Fitting the front apron

I completed cutting the leg recesses on the front apron and did a test fit of both aprons to the leg frames.

Then I tested the benchtop out on the leg frames. I found that there was a noticable twist in the underside of the benchtop. Checking with the winding sticks, it was very difficult to detect but when the benchtop was sitting on top of the leg frames, it had a definite wobble to it.

I planed down the twist until I thought it was at an acceptable level, and then started preparation to glue the benchtop to the front apron.

benchtop fitted — Both aprons and the benchtop in position

It’s really exciting and satisfying to see the major pieces of the bench assembled like this. I’m really close to having a usable bench.

I bored the holes for my coach bolts with a bit-and-brace, which was way more effective than I expected. Even with my ancient, second-hand, poorly maintained auger bit, I was able to bore through the ~110mm of material in about a minute and with very little effort.

Then I tapped the coach bolts into place and attached washers and nuts, and with the aprons secured, went on to glue the benchtop to the front apron.

I needed to remove the rear apron temporarily, so I hit the back end of the coach bolts with a hammer to get them out. Turns out this was not a great idea, as it wrecked the end of the screw thread on the bolt, and I could no longer thread the nut on. After some messing around trying to get this to work, I eventually decided to try filing down a taper on to the end of the bolt, which I figured would remove the disrupted thread section and allow the nut to bite on to the remaining “good” thread. This approach did work but was kind of a pain in the butt.

Lessons learned

Don’t use a hammer on the end of a threaded bolt. Use a piece of wood as a packer between the hammer and the bolt to prevent damage to the thread.

What’s next

Installing sunk hex head screws in the upper aprons.
Cutting and fitting the wellboard.