Oak Workbench project - from DOOR to SAW!

[jimi43]

I work at a local hotel and a recent refurbishment meant the 15 year old oak doors were to be skipped. Well...being a person who grew up with a mother who preached recycling...I simply could not waste that matured oak now could I?

So started the OAK WORKBENCH project which I am posting here to encourage others with ideas that reuse what others see as rubbish...here is the raw material...

The first part of the project was to remove all the glass and after checking for old screws and nails...run them through the table saw....

BOY is this old oak tough and VERY heavy. I rough cut them up with my trusty RYOBI portable circular saw (what a WONDERFUL tool that is!)

So I ended up with four long bits 80" long and six shorter bits just over 24" long.

Once they were rough cut they were easy to run through my Scheppach....exposing how really beautiful the underlying wood was...

Clearly there were loads of mortise holes with residual tenons...and I tried to make sure these were on the inside. My idea was to build a very bulky softwood (pine) base....alas I had no 4x4 oak....and then use the oak to make a very heavy top. I ALWAYS use TITEBOND ORIGINAL when joining the wood...as shown clamped...and I joint the sides with an old No.7 plane first...along a shooting board....small amount of light there but later I shall plane the top...

I am not a great fan of power tools for the sake of it but I ALWAYS wanted a biscuit jointer...but never had the money or the justification...but this little ATLAS COPCO (Milwaukee Tools) baby was £20 at a bootfair so I grabbed it...it was WONDERFUL for jointing the boards..

I highly recommend these things but get a good secondhand one...not the rubbish cheap ones...I don't think the fences will be good enough for accurate biscuit placement. Anyway....enough of them big boys toys...

The dimensions I needed for the whole top precluded just planking boards and this led me to take a more artistic route...with problems being turned into useful shortcuts as you will see later...

My original plan seen below was to include lots of gaps to be filled with smaller pieces...so that I could make square dog holes but after a rethink...I decided against this as I only needed a row of dogs in the centre (I build guitars)...

Therefore moving all the long pieces in I came up with this configuration...

The plan (not yet done) is to have cams operated from the side which raise these dogs in their holes and when not in use they sit flat...I like that idea a LOT!

....not QUITE the width I needed.....so rethinking....I had some trim bits...

These would pad out the width and more...cut up and spaced with the dogs...would form the dog track....

From the side you see how the end bits are now glued into place...a nightmare since I did not have a sash cramp that long!!! Use the dogs you fool!!!!

After this set up I then added ANOTHER trim strip but again...not long enough pieces of wood so I wanted to join them in a unique way...so a small piece of mahogany fulfilled that purpose...making a feature out of lack of length!

Later you will see how well this matched the dog holes and once the finish was applied...I wanted to add MORE "errors"!

Also here we see the old RECORD 15 1/2 vise that I picked up for a tenner at a bootfair...bit of a tatty beast but later it goes SO beautifully with the bench and will have a moving revolving dog....

NOW...I have the overhang I need....

SO...now that the top with the dog holes is set up...I moved on to that vise I mentioned earlier. My plan is to make this multi-functional for what I do when I build a guitar....but first off it needs to be WIDE.....here I use another cross member from the door which again...was not quite long enough so I added more mahogany on the ends for decoration and to compliment the other touch...

Here we see the static piece fitted to the vise....NIGHTMARE lining the close tolerance holes up...but worth it to stop it moving. Here we see the second function this vise performs. A clampable shooting board. Note how it is slung lower than the top to form a square (yes I made it square) ridge....which will guide a plane of any size from tiny right up to huge No.7...

I almost immediately put this into action to bevel off the other side trims on the moving part....I HATE banging my thigh on those sharp edges!

Using my darling little Issac Greeves....it is guided by the lip and produces an absolutely perfect bevel....

So gluing this up and attaching it to a newly restored RECORD body...we have a super-wide two function device....

Later I will add a circular hole in the centre....this will house a removeable round dog with a flat flange edge....so that it will run up and automatically line up with any shape it encounters....

SO...now to the finish...well I simply LOVE "TRU-OIL" which is used in gunstocks....

It is basically polymerised linseed oil but it is SO tactile and can be added to over and over again to retouch marks and dings...I love this stuff!

You simply wipe it on and buff it up to whatever finish you want...I like satin

Now look how beautifully it brings up that little mahogany block...

The ends of the vise are likewise treated one at a time...

So there you have it....

I hope this thread gives a little insight into the benefits of recycling...and the added bonus of being able to purpose build your bench....

If anyone needs any other information or photos let me know....I tried to put in all the steps...

Cheers recyclers!

