The Bespoke Woodworker

Sorry for the long absence, and welcome to my new blog!  I am in the process of importing my old blog entries from Lumberjocks, at least for this project, so that I can maintain some continuity.

I took a little time away from my aggressive Roubo build schedule, to rest my feet from an attack of plantar fasciitis, and I decided instead of repeat-posting to Lumbjocks, woodnet, and elsewhere, I’d finally bite the bullet and build a personal blog.   If I recall correctly, I left off with a working bench, both vise functioning.  I had just completed the vise and sliding deadman, and crafted a few simple bench dogs.

Now that I’ve rested up, gotten some orthotics, and re-installed the gym mat I use in my shop to ease wear and tear on my feet, I’ve been back at work!    I finished up the 3/4″ bench dog holes in the top.  Let me tell you, boring through 4″ of ash is… no, I can’t bring myself to make the obvious joke here.  During my downtime, I read Chris Schwarz’s article on boring, and finally bit the bullet.  I started the first hole freehand, but quickly realized I don’t have the manual coordination necessary to keep that hole from drifting horribly.  I grabbed a thick 10/4 cutoff, and used a freshly sharpened forstner bit in the drill press to make myself a nice guide block for my drill.   With the assistance of  a nice Colt 3/4″ extra long brad point bit from Woodcraft, I clamped my block in place, and began the process.  Once I got the hole a good 1″+ deep, I unclamped the block and was able to finish the holes with no problems.    I spread the boring process out over a couple of days, so that I didn’t overheat and wreck the bit.

Holdfast tuning was  slightly confusing.  In 4″ ash, they were definitely having some trouble getting and keeping a grip.  I had already lightly abraded the holdfast shanks with 80 grit sandpaper, and that was simply not sufficient.  I’ve heard of people going to far as to file the holdfast, but that seems a silly solution to the wrong problem.  You simply can’t get enough of a cant on the holdfast in material that thick.  I learned this lesson when I built the legs in an earlier post when I was preparing the holdfast holes in the legs.  I slid backwards under the bench and awkwardly counterbored the holes with a 1 1/4″ forstner bit.  I’m sure there are more effective methods, but this did the job, if not perfectly.

While the holes were being drilled, I mortised the second end cap (the non-vise end), which was pretty straightforward.  Copious Drill press activity followed by moderate chisel clean up.  I must be getting better at these large mortises, because it actually fit on the first try.  I was stunned myself, let me tell you.   A few passes with the number 4 and it was touch-smooth to the benchtop.

[end cap photo]

Although the bench will be ‘complete’ as is, I still intend to take on the St Peter’s Cross mechanism, or St. Croix, depending on which author you’re listening to.   When I realized that I would likely need some 12/4 or so stock to complete the leg vise with the cross mechanism I had in mind, I went ahead and completed this leg vise the traditional way, so I had something to work on to create the newer vise.

I will also be putting a final sanding and an easily renewable danish oil finish on the bench just to keep the glue from sticking.

I also decided, since I had significant lumber and offcuts left over, to make the lower shiplapped shelf.  I installed some support brackets with glue, backed up by screws.  I pulled all of the appropriate length spares and crosscut to size.

Once crosscut, I put an approximate .5″ shiplap on both sides.  As luck would have it, and luck almost never does in my shop, I pulled exactly enough lumber, and the shelf fit wonderfully.

Here is the bench, completed sans finishing.

And with the first coat of Danish Oil on the top.

Phew!

I think before I tackle any more bench upgrades, like the Leg Vise cross, I will be doing some shop cleanup and re-arranging, and finishing up a drill press table so that I can complete a few metalworking tasks.  Perhaps I’ll blog those so people can see that portion of my projects as well!

After much effort, and many tantalizaing blog posts, I finally got the bench assembled.  I laid out the base, levelled it off (very little shimming was needed, just one leg about 1/32), and moved the top over to it from its temporary home on top of my cabinet saw.

I put in the drawbore pins, unglued, to make it easier to move it out of my crazy basement in the future.  Then, I hauled out all of the supporting accessories, and went to work on the finishing.

I fit the leg vise, made the sliding deadman, and fine tuned everything.

Yours truly, posing with a NEARLY completed project.  I still need to finish the other end cap, finish up the sliding deadman, and finish out the holdfast holes (you can see them pre-bored out to 3/8s, I’m going to plunge them out with a router bit and a jig to ensure I get them perfectly perpendicular to the top.

I also started out on the rails that will support the bottom shelf under the bench. I intend to store all my planes and saws down there.  The goal is to have all of my hand tools and hand tool accessories/jigs within a few footsteps of my workbench.

I had some indirect light in these photos, so they ended up overexposed.  I’ll fiddle with the lighting and get some better pictures in the future.

I also have some high res photos in my gallery, (including a couple that I didn’t bother posting) if anybody mid-build is interested.

So [Friday] was moving day, and I had to re-arrange a bunch of things in the shop to make room for a much longer bench.  My old bench (soon to be milling machine table) was 56″ long, and my new one is a full 8 footer, give or take a few.

Just a few last things on the bench.  Had to re-fit and try out the tail vise.  Worked great, even upside down!

Then I moved my old bench to the back corner.

