small space woodworking

Lessons Learned (So Far)

A few things on the workbench build thus far:

  1. Always check your glue expiration date.  I’ve been agonizing this entire week over whether or not the first lamination of eight boards will hold up.  The PVA glue I used was (unbeknownst to me) nearing its expiration date.  After clamping the work for over 72 hours, I am leaving it un-clamped for another 72 hours or so.  By the time I check the lamination again on Saturday morning, if the glue is going to give, it will have (or so customer support told me).
  2. Finished length is never enough.  A twelve foot board from the home center is usually no more than 1/2″ overlong.  Subtract the kerf from crosscutting it to rough length and (theoretically) you’ve got about 3/8″ extra from which both ends need to be squared.  It never really works out that way, and I’m always short of my desired 72″ length.  An end cap on the tail vise side to cover the inner vice chop will get me back over six feet for the main bench (plus whatever thickness the outside tail vise chop will be).
  3. Finished thickness is never enough.  A home center 2×10 is about 1 1/2″ thick off the rack, but do not use this as the base multiple for buying the bench top lumber.  After dressing for the glue up, I was lucky that one or two of the boards even came in at 1 3/8″ thick.  Most were closer to 1 1/4″.  Eight boards combined for only 10 1/2″ of total depth (or an average of 1 5/16″), so I needed to buy another twelve foot 2×10 just to complete main core of the bench top.
  4. Remember the limitations of your tools.  All of Item Three aside, I own a 13″ thickness planer.  This means the actual core can only be ten boards total and still fit through.  Each of the laminations containing the mortises (3 boards thick each) must therefore be created separately and added onto the main slab after.  If I can get the mortise laminations square and straight (using the dressed core slab as a reference), they can each be glued onto the main slab (with fresh glue, this time, and maybe a lag bolt or two) to full the form bench top.
  5. Improvise.  The total bench top lamination described in Item Four is sixteen boards deep, and should be approximately 21″ total.  This is a fine depth for a bench, but I plan to add one more board to the show face of the assembled bench (i.e., to the bench top and the front legs.  Party because I know dressing the entire slab will remove additional material and partly because it will allow me to move the dog strip out of the mortise layer.  I already have the prettiest boards set aside.

Sorry for the block text.  This was more an exercise of me thinking through these issues than content generation.

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So here is the plan…

Before I could turn this:

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Why is there a diapers box in my planer dungeon?

into this:

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2/3 of the core slab.

I had to replace these:

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I wonder if the old blades are re-sharpenable…

The previous blades got pretty beat up when re-flattening the old planing slab.  It turns out that water-based wood filler > carbide blades.  But I must have known this day was coming, because I had a spare set of blades.

So after a morning of flattening one face of each board (by hand), then an hour or so of thicknessing (by machine) and smoothing for final glue up (by hand), I had eight boards at a total depth of 10.5″.  Exactly half of the total depth on the new workbench.

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It’s actually 10 9/16, but who’s counting?

The glue-up was a nightmare, though.  Despite some aggressive shaking, the older PVA glue was starting to get viscous and kept clogging in the nozzle. I am hoping the glue holds up, as it was over two years old.  It would be a pain to redo the glue-up, but I do own a heat gun if worse comes to worst.

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Ordinarily, the sign of a good glue-up is squeeze-out from the knots!

I can add two more boards to the core and still be narrow enough to pass through my thickness planer.  Which I will do next weekend.

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What to do?

My car took longer than usual being serviced, and traffic was absolutely horrendous, so I didn’t make any workbench progress on Saturday. Instead, I spent some time dicking around with scrap 1/2″ x 3″ red oak left over from the tray runners on the medium tool chest. About 20″ total of flat and square stock was just enough for the carcass of a tiny dovetailed box.

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Shooting with a block plane on my counter. Not recommended!

