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+-- Thread: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure (/showthread.php?tid=3058880)
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Crooked Tail - 12-30-2007
Eric: Perhaps you could put some drawers above and below the stretcher? Probably not optimal, but would be better than nothing I think. The workbench books say you should have the stretcher in the middle, for stability. On the first base for this bench I ignored this advise and put the stretchers way low to have room for the cabinets. The base was not nearly stout enough, so I had to do it over, with four stretchers.
Well, here's another of my trials. You'll notice a slight... err anomaly:
I was just telling myself in the last post to measure these things carefully. Well, I got lazy and didn't measure the mortises from both sides, which really is critical to this joint. As a result, you see that I didn't lay them out far enough from the edge, and I ended up putting a mortise right through the pegboard groove in the back. Since it is on the bottom of the cabinet, it will show terribly when you open the doors.
So I decided to patch it with false tenons as best I could, to make it look like I meant to do that.
Then I cut the corresponding tenons on the central divider. I trimmed them down as necessary and had to plane the divider quite a bit to fit it in the dado. You can see I had a little blowout when I was smoothing the bottom of the dado, so I'll have to patch it a little some how, or plane a bit off that edge.
Here's the fit from the other side. I trimmed one of the tenons too narrow. I'll have to patch that too. When it comes to assembly time, I'll cut the kerfs and wedges so they will look like the finished patches when it's assembled.
Today my plan is to fit the tenons on the top, just like I did with these. I also want to get the sides cut to length and square up the endgrain. Then the next step will be to do the dovetails which will hold all of this together. But before I do that, I'm going to review my Crosman dovetail DVD and practice a bit on some scrap.
As always, thank you guys for your kind comments.
On a side note, I've decided that heat and air conditioning are two major necessities if I ever get to set up a dedicated shop. It never gets this cold in Las Vegas (what most people associate with Nevada). But I live about 20 minutes from Lake Tahoe, 450 miles north of LV, at about 5000' above sea level. Winter day time highs often linger around freezing, and summer highs are in the 90s usually. Northeastern Nevada is considerably colder. It's only the lower 1/3 or so of the state that is actually hot. I'm very happy I don't live there!
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Danny in Houston - 12-30-2007
GREAT THREAD!!
I've been away from the forum for a while and I am so glad I just stumbled across this thread. Please keep posting - you could almost charge money for this thread. You may want to think about writing an article - seriously. I would think a woodworking magazine might pay you some real cash for this article.
That's a Most Excellent Workbench indeed!!
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Mike W in PA - 12-31-2007
Nice job covering your "feature'd" mortices.
BTW, I agree - you might want to write this up as an article for a magazine. This thread is superb!
Keep up the great work!
-Mike
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Crooked Tail - 01-03-2008
I watched my Rob Crosman DVD again, where he makes it look way too easy. I practiced on some purpleheart, with such pitiful results that I'm too embarrassed to post pictures of them (in comparison, the mortise mishap is not at all embarrassing). After almost a dozen practice sessions, I decided I'm never going to get good dovetails in purpleheart. So I'm just thankful that by a little stroke of luck, I managed to design this thing so that the dovetails in the purpleheart will be mostly hidden from view.
So here I go, starting on the real thing. That is waaaay too many tails. What did I get myself into?!
Tons o' tails and tons o' tear-out. I should be able to fix the latter, though. Many thanks to Buckaroo for the wonderful Secret Santa gift of a No. 80 cabinet scraper. Just what the doctor ordered!
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - TNWoodwright - 01-03-2008
Without a doubt you'll be a master dovetailer /dovetaileris
when your done with that. Practice makes perfect and you'll have done your share to obtain that. Be looking forward to the pictures.
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Crooked Tail - 01-04-2008
Well, things actually came together better than I expected, considering my less-than-stellar practice results. OK, who can spot
#95? Yes, indeedy, I forgot all about my groove when I was laying out the tails, and by the time I realized what I did, all the tails were already cut. 
So I will have to patch that gaping hole, and a couple little gaps come glue-up time. 
Below is a pic of the top.
#96 is a blowout from hitting the chisel too hard. It went all the way through, instead of just cutting to halfway, and it splintered some of the PH off. 
Otherwise, better than I expected. It will look much better when planed flush. This is also the least-visible corner: the top corner on the side under the tailvise. I will lay out the remaining three corners differently to account for the groove. I will, I will, I won't forget!
This calls for a martini.
One down, three to go.
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Jonathan S - 01-04-2008
CT, Those are some pretty sweet DT's I have not even tackled anything bigger that a drawer, and mine don't look anywhere that nice.
Just out of curiosity how much room do you have between your stretchers? How many drawers to you expect to get in.
I just finished fitting my stretchers into he trestle ends tonight. I still need to drill the holes for the bolts. I only have 13" between them for cabinets.
Keep us posted, I'm looking forward to seeing it finished, and hoping mine turns out half as nice!
Jonathan
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - rarebear - 01-04-2008
Looks great..
You can close the gaps a litle by peening them a lttle with light hammer taps to mushroom the wood into the gaps right after glue up..
You can also get thin pieces and hammer them thinner to use as a filler to bigger gaps..
Then plane the extra off..
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Cian - 01-04-2008
Excellent progress!
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - captjack - 01-04-2008
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This calls for a martini.
One down, three to go.
______________________________________________
is that one martini down, three to go?
Nice job on the work bench! You should be proud!