally, the outer layer of the lamination

This is the profile of the leg joint

The more I work on this project, the more I despair about the quality of this lumber. So many knots, machining blemishes, cupping, bowing, warping, etc...

WDH · October 12, 2015, 09:41:03 PM

The store bought stuff can be a real pain to work with unless you are slapping up a frame. Even then, it is a pain to work with.

beenthere · October 12, 2015, 10:43:19 PM

I find the best thing to do with store bought is to right-away get it on stickers to air dry evenly on all sides. Then as it dries, the bad actors show up and can be culled out (I usually buy extra and take back those bad actors).

hackberry jake · October 13, 2015, 02:28:21 AM

I have some flat sawn sycamore I have been thinking about building a bench with. If turned on edge and glued up into a table top... It would be quarter sawn sycamore!

WDH · October 13, 2015, 07:49:29 AM

Flatsawn sycamore causes nightmares :D.

lowpolyjoe · October 18, 2015, 08:36:58 AM

Important lesson. Take care when construction the lamination. During glue up I kept thinking, "i'll just flatten it afterwards". Well... the amount of time I spent planing this has been crazy.

A prime example of how bad the lumber was. I didn't realize how bad the cupping was in this piece until I had glue applied. I cranked down a ton of clamps and actually got the surfaces to mate almost flush. When I removed the clamps I heard a funny noise. I guess the glue didn't hold all the way to the far side and it looks like the internal stresses pulled up the edge and cracked the board. I've got some epoxy on order. I'm gonna have a lot of gaps to fill :(

lowpolyjoe · October 18, 2015, 08:46:23 AM

Began work on square dogs as part of one of the lamination layers. From what i've read, and the little bit of experience I have, it seems that having dogs close to the table edge is beneficial. These will be 1 layer of lamination from the edge (~1.5"). I'm also angling them slightly, which I think I've seen before and seem like a good plan to combat the inevitable deflection under clamping force. If these don't work as well as I hope, I can always just drill for round dogs too.

Markup

Cut and arrange the static pieces of the lamination layer

Cut the dogs

Cut the stop ledge into the dogs

Complete the cuts with handsaw

Then cleanup with chisel

I'd call them 7's, but I faced them the wrong way for their portrait :D

lowpolyjoe · October 18, 2015, 08:51:23 AM

Cutting the ledge into the static lamination pieces

Alignment was so-so. Somehow the angle of the cuts didn't line up precisely, which I found odd since I don't think I changed the blade angle between cuts.

Alignment of all the pieces, including registration screws for the static pieces. This process took a lot longer than I expected

And finally the glue-up

LaneC · October 18, 2015, 09:50:31 AM

You are definitely paying your dues on this build :D I am sure you are learning a lot from the University of Experience ;D. You will love it when you are done, if you ever get done with it. By that I mean after you start using it, you will probably add little things here or there that make it suitable to you. Great job by the way and thanks for sharing the build.

beenthere · October 18, 2015, 10:45:11 AM

Quote from: lowpolyjoe on October 18, 2015, 08:36:58 AM
Important lesson. Take care when construction the lamination. During glue up I kept thinking, "i'll just flatten it afterwards". Well... the amount of time I spent planing this has been crazy.

A prime example of how bad the lumber was. I didn't realize how bad the cupping was in this piece until I had glue applied. I cranked down a ton of clamps and actually got the surfaces to mate almost flush. When I removed the clamps I heard a funny noise. I guess the glue didn't hold all the way to the far side and it looks like the internal stresses pulled up the edge and cracked the board. I've got some epoxy on order. I'm gonna have a lot of gaps to fill :(

You are doing very well, albeit a lot of extra work, making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The lumber you are working with is fast growth (wide rings as shown) and at or near the pith center of the log. That limits your chances of success when laminating and expecting glue and lots of clamping to solve the wood destined to move a lot when it dries.

In the future, you will know to select wood with better quality for laminating and then have less frustration. But am sure your bench will be a joy to use.

lowpolyjoe · October 20, 2015, 11:10:14 AM

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I am definitely growing to appreciate that good lumber must be worth the extra cost

. I have worked primarily with MDF and veneer in the past since speaker cabinets was my main hobby - solid wood is a completely different experience with unique challenges.

Can anyone comment on whether Epoxy can be planed? I'm still waiting for my order to arrive (West System 105/205 epoxy) but when it does, I was considering filling all the gaps in my lamination as soon as I can (ie before I complete flattening, etc...). I'd like to reduce further wood movement in some of these giant gaps. But I'm worried that the epoxy won't plane well or will cause me other headaches later.

beenthere · October 20, 2015, 01:35:10 PM

Can be planed, but may be hard on the knives.

Also, don't think that epoxy is going to stop further wood movement... if I understand your comment about expectations.

lowpolyjoe · October 20, 2015, 03:43:39 PM

I was hoping the epoxy would reduce further wood movement. No, eh? :-\ :'(

mesquite buckeye · October 20, 2015, 04:06:55 PM

It will help for as long as it holds. As long as it ends up flat when you finish it, I don't think a crack or two will be a serious issue. Filled with epoxy less crud will get stuck in the cracks. You will get there. ;D