When it comes to dovetailing in softwoods, as long as you can saw straight, fiber compression will do most of the work toward achieving perfect joints. In hardwoods like red oak, though, there is such a thing as too tight.  But if you go slow and apply some persuasion, everything can come together nicely.  And dovetailing in hardwoods is a great opportunity to determine if your dovetail saw needs resharpening (mine needed both sharpening and set, in fact).  Le sigh.

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Meh, I’ve done worse.

On a related note, the bench chisels in the background are my spare set (made by WoodRiver).  They hold an edge well and are quite balanced, but the side lands are way too thick for tight dovetail work.  Not like my Narex chisels (which are still at my parents’).  As a result, the tail recesses are not as neat as I would have liked.  But the carcass is finished.

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And sturdy as can be.

With the inside dimensions of only 3.75″ square, I would think it has potential as a keepsake box.  Or at least an adequate receptacle for collar stays and cuff links.

Stay tuned for the upcoming “Basic Projects” installment for this piece.  But first there will be more on the workbench later this week.

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Acute Sense of Longing

I left my No. 4 and my No. 7 hand planes at my parents’ house last week so they’ll be there when I pick up the workbench build again on Saturday.  That means the only bench planes remaining in my apartment workshop (other than a block plane) are a No. 4 1/2 smoother and a No 5 1/2 jack plane.  The shop feels positively undermanned.

Once my go-to bench plane, it’s been a long time since I’ve even touched the No. 5 1/2 (having been pretty much entirely replaced by my No. 7).  And the No. 4 1/2 has always been exclusively for final smoothing (an excellent luxury if you can swing it).

All of this is a roundabout admission. I had hoped to put together another “Basic Projects” installment this week, but I feel absolutely lost without at least my No. 4.  I just couldn’t psych myself up to make anything.

Everyone’s got a favorite, after all.

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So Many Things Change

My weekend was somewhat productive.

On Saturday, I set up the temporary workshop at my parents’ house.  I even solved the biggest problem with my old workbench: stability.  I did so in two ways.  First, I screwed the top down to the frame with some 3″ No. 12 screws (no longer just relying just on the friction-fit 3/4″ stub tenons for lateral support).  Second, I loaded up the underside of the frame with additional ballast in the form of five-to-six foot lengths of lumber.  The net result is a workbench that now weighs about 300 lbs (better known as approximately what a workbench should weigh).

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From L to R:  8/4 red oak, 6/4 maple, 8/4 maple, 2×6 Douglas Fir and 2×10 Douglas Fir.

On Sunday, I got right to ripping down almost all of the Douglas Fir 2×10’s that will become the new workbench.  Approximately 60 feet of 2×10’s became the following:

  • 2 x 4.5 x 72 (times 12, for most of the laminated benchtop)
  • 2 x 4.5 x 62 (times 4, for most of the laminated legs once crosscut)
  • 2 x 4.5 x 82 (times 2, for the tenons on the laminated legs once crosscut)

The final 82″ of 2×10 (seen below the bench) is the prettiest lumber of all (even with a knot or two) and will become the faces of the front legs and the benchtop.  Some of the off-cuts from the 82″ lengths will also go to the strips of the benchtop that form the mortises (more on that below).

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To be left out, for a week, to further acclimate.

Four things became apparent during the stock breakdown process.

  1. I really miss my miter saw.  For this build, waste is anathema, and a clean, straight, crosscut is key to ensuring full length.  And it’s so much quicker than by hand.  my miter saw used to live in my old apartment.  I had no idea how much I missed it.
  2. Even quarter- and rift-sawn lumber has internal stresses.  One of the 12 foot lengths of 2×10 (in fact, the clearest and straightest-grain of the batch) split lengthwise along the grain while I was crosscutting it on the miter saw.  There was so much energy bound up in the piece that upon splitting a shard of wood shot off the main board and hit me in the eye protection.  After cutting around those stresses, the remainder of the piece will become one of the strips that form the mortises on the benchtop.
  3. I don’t have enough lumber for the entire bench.  The plan was for the lumber seen above to be the entire bench, but I don’t think that will work.  This should nonetheless get me a 4 x 20 x 72 benchtop and four 4 x 4 legs, and probably the short stretchers.  I think another 16 feet of Douglas Fir 2×6 will be plenty for the long stretchers.
  4. Battery-powered circular saws have limitations.  Just ripping the lumber shown above used four full charges of double 20V batteries and three full charges of single 20V batteries.  I either need another charger or a corded circular saw.

