Saw bench - Done!

[nabs]

hello, I am in the process of making a saw bench using only hand tools. I am several days (!) in already and seem to be averaging about one major cock-up per day. I haven't got a clue what I'm doing, so I will quite probably make mistakes without even noticing - feel free to point those ones out!

If I manage to complete it, I will be the proud owner of a slimed down version of this:

http://www.billyslittlebench.com/blog/s ... o-and-pics

It is slimmer as I am making it from 1.5x scaffold boards from B&Q and they are not wide enough to rip 5'' pieces from (NB 1.5 is the nominal quantity of scaffold boards, I've actually used 2 because of aforementioned cock-ups).

I know the design is a bit OTT, but I thought it would be good for learning.

Job 1 was ripping and dimensioning - It turns out I am terrible at sawing in a straight line, although I had improved a bit by the end of the day, and besides the wobbly edges created a good opportunity to practice planing.

I am watching Richard Maquire's workbench series while doing the work in order to get some tips - too late unfortunately to find out that it is often a good idea to do a minimum amount of work to get things flat and untwisted and then moving on to getting the main parts cut to size, else you can end up doing some of the prep work twice (as I did!).

Anyhow, the end result is some bits of wood and my first major error - without looking at the plans I carefully measured the height of my kneecap (19.5' inches) and then deducted the depth of the top and the base to get the height of the legs. Doh! they have to be full 19.5'' as the ends of the legs form the tenon for the feet at one end and the pins that are part of the dovetail at the top.

I briefly considered amputating my feet to accommodate a scaled down bench, but on reflection decided it was better to just cut some more pieces of wood from my 2nd scaffold board.

I quite enjoyed the prep work.

 

[LancsRick]

I briefly considered amputating my feet to accommodate a scaled down bench, but on reflection decided it was better to just cut some more pieces of wood from my 2nd scaffold board.

I honestly despair with how glibly people these days will consume raw materials, destroying our planet without being willing to make any sacrifices themselves.




:lol:

 

[nabs]

I know, I know! I have only just got over going to fortnightly bin collections (5 years ago).

 

[nabs]

todays job was to make the feet for the sawbench. First create two housings:

I had the perfect tool to smooth the bottoms of the housing, (c.f red Tyzack router), but as documented here it was not working at the time:

tyzack-router-plane-question-t105449.html

so I used a chisel - as you can see my technique requires some improvement. Today's blunder involved measuring the position of one of the housing sides incorrectly - whenever I use a rule to measure something I am pretty much guaranteed to make a mistake, so I was not really surprised.

The next job is to rip them in half and glue them together in order to form a mortice - this creates reasonably chunky feet from relatively thin boards (mine are 1 1/4'')

the one at the front is the 2nd attempt, and I would like to think the rip cut is a little less terrible than the first. Still it made for (more) good planing practice!

The final job is to flatten the tops and chop of the corners in an elegant fashion, like wot I did ere:

more thrills to come tomorrow!

 

[cyberheater]

The next job is to rip them in half and glue them together in order to form a mortice - this creates reasonably chunky feet from relatively thin boards (mine are 1 1/4'')

That's a brilliant idea. I wished I'd thought of that.

 

[nabs]

That's a brilliant idea. I wished I'd thought of that.

.. not something I can take any credit for I'm afraid!

Today's job was to cut the tenons in the legs - I got a bit better at sawing by the 4th one, but they all needed some work with the chisel to get them to fit. Although the fit in the end was quite tight, I think I was mainly benefiting from the very squashable timber I'm using ( I read somewhere that scaffold boards are often made of spruce) this meant that all the undulating bits in the joint that by rights should have stopped it from fitting together simply squished down making a tight fit. Excellent! luckily the joints will be reinforced with dowels using a technique that is called draw boring.

So I also made some dowels:
It is very easy to do, I used a chisel to split a bit of an oak baluster (left over from some winding sticks that I made) into roughly hexagonal pieces slightly larger that the 3/8'' inch dowels I needed and then thumped them through a piece of metal with holes drilled in it. I used part of an old brass hinge and drilled three holes - 3/8th, 25/64 and 13/32 - and then bashed the dowels through each of the holes, largest to smallest. After doing a couple I was able to get the dowels to approximately the right size just by splitting and only needed the chisel to chamfer the end before belting it. Because the oak is so hard I was able to use a metal hammer, which adds to the satisfaction.

I enjoyed making the dowels - it is a good balance of finesse and violent activity.

Unusually I neglected to make any serious errors today, but don't worry I make up for it tomorrow*

* I am not a psychic, I am actually writing these posts 1 day in arrears.

toodles

 

[whiskywill]

If I manage to complete it, I will be the proud owner of a slimed down version of this:

I love typing errors especially when this is the result. :lol:

 

[nabs]

Oops! I shall leave the original post unmolested for the entertainment of others

 

[nabs]

made the dovetails to attach the top to the legs. I enjoyed the the pins more than the tails, at least as soon as I had worked out that it was not necessary to cut them accurately to the lines since you make the 'pins' by copying whatever you ended up with in the first stage.