… and hoisted up the milling machine.  Oy, that was a production.  You can see 3 separate moving straps, then I lowered it down to the legs of my 2ton engine hoist while I rolled it around.

I had to roll a LOT of stuff around to make room to swing that engine hoist around.  The base of the new bench, and nearly anything not nailed down was moved out of the shop.

After much effort, the machine made it to it’s new home!

Then, we moved on to…. ASSEMBLY!

Here’s how I managed to get this far, without a major setback (and I think I can fix the dog hole alignment issue without too much pain.)

My Procedure List

I try to break it down into manageable steps, then order them to make sure they’re done in the right order.

Would love comments AND Critiques!

I’m nervous about trying to keep my hand drill perpendicular, so I made a little jig to drill the holes.  Worked out quite well.  Just put some thick scrap in the drill press and drilled out the holes, then clamped it to the top.

The dry fit was tricky.  I did the dry fit, but it was going in tight.  I also noticed I had two nice long wedges from the tombstone shape of the leg vice.  They made excellent tools for forcing getting those tenons out of the too-tight mortises.

Another round of trimming, and I’ve got a nice tight dry fit!

And here is what it’ll look like when I finally get it flipped over!

Those legs ended up perfectly flush.  I can’t even register a chisel between the top and the leg.

Dry fitting done, the long wedges helped me disassemble.

And with the tenons marked, I drilled out the drawbore holes.

Now I’ve only got 2 small things left.  I have to route out the mortise for the sliding deadman, and install the end caps and vise hardware.

This is the true test of the legs.  To make sure they’re really going be as sturdy as I need them to be.

I purchased a top of the line manual drawbore dowel manufactory.

Glued up my tenons and mortises, and pounded in my first set of pins.

A perfect 90 degrees!

A second one, and I’ve got 2 perfectly coplanar legs.

While the glue dried (enough to flush cut the dowels anyway), I switched to the leg vice, which I shaped and planed it smooth.

Some careful heaving later, I had the base flipped, and I marked out the mortises from the tenons.  This part can be tricky, if you didn’t pay too much attention, (like me) to where your dog holes were going.

Since the tenons were the same size, I made a template so I could route myself some perfectly true sides for most of the mortises.

I’ll be away tomorrow, so I’ll probably have to hold off on preparing the drawboring holes and the dry fit for this coming week.   So very close!

Really starts to look like a bench tonight.

I did the dry fit on the long stretchers

Then I drilled out the drawboring holes.

Did my initial marking out.

I also twisted a pencil in the dot, to make sure I could see it well later.

I caught one shoulder not as tight as it should be!  Time to pare a little bit.

And a final full dry fit to check everything is square.  Since I had the top flipped over, I lined it up to see what i might look like.  Upside down anyway.

Whoo hoo!

Managed to squeeze out some time after work the last few nights to get the mortises for the short stretchers out of the way.

I measured up my tenons, and trimmed them very square.  My theory on M&T joinery is the only time you’re allowed to touch your tenons is BEFORE you even mark your mortises.  So far, this rule has served me very well.

Once they’re all square, I mic’d them out to the nearest large forstner bit I have, a huge 2 incher.

Then rough out the waste.

Then I grab my 3/8ths LN mortise chisel, and a nice wide 3/4 bevel edge chisel, and true up the corners.

First joint, nice and snug!

And with a second joint, the first mockup.

And the most important part, nice and square!

Long stretcher mortises later this week, time allowing.

Been a while since the photos hit.  I didn’t take photos of everything, once I really got moving along.

I roughed out the end cap tenons with my Festool TS55.

Whacked the waste with a hammer, made a pass with the chisel, then went to town with LN 60.5R

Began to rough out waste from my vise end end-cap.

I probably won’t bother with the other end cap until the bench is built.  I need to finish this end cap to complete the tail vise, which I want to do while the bench is flipped over.

Looking good so far.

Fitted out the vise hardware, mortised the runners a bit.

Started in on the legs.  Cut out the hole for the vise screw, and mortised in the nut a bit.

Drilled the holdfast holes and tested them out.    I ended up counterboring a 1″ deep hole before I got any traction, even after sanding the holdfast.

I didn’t think to get a good set of photos of my dog hole jig, and the cutting process. I simply made a small template out of scrap ply, and routed out the dog holes with a big honking pattern bit.

While things were setting up, I got out my templates, and began to mark out the cavity for the Benchcrafted Tail Vise

Some circular saw cutting, hammering, chiseling, and gouging later, and I’ve got a rough cavity started.   From here on it was mostly worth with the gouge.  I made a small counter-template out of 1/4″ ply to make sure there were no high spots that would interfere with the action of the vise.

Finally, I applied the outer strip.  I wanted my dog holes a few inches in, so I could cleanly grab a board of decent width, 8″ or so.  The dog holes are about 4″ in.

(What you see sticking up in the back is the cutoff from the dog hole strip where the vise block will go.  I didn’t want to pinch that area, so I saved the cutoff so the spacer would be the same size.

While that set up, i switched to the base, and cut my legs and short stretchers to size, and roughed out the cheeks.

Before I left the shop, I set up the first cheek cut.  I find leaving something ‘ready to go’ is a good way to get back up to speed when you re-enter the shop, and also keeps your momentum going, so you want to head back to the shop the next day.