Hand Rip Sawing

[woodbrains]

Hello,

You don't need a 27 inch wide bench. At least not the working portion. 18 inches is fine, and about as wide as a normal person can plane flat from the front side, which is where it will be done when the bench is made up. I would rip 3 inch widths and lam them up so you have a thick bench, I've never regretted making mine that thick, a little over in fact. Takes a pounding and will last forever.

Good sawing BTW

Mike.

 

[devonwoody]

Yes that was good sawing. =D>

 

[bugbear]

Hello,

You don't need a 27 inch wide bench. At least not the working portion. 18 inches is fine, and about as wide as a normal person can plane flat from the front side, which is where it will be done when the bench is made up. I would rip 3 inch widths and lam them up so you have a thick bench, I've never regretted making mine that thick, a little over in fact. Takes a pounding and will last forever.

Good sawing BTW

Mike.

I have seen wide benches (say 30") where only the front 12" - 18" is thick, with the rest being (well supported) 1" material.

All your heavy planing and chopping will be done on the front of the bench, the rest is just an assembly table.

BugBear

 

[DoctorWibble]

A rare joab that. An' loads cheaper than switching oan the heat. Or wearin' oot the coat. =D>

But mibbae git the wee laddie tae dae some fir ye. Or get yersel an oxygen tank. Ah needed wun jist watchin' the video. :shock:

 

[D_W]

IF the wood is squirrely, I'd still laminate at least the thick part of the bench. It'll be a lot of work, but it will stay flatter. Just the way that wood looks, I wouldn't trust it to stay flat in varying temperature and humidity, and there may be times that you want the bench to be flat - not the least of which is in testing boards that you're planing to see if you have the face flat without busting out all kinds of gadgets.

One or two rips a day, with planing (just get them close) and then you can knock a high spot or two off and get them through your thickness planer to make sure the faces are relatively flat. For a bench, the boards don't need to be perfect, they just need to be able to be glued up.

I was in the same position as you a couple of years ago. I didn't want to spend a lot of time making a bench, and ultimately didn't. The boards I got weren't dead straight, but they were "OK" and I ripped them, ran them through the thickness planer to clean off their surfaces (didn't bother trying to get them a perfect cuboid with no tension, they just need to be OK) and then I glued them. I trued up the bench top in its entirety on the top only after it was done (the hand tool way, rather than perfecting each piece before gluing).

The bench has held up fine, and I don't feel like I have to baby it because I spent a million hours on it - because I didn't. Every time I work the face of a board or billet, I'm glad that it's flat and stays flat.

 

[ED65]

Saw resoration details in another thread. Got one of the boards down and marked it up, so there's the challenge, 8' of 2" sycamore.

Well done you =D>