I am quickly finding out that my biggest skills weakness (amongst much competition) is precise marking out. I am slowly improving at cutting to the line, but any slight lapse of attention means I can still manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at any moment. As I did today, on the second 'tail' that I had to cut where I cut on the wrong side of the line. I had to make a shim to fill the resulting gap.

Efforts improved by the final joint, but I still was left with various unsightly gaps. Onwards and upwards!

Per billy's instructions I used dividers to mark the positions of the pins - no rulers involved, so no mistakes!

chisel out the bit in the middle:

tails cut:

pins:

mind the gap(s)!

 

[Brian18741]

Good stuff man, not looking too shabby either!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

 

[sunnybob]

Very famous quote (it must be if I know it)
A master craftsman isnt someone who doesnt make mistakes.
A master craftsman is someone who makes sure the mistakes arent seen.

Lead on mcDuff.

 

[Bm101]

Enjoying the read. =D>

 

[nabs]

strengthening the joints between legs and feet by 'draw boring'. I have intentionally drilled one of the holes slightly out of line with the others to liven up the piece and give it that authentic hand made look.

 

[AndyT]

That's looking great and I bet you are enjoying making it.

 

[nabs]

thanks Andy, and yes it has been very enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed using the various old tools I've collected and refurbished over the past 18 months, and seeing how they compare in different tasks - for instance I tried preparing a board with a no 4 plane alone, vs a wooden jack + no 7 and no 5 and a no 7 etc. Although I had experimented with all the tools as I fixed them up, it was far more instructive using them to perform an actual task.

I also had a couple of sharpening epiphanies - the first was thanks to Richard Maquire's excellent video series on the subject (where amongst a huge amount of great info I learned about how much you can tell about sharpness from sound, both when sharpening and when using the tools).

The second involved comparing tools I had sharpened with new premium tools - I only have two posh/new tools, a Veritas block plane (which I purchased before discovering the joys of tool fiddling), and a recent buy which was a veritas dovetail saw. I bought the latter because I wanted a reference to compare my own haphazard saw sharpening to - I sharpened my old dovetail saw to the same pitch and PPI and after repeating the same cuts with the Veritas saw and my old one it was obvious that I was a long way off from doing it well, but this was an incentive to try and improve my technique - my subsequent sharpening efforts were much better as a result (although not quite as good as Veritas!).

Happy days!

 

[nabs]

the bench is surprisingly sturdy, but given the state of the dovetail joints I doubt it would last very long if put to use in the current state, so it is time to add some bracing parts which are attached by joints that are apparently called half lap dovetail joints.

I used a saw to remove the waste from the top part of the lap joints - what I meant to try (but forgot) was to have a go at splitting the full width waste with a chisel to see how that technique compared. I did split out the waste from the lower part of the joint, and it is gratifying how quickly you can go and is good practice with the chisel.

As with the other joints, I had improved a bit by the time I did the final one, and I think a couple of them would probably count as passable (so long as you did not look too closely!). I only cocked up one where I sawed on the wrong side of the lines (again!) - this one was 3rd one I did in so this mistake is hard to justify...

My major blunder was to forget that the lower braces were about half an inch smaller in height than the top ones. Inevitably I picked up two different sized pieces to do the top braces - I only realized when the 3'' clamp I had used for the left had side no longer fitted for the right hand size. Doh!

reflecting on this sage and timely advice:

Very famous quote (it must be if I know it)
A master craftsman isnt someone who doesnt make mistakes.
A master craftsman is someone who makes sure the mistakes arent seen.

...I had a brainwave - I resolved to only approach the bench from the left hand side from this point forwards. Excellent!

 

[nabs]

a couple of coats of boiled linseed oil and it is done. The BLO, in addition to affording some limited protection to the wood, also helps to colour the wood an attractive dog-pee yellow and does an excellent job of highlighting the various errors I made

I managed to squeeze in a final blunder before finishing the bench: realizing the feet needed a couple of mm adjustment to stop it rocking slightly I flipped it upside down on the floor so I could plane them. In the process I dragged it across a small bit of gravel - quite a surprise, as my shed is otherwise spotless, natch! - and this created a deep scratch several inches long in the top.

anyhow, all finished - good fun and I learned a lot. I am thinking of doing a 2nd saw bench but to a different (simpler) design.

 

[memzey]

Nicely done Nabs! Whereabouts in Herts are you? A number of us in the area get together for a drink every now and then. If you're interested I'll add you to the mailing group.

 

[nabs]

cheers memzey - will pm you my email.

 

[Bm101]

=D> Well done Nabs. Interesting thread, well written and skills acquired. What's not to like.
Cheers
Chris