Jimi

 

[Frank S]

What an absolutely beautiful job ! If I had a bench like that,it would be in the dining room.It`s far too good for a nasty dusty old workshop.Love the idea for the dogs on cams also you had some good finds at the car boots.

 

[Boz62]

Lovely. Some nice ideas there as well. It's nice to see a workbench made for a specific purpose, instead of the large general purpose ones most of use build.

Boz

 

[Chems]

Looks really good, and you've done a great job of recycling.

I do think however you might get some problems with expansion with the boards running at angles like that, I know the oak is old and seasoned but all boards move with the change of moisture through the year.

 

[Tim Nott]

That's a beauty - well done

 

[jimi43]

..........I do think however you might get some problems with expansion with the boards running at angles like that, I know the oak is old and seasoned but all boards move with the change of moisture through the year..........

Darn! It is amazing....I knew about expansion and the ways to overcome it in cabinet making but it went RIGHT out of my bonce...I don't actually do it you see so it isn't obvious to me.

I mostly work with thin wood or veneers....!

Still worse comes to the worse I can saw the ends off and use a smaller one...!

I did leave the old varnish on the reverse and will be putting some layers of TRU-OIL down on the top and endgrains....so I hope I won't have too many problems...I will post next summer to show how she made it through the winter!

As you can see from the walls...I am insulating (heavily) the workshop...ceiling and floor as well.

Thank you all for your nice comments...my wife did point out that with some decent legs she wanted it in the kitchen! I just cover it over with some old shower curtains (from the hotel too!) and two chipboard boards when I do rough stuff. Apart from clamping, other guitar work will be on flat boards too...like jigs for assembly etc.

I also have some more bootfair finds.....

These vise mechanisms will form two ends of a long clamping bar...

I tarted these up a bit too....

A few circular holes will also be routed in the top when I work out where I need them as I have a few hold-fasts I picked up on feabay...

I need to grind and file down that old weld repair and spray them up but they should be a useful addition too!

More photos as I do the finishing touches...

Jim

 

[Paul Chapman]

Cool bench, Jim 8) 8)

While, in theory, you should get problems with those end pieces with the grain going the wrong way, in practice you might not. I have an old bench top in my garage that was made with breadboard ends and in over 30 years it's never given any problems. My guess is that it will be fine.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[stuartpaul]

Nice job, - looks really good.

I too really enjoy the process of recycling old timber into something new. I currently have some timber from old fire station doors (teak) and at some point in time will be turning that into something (hopefully) useful.

 

[OPJ]

Fantastic use of unwanted timber and a beautifully-made 'bench to show for it. Some would argue, perhaps, that a top less than 70mm think is insufficient for cabinet making... But, as you say, it suits your profession fine!

If you had any oak left over, could you not have laminated two or more pieces to increase the thickness?

 

[woody67]

Yet another beautiful project Jim - keep em coming fella. We now pronounce you the Bootfair King!! :wink:

My dad must have known your mam when it comes to recycling :wink: .

My dad was a Clerk of Works and their house (which we now live in) had an extension that he built originally as a games room and which is now our kitchen, had an external fire door made of mahogany :shock:

On many occasion he "saved" various windows, doors, bricks, wood etc, etc from building sites which he fully utilised to build his dream snooker room. When we altered the kitchen, the doorway was blocked up and the remains of the door still live in my shed ready for future use.

Mark

 

[jimi43]

Thank you all for your very kind words...it makes a newbie here feel very much at home and I thank you all for that and for your constructive advice.

Just a quick update...the old French holdfasts worked fine and looked good in their new livery....

They just slot straight in...automatically sit at the right clamp place and a quick turn of the screw holds the workpiece really tight....no banging with a mallet here...I like these!

I then drilled out the hole for the moving dog for the centre line...this will allow the automatic alignment of irregular pieces often encountered in luthier work....

It works fine!

I then had a big think about how I wanted the static dogs to work. I had a chat with a cabinet maker friend in the village who tells me that when he worked for a local joinery their benches had remote static dogs that could be raised remotely....he wasn't sure how these worked...just that they did....

After thinking over a few days I finally got the the remote static bench dog raising mechanism sorted...I opted for the simple solution and it turned out remarkably effective!

The cam was the answer:

The remote lever is connected to a threaded rod....

which activates a cam under the oak dog....

It does work like magic....and I even figured out to record a simple video on the new phone AND upload it to YouTube!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

Not going to win an Oscar but I was proud of the result...and it shows it operating!

Now I just need to replicate this mechanism FOUR times! This could take a while!

Cheers guys!

Jim

 

[Blister]

NICE

8) :lol:

 

[woodbloke]

Very nice job...it's amazing to me stuff that gets lobbed into skips (I can never resist one ) - Rob

 

[Benchwayze]

Hi Jimmi,

A very nice bench you made, and you are a jammy-beggar having that timber dropped in your lap! A great use for recycled timber. The doors I have though are just made from luan... far too soft.

