Monday’s post was apparently number 200 here at The Apartment Woodworker.  I feel like 200 posts in a little over two years isn’t so bad.  Here’s to the next 200 or so.  Still with me?  Good.

Call me crazy, but I left the workbench slab in the clamps for almost 48 hours.  There was a tiny bit of twist (maybe 1/64″) in the mating surfaces between the two timbers and I didn’t take any chance the PVA glue (Titebond II) would fail simply for insufficient curing time.  This isn’t 3/4″ pine here.  But I’m starting to think the twist might have had something to do with this nasty check at the end of one board.

Masked for when it gets stabilized.

I’ve talked about it in the past, but I like to stabilize end grain checks with thin viscosity cyanoacrylate glue (i.e., super glue).  It dies hard and clear and penetrates deep into the check.  This particular check goes almost 3/4 of the way through the thickness, but seems to angle upward, so I might not need the whole bottle of CA glue.  But if I do, so be it.

That ridge in the middle of the tape is the gap.

The good news is the check is on the underside of the main slab, and at the back right corner (to hide the bit of wain).  As long as the check gets sealed up, that should be the end of the problem.

Should be.

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I’ve been building an even better workbench of late, and today was a major milestone in the build: laminating the top. Unlike my current workbench, the main slab of this benchtop is just two boards. And they both came from the same length of wood, so in my book, that still counts as only one board. 

Gimli would be proud.

The lamination is 91 inches long, 15.5 inches wide, and a shade under 4 inches thick. I would like the benchtop to be about 22 inches of total depth, but I dont have any more 12/4 ash and I don’t want to laminate smaller boards onto the main slab.  So I have a decision to make: add a tool well or make a torsion box out of 5/4 ash to form the final third of the benchtop. Can it be both?

That hollow will come out during final dressing.

I keep thinking about that stretcherless Shaker Workbench and how that back board was held on with pegs in the main slab. But I’d like the option to use the tool well when I don’t need a full-depth bench. 

Has anyone ever made a reversible tool well?

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I have poured my heart and soul into many woodworking projects.  The rolling cart for my new Craftsman tool chest is not one of those projects.  It’s a utility piece and there is no mistaking it.  That having been said, there are a few things about the project that I really like.

• Halflap joints are exceptionally strong when done right.  The shoulder on the vertical stiles is a load bearing surface.  And if the shoulders are square to a reference face, they go a long way toward keeping the horizontal rails (and therefore the entire frame) square.  Finally, face grain to face grain glue surface translates into a joint that will never come apart.  And it’s relatively easy to cut with a single saw.

I even get to use my large tenon saw.

• Whitewood is a joy to work.  Home center whitewood 2×4’s often have a birdseye figure that glistens after smoothing.  The wood is kiln-dried, gentle on plane irons and saw blades, and the price per board foot is unbeatable.  The frames pictured below were made with less than $6 of wood.  The entire whitewood frame for the rolling cart will cost less than $20 (and that includes 2″ decking screws).  Add in casters and a 24×48 sheet of birch plywood and that’s the entire basic cart.

The screws just hold the joint together until the glue dries.

It makes me wonder: would a whitewood workbench be tough enough?  It would certainly go together with hand tools much easier than the equivalent of Douglas Fir, I’d think.  For a light duty bench, say a 10 foot planing bench, I bet whitewood works just fine.

One last thing on whitewood: I’ve noticed is that the grain direction doesn’t quite work the same as other woods.  These boards often have the pith running straight through the middle.  This means the grain runs in the same direction on both faces.  I always manually check the grain first, because flipping end over end (like you’d do with other boards) could be a quick way to some nasty tear out.

Next up is cutting 3/4″ recesses for the long rails, then more gluing and screwing.

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So maybe it does look like a coffin, but the traveling tool chest 2.0 is officially done.  I use the word “done” on purpose, because it’s not quite finished (cough).

But it is ready for finish.

In the end, there was very little agonizing over how to attach the iron handles.  Two oak blocks were glued to the inside of the chest and screws were driven from each side.  Simple.

Seen here, like a very lazy dog bone handle.

Unlike its precedessor, this chest has a single stationary till.  I don’t usually dovetail tills (preferring to rabbet and nail for speed of assembly), but in this case, only dovetails would do.  There will be too much stress on the left wall of the till every time it comes in and out of the chest.

For strength and woodworking pr0n.

Having never built a stationary till before, I reach an organic solution that but for modesty I would claim credit for.  The rack on the back wall is proud of the runner and acts as a stop to keep the till from sliding around.  I am undoubtedly not the first to use such a trick.

If it ever wears out, I’ll add another rack on the front wall.

The till itself is only 9″ wide, which limits its holding capacity to smaller items.  But that means about 13″ of floor space is unobstructed: plenty to get a jointer plane in and out without having to remove the till.  This is a vast improvement over version 1.0, where the “sliding” till blocked all access to the well.

Now to psych myself up for painting.  In the meantime, I’m making the crochet for my workbench.

More on that soon.

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Having cleared some general carpentry projects from my plate, I got back to doing what I do best: picking up projects I hadn’t thought about in weeks (months?).  In this particular case, it was the travel tool chest.  It’s been lidless for a long time.  So I made a lid.

Seems to be a theme here.

It’s probably clear from the picture above, but that’s just a 1/4 piece of home center birch plywood face glued to a 3/4 piece of home center birch plywood.  It’s a trick from Christopher Schwarz’ A Traditional Tool Chest in Two Days and it is fantastic.  I can use plywood here because the chest has a proper dust seal (that works like edge banding and hides the ugly plywood edges).

Seen here (2/3 scale).

The benefit of plywood (in addition to the ease of “raising” a panel) is the full length glue-up on all three sides of the dust seal.  There was a bit of twist in the dust seal, but the weight of the clamps was enough to press it flat while the glue dried.

Gravity is a wonderful thing, when applied correctly.

Even with the strength of a full length glue up, I plan to nail the dust seal into place.  I am also yet to level the top seams and fill the back edge of the plywood (with water-based wood putty).  Then it’s painting time.

My buddy thinks it looks like a coffin.

What I haven’t figured out is what to do with the inside of the chest.  On the last incarnation, the full length sliding tray didn’t really have room to slide and totally blocked access to the tools below when in place.  On this version, I might hang a stationary (but removable) till on the inside left.  Something large enough to hold all the odds and ends for on-site woodworking, but not so big that it blocks the well entirely.  That plus a wall rack with 1/2″ holes on 1 1/8″ center should be plenty of storage.

And there is the small matter of how to attach the handles.  Oak runners for sliding tills usually reinforce the side walls enough to use iron chest lifts.  I either need to attach more wood to the inside of the chest, or make rope beckets to screw in from both outside and inside.

Neither option is ideal, but one is clearly easier.

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