Workbench Build

[Fitzroy]

All the top boards milled flat and thicknessed. 750litres, 3 large wheelie bins, full of shavings.

Top has come up 630mm deep, which is great, gives me some leeway to bring a couple of boards thinner to align with the leg joinery.

Hopefully get into some of the joinery soon, which is the more interesting bit.

Not glued up, or I’d have given myself the worst flattening job in the world! Just clamped up in the hope of avoiding more movement.

Fitz

 

[Molynoox]

Really enjoying this thread
Martin

 

[Fitzroy]

On to the legs, I have two 140x130 ish solid pieces and two that are laminated at about 130x110. I really wanted to have four square at 130x130mm but couldn’t get that from my timber. So the bench will have legs the same width but not so deep at the back. Likely making extra work for myself and more chance to mess up but hey ho.

One bit I enjoy is working with less than perfect timber and working out which face I want where. The are the four faces of the legs.

As often happens I had to interrupt the woodwork for some tool fettlling. I trimmed the legs off square on the mitresaw which is not used for a while. The cut was not plumb on the first one and it burnt a bit. So a saw clean down and reset happened. I also had a crack at sharpening the blade with a diamond file. 48 teeth later it cut better, good enough to trim the legs but putting the blade on it from the table saw showed it was still not a patch on a fresh blade so I ordered a new one.

Also the planer and thicknesser knives have a few nicks in them and are leaving trails and a bit of tear out so will need changing for the final sizing of the timbers. I broke out the jig for knife sharpening and sharpened the spare sets ready for swapping out.

I ground back the knife edges on the belt sander, first time trying that and it went well, then put a new edge on using wet and dry.

Fitz

 

[Fitzroy]

Legs and stretchers all brought to final dimensions. Pleased with how square they’ve all come up. I find with bigger timbers it can be hard to get them properly true.

Unfortunately I can’t cut to length as the new blades I bought for the mitre saw turned out to be super sharp but I then had two issues of kick back, I think it’s because they are positive rake blades, so I’ve ordered an alternative. Not sure if it was my kickback incident or already like it but I found the saw fence to be bent, so had to order a spare.


Most of the timber I use has been sourced locally off gumtree and so quality is not assured! This makes it interesting to try and decide what bit to use where and also the finished sizes can be variable. Picking the face for each leg I got four I really liked.

On a Roubo bench the edge of the top is flush with the legs so that a leg vice will function and the legs form part of the workholding approach. This means the leg frames need to be the same width as the top, with trying to make the most of the timber I was unsure what size the legs would turn out and how deep the top would be. Now with finished legs I could decide final dimensions.

I’m roughly following the plans in Chris Shwartz book but again my timbers are not the same dimensions so it has to be adjusted. Mortice and tenon size was one thing to workout, settled on 32mm thick and 3” tall

I’m fortunate to have a morticer so some experimentation with chisel size ensued. Use the 3/4” big boy or the 16mm. The sycamore is an interesting timber to work as it tends to throw off chunks, it’s almost a bit stringy at times. These chunks kept blocking the 3/4 chisel, and causing it to smoke or stop turning. I could not get it to cut well even with lots of fiddling with chisel to bit offset, so it’ll be 2x16mm cuts.

Finally ready to start the joinery! Legs clamped together and reference lines scribed across. I was given the large drawing square many moons ago, it’s easy to adjust square and really useful for big projects.

Mark twice and cut once, I tend to mark up in pencil first so I can ensure it’s sensible and then use a marking gauge. The sycamore is lovely and light making pencil lines super clear. Thankfully as I made a mess up, tenons marked on opposite sides oops!

Lines marked on with a dual marking gauge and marked from the same face. Set the gauge and it remains unchanged for the whole project. In the end the morticer will set the precise positions and tenons will be fettled to fit.

Ran out of time to get cutting but ready for next time.

Fitz.

 

[Lorenzl]

You get a better choice from Gumtree than I do here

 

[Fitzroy]

You get a better choice from Gumtree than I do here

It’s been slim pickings for the last 12months or so. The timber for this was grabbed back in 2017. I have a guy up in Huntly who often has some nice elm but not seen him offer anything for a year or two, he was getting on in years so perhaps retired now.

 

[Lorenzl]

We used to have a local recycled wood yard where a lot of the timber was lent up against trees and under tarps. You asked for what you wanted and were pointed to a stack to take a look at. It was before my time of woodworking and it is now long gone.
One of the old boy's ( 70+ ) there cut up the wood on an outdoor saw bench with a great big blade. When he took his gloves off he was missing over 50% of his fingers!

