Woodworker's Workbench

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  • Posted on January 3, 2021

    It's a workbench!

    I cut and fit the wellboard piece between the benchtop and the rear apron. The original plan called for a tongue-and-groove joint on both sides of the wellboard, but this seemed like a very difficult joint to do well over such a length, even if I had a fully functional plough plane and rebate plane (which I do not). So in the end I decided not to do the groove at all, and just fit the wellboard in. If this turns out to allow too much flex in the bench overall, I can always install battens against the rear apron and screw the wellboard to those.

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  • Posted on December 24, 2020

    Completing the second leg frame

    I finished cutting and fitting the tenons on the bottom rail, then went straight on to planing all the pieces of the second frame smooth, trimming the top tenons and rounding over the bottom tenons, then gluing up the frame.

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  • Posted on November 30, 2020

    Fitting the third tenon

    With both tenons on the top rail fitted, it was time to move on to the bottom rail for the same leg frame. As before, I laid out my tenon lines with the mortise marking gauge.

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  • Posted on November 29, 2020

    Fitting the second tenon

    For the second tenon, looking at the grain direction I decided it was worth trying to split off one side instead of sawing it. Apart from a knotty section at the end, I think that ended up being a good call.

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  • Posted on February 25, 2019

    Planing the laminated aprons

    Both aprons are now laminated, and the results aren’t bad at all. I think that the pieces could have been a little more flat relative to each other, but the joins do seem to be very solid.

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  • Posted on February 22, 2019

    Sharpening the plane blade

    I stopped to take a picture of my plane blade just after sharpening it, for no other reason than I think it looks cool, and I’m proud of how sharp I can now get this thing in just a few minutes of effort.

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  • Posted on February 21, 2019

    Preparing the second apron

    Yesterday I unclamped the first apron lamination and had a look. I think it was a success. Definitely a more consistently tight join than what I had on the benchtop.

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  • Posted on February 19, 2019

    Laminating the first apron

    Today I unclamped the re-laminated benchtop, and it looks pretty good! Definitely a join where once there was a gap. So that’s a win. I spent some time planing down the benchtop to remove excess dried glue, and to reflatten now that the gap has closed.

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  • Posted on February 18, 2019

    Repairing the failed lamination

    Over the last few sessions I’ve been flattening and untwisting my first two apron pieces, but I decided it was about time I did something about the partially failed lamination in the benchtop. I noticed that the gap between the planks was accumulating dust and shavings, and figured that this would probably force the gap to continue to widen. It seemed like the longer I ignored this problem, the harder it was going to be to recover from.

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  • Posted on February 2, 2019

    Trimming the benchtop end

    Today I trimmed the end of the benchtop. I cut a knife line about 10mm from the end, squared off from the front edge, down the top side and underside, and then cut along the line with a handsaw.

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  • Posted on February 1, 2019

    Planing the benchtop underside

    Today’s effort was to plane down the underside face of the benchtop. The plane continued to perform admirably, and even thought the underside was considerably more rugged than the topside, I was able to complete the surface in one session.

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  • Posted on January 29, 2019

    Planing the benchtop surface

    I continued to plane down the top face of the benchtop. After a considerable effort I am fairly satisfied with how flat the surface is, and my next task will be to flip the piece over and start to work on the underside.

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  • Posted on January 26, 2019

    Laminating the benchtop

    I selected the eight best benchtop pieces, selected the best edge for each piece to make up the upper face of the benchtop, and decided what order to put them in. A few of the pieces were significantly bowed, so I tried to arrange them in such a way that the bowed pieces would straighten up under clamping.

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  • Posted on January 24, 2019

    Preparing the clamps

    Having successfully borrowed three pipe clamps from my dad, I spent some time preparing the clamps for the lamination effort. I cut out small pieces of marine plywood, and used double-sided tape to stick them onto the jaws of the clamps. Not a difficult job, but with 14 jaws in total to do, it certainly took a while.

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  • Posted on January 3, 2019

    Vice arrives

    My shipment of tools from Timbecon arrived, with my new vice, but with only two of my four T-bar clamps. I looked back at the invoice that had been emailled out to me, and sure enough in the notes it said that only two of the clamps had been shipped, and that the other two were on “back order”. That’s the kind of thing it would be handy to send a dude a separate email about.

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  • Posted on January 2, 2019

    Shopping success!

    After a lot of phone calls to hardware shops around Canberra, many of which were closed for the holidays, I finally found a business that would sell me some untreated structural pine: Home Timber and Hardware on Yass Rd in Queanbeyan. They had two sizes that I could use in MGP10, 45×70 and 45×140. I worked out that the 140 size would work for my leg frame rails, and could also make up the aprons if I laminate two boards together edge-on.

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  • Posted on January 1, 2019

    The treated pine blues

    After I duly consulted the website and carefully made a shopping list of all the timber I was going to need, Dad and I set off to Bunnings. Only, upon arriving at the store, we discovered that all of the structural pine they had in stock was treated. It turns out that the Bunnings website lists all of the products that are available at any Bunnings across Australia, so it really does pay to check whether a given store has the thing you need before driving out there!

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