A
Anonymous
Guest
Hi all
Well, a trip to Philly's and Yandles with Bean lately resulted in me buying enough beech for a bench top and enough oak for the legs and base.
I started hacking wood around as a hobby about 15 years ago (just working on houses back then) and my first bench (10 years ago) was made form MDF. Around 7 years ago I made my second bench from 3" thick pine which has served me well for all these years but tended to need a fair bit of maintenance work.
Well, here I am making what I hope will be my last bench and so I gave the design and construction a lot (too much??) thought.
I read everything I could find and studied every picture and bench I could. The final design came out at 34 1/2" high (pine one at 36 1/2 " was too high), 74" long and 26" wide. The apron is 4" deep. the legs are 4 1/2" * 3" English oak.
The tools tray is just under full width this time (2/3 last time) and is removable in 5 pieces to allow me to clamp from the rear more easily.
So, here is how I made it (started work 23rd December 2006):
I ripped all the stock to rough sizes and then squared up the sides with the LV jointer
Next I smoothed all pieces using the 4 1/2 - no sandpaper was harmed (or used :wink: ) during the making of this bench.
I decided to add feet to the lower cross-piece in case of uneven surfaces. Glued on.
Next job was to cut 14 mortises in the legs and upper and lower cross-pieces using the hollow chisel mortiser - boring!!!
I cleaned out the mortises with a mortise chisel afterwards as they are through mortises and the sides are not too clean or even from the hollow chisel tool.
After that i could mark out the tenons and cut the shoulders on the tablesaw
And the faces on the bandsaw...
I cleaned the shoulder and faces and trimmed to a nice tight fit using the shoulder plane and skew block.
All tenons on legs completed and looking like this: (shorter tenons will be at bottom and are not through tenons). I used the draw-bore technique to secure the lower ones rather than wedging them.
As nearly all the tenons will be wedged, I made a guide block with a 5 degree slope and chiseled out the waste in the mortises to give a nice sloping face for the wedges to push the tenon faces against.
I cut some wedges at 5 degrees too - from an offcut of reclaimed mahogany that was lying around.
Needed to cut into the tenons at 5 degrees too - ready to accept the wedges of course
I pre-finished all frame pieces using boiled linseed oil to help me when cleaning up any glue squeeze out.
Legs were mounted into top and bottom rails using wedges and draw bore - no clamps used. For info I use Titebond III if you're interested.
Lower tenons draw bored - an offset hole through the tenon to pull the joint tight when a dowel is driven through
Wedges were cleaned up with the 5 1/2 once everything was cured.
Next job was to do much the same with the longitudinal rails which were made from a 2" thick plank of poplar that I had saved.
Then final glue-up of the whole base assembly and an awkward clamping job!!
A bit of work with block plane once the glue was cured and the wedges look pretty good to me :wink:
And the lower frame assembly is completed
Well, a trip to Philly's and Yandles with Bean lately resulted in me buying enough beech for a bench top and enough oak for the legs and base.
I started hacking wood around as a hobby about 15 years ago (just working on houses back then) and my first bench (10 years ago) was made form MDF. Around 7 years ago I made my second bench from 3" thick pine which has served me well for all these years but tended to need a fair bit of maintenance work.
Well, here I am making what I hope will be my last bench and so I gave the design and construction a lot (too much??) thought.
I read everything I could find and studied every picture and bench I could. The final design came out at 34 1/2" high (pine one at 36 1/2 " was too high), 74" long and 26" wide. The apron is 4" deep. the legs are 4 1/2" * 3" English oak.
The tools tray is just under full width this time (2/3 last time) and is removable in 5 pieces to allow me to clamp from the rear more easily.
So, here is how I made it (started work 23rd December 2006):
I ripped all the stock to rough sizes and then squared up the sides with the LV jointer
Next I smoothed all pieces using the 4 1/2 - no sandpaper was harmed (or used :wink: ) during the making of this bench.
I decided to add feet to the lower cross-piece in case of uneven surfaces. Glued on.
Next job was to cut 14 mortises in the legs and upper and lower cross-pieces using the hollow chisel mortiser - boring!!!
I cleaned out the mortises with a mortise chisel afterwards as they are through mortises and the sides are not too clean or even from the hollow chisel tool.
After that i could mark out the tenons and cut the shoulders on the tablesaw
And the faces on the bandsaw...
I cleaned the shoulder and faces and trimmed to a nice tight fit using the shoulder plane and skew block.
All tenons on legs completed and looking like this: (shorter tenons will be at bottom and are not through tenons). I used the draw-bore technique to secure the lower ones rather than wedging them.
As nearly all the tenons will be wedged, I made a guide block with a 5 degree slope and chiseled out the waste in the mortises to give a nice sloping face for the wedges to push the tenon faces against.
I cut some wedges at 5 degrees too - from an offcut of reclaimed mahogany that was lying around.
Needed to cut into the tenons at 5 degrees too - ready to accept the wedges of course
I pre-finished all frame pieces using boiled linseed oil to help me when cleaning up any glue squeeze out.
Legs were mounted into top and bottom rails using wedges and draw bore - no clamps used. For info I use Titebond III if you're interested.
Lower tenons draw bored - an offset hole through the tenon to pull the joint tight when a dowel is driven through
Wedges were cleaned up with the 5 1/2 once everything was cured.
Next job was to do much the same with the longitudinal rails which were made from a 2" thick plank of poplar that I had saved.
Then final glue-up of the whole base assembly and an awkward clamping job!!
A bit of work with block plane once the glue was cured and the wedges look pretty good to me :wink:
And the lower frame assembly is completed