More than anything, this post has helped me think through exactly how to use the available materials in the most efficient way practicable. I may need one or two more boards, but for about $100, I will have most of a proper workbench.

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Out of Retirement

As I begin the new workbench build this weekend, I won’t be in my apartment woodworking shop.  For starters, there is just not enough room.  And the entire operation relies on proximity to my thickness planer.  So I am pulling my old workbench out of retirement.

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My, how far I’ve come.

 

At 84″ long and 24″ deep, my old workbench (which has been collecting dust in storage my parents’ house) is the perfect work surface for laminating the new benchtop.  The old workbench needs to be moved inside, though, and will reside in their basement for the foreseeable future.

I’m also pulling a few power tools into the mix for this build in particular.  The top will be laminated from 72″ lengths of Douglas Fir 2×10’s ripped down the middle and a circular saw will rip much squarer (and quicker) than I can by hand.  The end result should be a thicker overall bench top.  In fact, I am hopeful the slab will be over 4″ thick after flattening, so my 12-inch double bevel sliding compound miter saw will be indispensable as well.

I’m doing 72″ for two reasons.  One, it should still be transportable (in pieces).  Two, the use of a quick-release tail vise will add extra length as required (and I can always make an insert).

More details to come, but suffice to say, I’m heavily influenced by Roubo’s Plate 11 in this build.  There will be a crochet, but I do plan to skip the sliding dovetails.

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Some [Non-]Mechanical Assistance

I’m not always kind to my Work Sharp 3000 sharpening system.  It’s a temperamental machine, in my experience. But seeing as I somehow let some of my chisels get a bit out of shape, the Work Sharp has spent a fair time on my bench lately.

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In all its glory.

For those unfamiliar with the product, the Work Sharp spins a tempered glass disc covered with adhesive-backed abrasive paper on each face (see above).  With the disc spinning, the top face is typically used for flattening, while an adjustable tool rest permits bevel-grinding and sharpening on the underside (up to 2″ wide).  Though great for bevels, I’ve found it nearly impossible to evenly flatten on the top face while the disc is spinning.  But the discs are very flat, which is what I’d like to talk about today.

For flattening, I typically use a machinist’s granite slab with adhesive-backed sandpaper.  The setup is admittedly much better for planes than for chisels and the granite slab can be cumbersome in use.  For example, I can only adhere a few different grits at a time (which range only from 80 to 320).  Also, changing sandpaper often leaves adhesive residue that needs to be scraped away (or worse, removed with mineral spirits).  So instead, I’ve been using the Work Sharp discs for re-flattening my chisels, but off the machine.

To begin with, there are more grits available than with adhesive-backed sandpaper (WS goes from 80 grit to 3000 and above) and each of grit is available at all times because I own 5 glass discs.  Plus each disc is naturally non-skid on the benchtop, having abrasive paper on both sides.  In addition, because each disc is barely over a chisel-length in diameter, I can work the chisel from all angles use every square inch of abrasive on the discs (unlike my granite slab, where large swathes of fresh grit are wasted).  Finally, the abrasive on the WS discs lasts much longer than ordinary sandpaper and can be easily cleaned with a crepe block while spinning on the machine.

And the results have been more than satisfactory, especially for my purposes.

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Polished to 1000 grit only.  I already own enough mirrors and my chisels are for chopping.