Also, I had described how to join two cramps together to make them longer (A double-header cramp) But on examining your pics closer I see you had already done that. So I would have be teaching you egg sucking! Hence my deleted post.



In case no one else mentioned it, that would be toughened glass, and might come in handy for occasional tables?

All the best

John

 

[joesoap]

Hi Jim
Much to be admired there , and all off the top of your own 'bonce' . Viewed with great interest and look forward to more of your ingenuity . Full of character too , yes , keep em coming and welcome aboard .

Have to say that it's a sad sign of the times to think that those oak doors will be replaced with something like PVC at astronomical cost . Low maintainence ? not so , they're having to be repaired and rejigged regularly but there we are .
Cheers !

 

[jimi43]

Thanks Blister...LOVE the avatar by the way!

Hi Rob....yes SKIPS.....mmmm (rubs stomach in a Homer fashion!)...I fear that I too am a skip digger. I lived on a remote island along with a bunch of American servicemen for three years and I got the nickname "Stig of the Dump"...things those Yanks throw away is unbelieveable! I love your avatar too...I thought at first that your olive tree was the one on the Bodrum to Akbuk road in Turkey....my pic....

but I am not sure now....yours is probably the "OLDEST OLIVE TREE IN THE WORLD"....just like mine is!! :wink: I just love those old olive trees...in fact the whole concept of the olive tree is beautiful...from the fruits to the oil to the wood...gorgeous bit of flora.

Yes John....the length of my cramps is sadly lacking...or was....I got a few more over the last weekend for £1 each at a bootfair....Record ones no less....and now I can clamp the bench in one length....typical timing for me! The glass is double glazed...that is going straight into my workshop to finish the glazing job...nice and warm for the winter! Don't waste nuffink mate!

:wink:

Thanks for the welcome Joe....I had a few "bonce" scratching moments there but I love working on my new bench....being vertically challenged the standard benches are not really the right height for planing for me...or working in general so this project allowed me to be more discriminating.

They actually replaced the doors with...wait for it....copies of the existing oak doors in....wait for it...OAK! Yes my friend it is true....but alas the carpentry was not quite as good as the originals...and the guy that fitted them put the beading on with steel nails which of course bent right over on about the third hit....so he left them like that! I won't go into what happened when he tried to route out the door lock cavity...it's too painful a memory.... :roll:

Incidentally....the carriage wood underneath to hold the cams came from my son's bed....20 year old bunk bed pine...NICE! I am going to make some nice chisel holders with the rest....more about that later....

Cheers guys

Jimi

 

[woodbloke]

Jimi - the avatar pic is an olive tree that I 'spotted at Polis in Cyprus on holiday recently...reputed to be 700 years old. I'm going to see if I can grow one next year in a tub against a south facing wall - Rob

 

[jimi43]

Jimi - the avatar pic is an olive tree that I 'spotted at Polis in Cyprus on holiday recently...reputed to be 700 years old. I'm going to see if I can grow one next year in a tub against a south facing wall - Rob

Ah! Polis...it is a while since I had some great Cypriot food at Zouk restaurant....there is a superb old wooden boat they are doing up at the marina...

It has a wonderful old bronze screw...

Have they finished to road down to Paphos yet? It will probably spoil Polis now that it opens up for tourism...maybe not...

That olive tree is almost the double for the one in Turkey...I don't remember seeing the old one in Polis....probably rushing around working too much! Must go back on holiday instead one day...

Cheers mate....

Jimi

 

[woodbloke]

Have they finished to road down to Paphos yet? It will probably spoil Polis now that it opens up for tourism...maybe not...

That olive tree is almost the double for the one in Turkey...I don't remember seeing the old one in Polis....probably rushing around working too much! Must go back on holiday instead one day...

Cheers mate....

Jimi

Jimi - there's a decent road now linking Polis to Paphos...not motorway, but good none the less. Takes about 30 mins to drive. That part of the island up by the Akamas is still busy as far as tourists are concerned, but not nearly as populated as the Paphos region. By far the majority of the foreigners in Polis were Brits, either holidaymakers or ex-pats, never heard a French accent or demand for a reserved sun lounger in two weeks...account on the Blog if your interested - Rob

 

[Evergreen]

Jimi

How did I miss this thread first time round? You've done great work on your bench and I envy you all that lovely natural light coming into your workshop.

I'm another fan of Birchwood Casey's Tru-Oil. You can only seem to get it in small bottles but a little goes a long way. It's really great for surfaces that take a bit of rough treatment and especially tool handles, I find.