After taking a look see at what I got done so far, I'm thinking I should have this workbench back together by this weekend. I'm already feeling a little out of sorts not having my bench to work on. I did few ops on the bench already wishing I had a "bench" to put it on to do it. Having two saw benches is proving to be invaluable and I don't know how I would do this without them.
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| bench anatomy |
The center working part of my workbench is 4 boards - 2x SYP. One is a 2x6 and the other is a 2 x10. I faced glued them together and I then edge glued them to give me the main width of the benchtop. I got this idea from Scott Landis's Workbench book. Specifically the one on the Shaker Hancock bench, which I have had the pleasure of gazing at fondly and actually touching. I also got to open a drawer and got to look at the dovetailing.
I glued this assembly between the maple dog block and the back apron. I've been using this bench as is for 20 years without any problems. It proves you don't need a 6" thick slab of wood for a bench top. Although I will note that it's added weight would have been welcomed.
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| dog block |
I don't recall how or why I have this groove on the left. I know that I made a groove and glued some square stock in it for the wagon vise to ride on. Did I run the groove down the entire length or did I start the groove on the wrong end first? The little inclined area to right of the dog hole was deliberate on my part. This was going to be a planing stop. It didn't work out because the shoulder vise was in the way and made it very un-user friendly. Looks like I'll get to see if it's still that or if it is usable.
I took opportunity here to clean up the post rail connections. I only had one that didn't need any attention. I don't know how I made any sense out of the layout marks because there are a bazillion of them.
The back apron was cut to the same width as the dog block ass'y. This way the bottom of the both of them are in the same plane and they are what bear on the top of the base.
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| layout lines |
These are the original layout lines for the position of the base on the wagon vise side. I also have my layout lines still on the opposite end of the top. The position of the base on the bottom of the top determined where I made my dog holes. The spacing on the first two dog holes are closer then the rest because of this.
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| marking for where I'll make my saw cuts |
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| a tad out square and plumb |
I laid out my lines in pencil and I grabbed my 26" crosscut saw. I started with that one but finished it with my crosscut panel saw. Why? the 26" saw is an older Disston that was sharpened by a machine. Trying to saw with it is like trying to cut wet paper with dull scissors. The panel saw was sharpened by hand by Matt Cianci and it went through this SYP as easy as a hot knife slides through butter. You can see a difference in the teeth between the two of them.
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| you can see the difference |
This cut was plumb/square except for the one spot at the bottom. This was from my initial attempt to saw this with the 26" saw. The rest of the cut was done with the panel saw. If this doesn't tell you there is difference between machine and hand saw filing, you're blind.
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| still fubar |
I got the base horizontals cut to the length I want. The front edge is positioned on the first/second dog block line and this is what I get at the rear. The base is square to the front - I don't know why it's OTL here (it's a 1/4"). I'm not going to obsess about it. It's survived 20yrs like this, it'll survive another 20. What's important to me is that I don't have any overhang anymore. The back is flush, end to end.
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| see the wedge? |
The wedge between the drawer runner and the base is an 1/8" strong. (the other side is less then this) The runners are square to the front and rear rails which makes me happy. It'll be easy fitting drawers.
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| won't work |
I was playing around with where the base will go before I went with the original placement. I was trying to figure out some way to minimize the number of dog holes I'll be losing. After fussing with it for a while I decided that this overhang here is way too much of a tippy hazard.
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| new face vise home |
No matter where I put this vise I lose 3 dog holes. Two of them outright and the third I can reclaim if I make a hole for it. The vise is going to sit on a 5/4 piece of poplar because I want to be able to clamp against something a minimum of 4" + wide and that will give me some depth. I can make a hole for one dog to go through. The other two I have an oak dog I made that I can cut in half and maybe use that. We'll see what shakes out.
accidental woodworker
"I'd rather regret the things I've done, then the things I haven't done."
Lucille Ball
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