I’m not recommending anyone go out and buy a Work Sharp 3000 (and certainly don’t blow $100 on extra glass discs just because they are nice surfaces for flattening).  But small-space woodworking is about finding the right tool for the job from what’s available.  And in this case, something I had on hand works better than anything else.

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Engage the Forward Stabilizers

I’ve been a bit under the weather, so not much has gotten done in the workshop.  That’s not all bad, though.  It gave a Douglas Fir post, which I bought to be the top rails on the Japanese-style Saw Horses, more time to acclimate.  A good thing, too: it was sopping wet when purchased, as though left out in the rain for a day or two before the pallet was brought to the rack.

Over the last couple of weeks of drying, the two 36″ lengths that will become the top rails stayed quite straight.  There was barely any twist either.  What did happen, though, was some severe checking on the ends and on one face.  It makes me think the wood was greener than it should have been (or was left out in the rain for a very long time).

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This is what happens when wood dries too fast.

None of the checks were structural, nor very deep.  Not even the long check down the face grain seen in the above picture.  That does not mean, however, that they shouldn’t be stabilized.  There will after all be mortises within a couple inches of each end.

My strong preference for stabilizing end grain checking (and knots, for that matter) has always been thin viscosity cyanoacrylate glue.  Like the Ents at Isengard, I just keep pouring CA glue into the checks until the gaps are filled and the bubbling stops.  Then I give it about five minutes to set before I seal it up with spray activator.

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It looks gross, but it works.

I will let those sit for a day or two to fully harden inside, then I’ll square up the ends with a chop saw.  The end result should be pristine end grain and clean glue lines in the stabilized checks.

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Nothing Too Extreme

While I wait for the Douglas Fir posts to dry out and become the top rails for my new sawhorses, I’ve doing a little bit of shaping around the edges. Literally.

One design element I’ve noticed in most saw horses of this style are the beveled feet.  Although the rake varies, very rarely are the feet left four square.  So I went with the crowd.

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Subtle on its own, but noticeable in comparison.

Each bevel is about 3/8″ deep and 7.5″ long, but the measurements are not exact.  I am sans band saw, so all work was done with a No. 4 set as heavy as I could.

The most surprising part was the ability to work in both grain directions.  My No. 4 is by no means supertuned for smoothing, but it was sharp and I was able to work in both grain directions with only slight tear out.  And a couple final passes with my No. 4 1/2 in the correct direction cleared all of that up.

It’s nice when something actually works right the first time.  I’m pleased enough with the shape of this first foot that it will become the pattern for the other three feet.

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Where We Last Left Off

Things went better than expected with the laminated feet for the prototype Japanese-style sawhorse prototype.

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About as well as could be hoped, judging by the facial expression.

Before I hit the thickness planer this weekend, I did in fact cut the dadoes that will end up being the mortise in each laminated foot.  When cutting wide dadoes, I like to leave a bridge section in the middle on which to register the sole of the router plane.  I don’t know why, but this time before thicknessing I left the bridges in one foot and removed the bridges in the other.  There was no difference in the thicknessing result, FYI.

In any event, the bridge is easily chiseled away after the majority of the dado is proper depth.

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Like so.

I also tried something new, which I will call “gang-thicknessing”.  Having taken the time to square up each edge to the reference face, I clamped the foot assembly together before sending it through the thicknesser.  It goes without saying that you should ensure the metal clamps are clear of both the cutter head and the sides of the machine before doing this.  But if done right, it will ensure assembled foot is parallel (and each foot is exactly the same height).

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Again: CLAMPS CLEAR OF THE CUTTER HEAD AND THE SIDES!

The sides and top of each foot still need dressing to remove any plane tracks, but I am very pleased with how it all came together.  I have also dimensioned the rest of the prototype parts (legs, stretcher, top rail) and hope to finish the joinery in the next couple days.  Meanwhile, the feet are glued up and drying.

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Other than the knots, it kind of looks like LVL, doesn’t it?

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