 

[thetyreman]

that's some pretty wood fitzroy! gonna look stunning when it's done

 

[Fitzroy]

There has been lots of workshopping and not much forum updating so incoming barrage of updates, some of it even gets into some mixed media woodworking/metal working, beware!

After marking out in pencil and finding my errors, phew. Lines were knifed in using my tartan marking knives, the most amazing secret Santa gift ever, plug for UKSS23 early! Leg assemblies laid out to check all sensible before making any cuts.

Looking good on to some cutting, no going back now. Mortices were cut on the morticer, oddly I have no photos ho hum, mortices were 36mm wide and I have a 19mm or 16mm mortice chisel. I just couldn’t get the performance from the 19mm as it kept stalling, so went with the 16mm. This allowed a fully supported cut at each corner for best accuracy, then the rest cut out with a series of further cuts. This approach left a few tram lines in the mortices which were cleaned up with a chisel at the same time as the bottom of each mortice.

Tenon shoulders were cut on the tablesaw using a saw sled and stop block.

Tenon cheeks were cut off on the bandsaw, the 19mm M42 blade from Tuffsaws gives a great cut.

I could get close to size off the bandsaw and planned to use a router plane to fit the tenon to the mortice but with such a long tenon, 80mm, the router plane was overhanging too far and it was not working out. In the end I chose to use the table saw and sled to take fractions off the face or each tenon and then sanded off the marks with a flat block.

A bit of fettling with each joint and the end assemblies came together well.

There are only lower stretchers in the design as the top of the leg assemblies mortice into the 100mm thick workbench. The lower mortices intersect in the leg. I had to think hard to make sure there was always support below the mortice as I was cutting it, cocked your once and blew out some wood inside, not the end of the world but always annoying to make a mistake!

Stretchers and stretcher bolts next.

 

[Fitzroy]

As with much of my woodworking I don’t make things simple for myself, I’m kind of copying a couple of Roubo designs at the same time, so I’m having to think things through rather than just copy. One of the things I want is to be able to break the bench down in the future as a house move will likely happen at some point. To achieve this the stretcher tenons will not be glued into the mortices, the plan is to bolts the in like this.

You can allegedly buy bench bolts that do this. However, they were out of stock everywhere, they were expensive, they weren’t long enough for my leg thickness. Cue a cut scene to a mental image of how hard can metal working be!

I figured I’d take it in stages, then if I fall at a hurdle I’ll have to rethink. ebay had a length of 38mm diameter mild steel bar for sale at £12 inc delivery. It was just long enough to make 4 barrel nuts, assuming I could cut it up. It turned up a few days later, my mother was with us and received the delivery. ‘It feels like you’ve bought a bar of metal’ came the shout up the stairs, she had a good laugh when she found out she was spot on.

I’d bought 38mm bar stock as I have a 38mm forstner bit. I made cutting guide with a bored hole and a cut on the bandsaw. With a sharp new hacksaw blade it was pretty easy to cut. Soon there were four bits.

Some of the cuts were a bit rough, we’ll deal with that later.

Next up was drilling a central hole, the metal cylinders were clamped in the jig and a pilot hole drilled on the drill press.

Success so an M12 drill bit, tap and die set were ordered for the princely sum of £4.45 inc delivery, you can’t overprice quality!

With all four pilot holed, the jig was modified further to give more space for the swarf from the larger bit. With the cylinder clamped back in the jig I aligned the pilot hole with the larger bit and drilled through. Lots of smoking swarf, likely 3in1 is not ideal cutting fluid.

 

[Fitzroy]

I posted in the metal work forum to get help with the tapping as I had never done it before. Two of the helpful suggestions were to start the tap by hand in the drill press, and ensure no movement in the workpiece. To keep alignment I drilled the hole, then tapped each barrel nut, this kept the hole perpendicular, I moved the jig from drill press to workbench each time.

Jig screwed to the bench to stop it moving. Adjustable wrench to drive the tap was pretty good as I needed lots of torque. I was worried at first about how much torque was required but after a while I got the feel for it with a 1/4 forwards, a half turn back, add cutting oil, repeat over and over.

As mentioned earlier I had the messy ends to clean up. A bit more head scratching later and the jigs final job, combined with the belt sander.

Oh that brushed steel finish, sexy.

This is how it’s supposed to work, but through the legs and tenon into the stretcher. But now I’d made the bench bolts I felt confident to get on with the joinery and get the stretchers in place.

Total cost for the four was £23.50, a grand saving of about £10, lol. But it was lots of fun trying something new. This wasn’t the end of the metalworking ‘fun’ though, more on that later.

 

[Fitzroy]

I’m sure I’ve banged on about this many times, but one part of woodworking I like is deciding which face of the timber to use. I personally like interesting grain patterns, the wife not so much. My workbench, my shed, my choice.

Deciding faces and locations.

When planing this piece up I had a heart stopping moment when I thought I’d missed a nail. Having just replaced the planer blades I was upset. Upon investigation the nail turned out to be less shot, and there were multiple bits. Each staining is a single shot. Someone in times past had blasted the tree with a shotgun.

Without a dimensioned plan it’s easier to work from the actual piece. Stretchers were clamped in place and shoulders marked up. Tenons were cut in a similar fashion to before.

It was about this time I realised that the bolts I had bought were not threaded far enough. Luckily the tap had come with a matching die. But I had no die holder, back to eBay and cheerio to my £10 saving. Unfortunately the holder turned out to be made from cheese and the amount of torque to cut the thread far exceeded that used with the tap.

I ended up making a holder for the die holder, and using wedges to keep the holder screws in place after they had stripped the threads. A socket and wrench were used to turn the bolt in the die. I had bruised palms afterwards such were the forces involved, but I managed.

I did some testing regards drilling the hole through the leg and tenon into the stretcher. Opting for a 16mm hole to give sufficient space for any misalignment. I drilled a guide block on the drill press, this was clamped in place and the leg and stretcher drilled in one go with a long 16mm auger bit.

Some judicious marking of the stretcher and a hole cut on the drill press for the barrel nut, much crossing of fingers and the holes intersected, woohoo.

 

[Fitzroy]

In the lower mortices the tenons interfere with each other. I was going to mitre the ends but decided to just trim the tenons shirt on the end pieces. I’m planning to drawbore and glue these, and there is still adequate length. So the frame has all joinery done and even without glueing is rock steady due to tight fitting M&Ts.

I’m not going to glue the end frames for a while as there is more joinery for the worktop tenons and leg vice that will only be possible before assembly.

For today I’ll leave the writeup here.

Fitz.

 

[Jameshow]

Wow good work!

love the bar cutting and tapping jig.
Defo one to remember!

 

[Fitzroy]

18 months on I’ve done some more! Tenons cut on the top of each leg with the bandsaw. Individual boards are used to make up the mortices around the tenons.

The front of the split top aligns with the leg fronts, there will be a leg vice on the left leg and a sliding deadman. The front board is rebated to creat the front mortice.

It got too late to use power tools so I’ll wait until another day to hog out the waste with the mitre saw. Hopefully not another 18 months!

One thing I love about sycamore are the chips off the thicknesser are so lovely and uniform. Especially with fresh knives.

Fitz

 

[Fitzroy]

Just a query, I would have thought that the through tenons on a Roubo bench would have made the simple task of flattening the top a lot more difficult and frustrating. Having to plane the end grain of through tenons is never pleasant when you are trying to get an 'absolutely flat and true surface. Equally with humidity changes, unless the top is quarter sawn the movement in the wood would have made the tenons proud of the surface at certain times the year??

I was just pondering this last night. At present the tenons are taller than the worktop thickness. The top is not glued to the tenons so it can be removed. I think I will trim the tenons a millimetre or so below the top thickness, then I can flatten without this issue.

 

[Fitzroy]

Second half of the split top all boards milled to size. Just trying to work out what to do with the tail vice.

 

[Fitzroy]

Some more progress. The second half of the worktop is glued up! Dowel holes were drilled with the worktop dry fitted, dowels could then be used to glue up the top away from the tenons.

Drilling a 16mm 300mm long dowel hole proved problematic, the auger bit had so much friction my drill ended up smoking and I bent the auger bit, had to go to a 16mm flat bit.

I finally worked out my plan for the tail/wagon vice. The make the install easier later I did not glue in one section of the worktop, I rebated up to the dowel holes so I could cut the dowels with an oscillating multitool after glueing and slide the piece out.

When I glued up the first half of the top I stoopily put glue on what will be the dry mortice cheeks, this time I left myself some reminders to avoid the same mistake Oh and you can never have enough clamps.

Fitz

PS at this rate I may finally finish this bench this year.

 

[Fitzroy]

As I move towards having the tops on on the frame and flattening them I’m trying to minimise how much I need to remove.

When I made the first half of the split top I ended up with one board a few mm low in one spot. At the time I thought I’d sort it out when I flattened the top.

To avoid having to trim 3mm off the whole bench I routed out the section and glued in a patch. I’m really pleased at how it came out.

Fitz

 

[Adam W.]

Looks posh.