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+-- Thread: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure (/showthread.php?tid=3058880)
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Crooked Tail - 01-04-2008
Thanks, guys! And that's 3 sets of dovetails to go... right, of course.
Jonathan: I have 40" horizontally between the legs, 15.75" vertically between the stretchers, and 17" deep, from front to back. I tried to maximize that space as much as I could, while keeping the base beefy and strong. I plan to have six drawers, three on each side of the central divider. They will increase in size as they go down, the top drawers being the shortest, and the bottom drawers being the tallest.
I'm going to have a shallow cabinet with pegboard to hang stuff in the back, so the drawers will only be about 13" deep, from front to back. But they will be about 18" wide, so those are still pretty big drawers I think.
Geez. That means not 3 sets of dovetails left, but 27!
Of course, most of those will be in poplar and maple on the drawers. I'm finding that the softer the wood, the easier the dovetails, because the wood compresses some.
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Crooked Tail - 01-11-2008
It fits! It's the last corner! Whoo hoo! The next step is to make the little vertical divider in the back. It's just going to be a little strip of purpleheart, but it will give something to put the door latches on. I'll cut the dados for it, and cut the stopped grooves for the pegboard in the sides. Then the carcase will actually be ready to glue up!
Progress is always exciting. If I can get the carcase glued up this weekend, I will be happy.
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - FordPrefect - 01-12-2008
Did you get your dovetail saw repaired or replaced before cutting these dovetails? Either way the results are impressive. I am looking forward to the next installment.
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Crooked Tail - 01-12-2008
No, I used my old dovetail saw, which isn't really a dovetail saw at all, but does work. One of the things on my to-do list today is to get the dovetail saw sent off for a replacement. I'll probably wait until it arrives to start in on the drawers. In the meantime, I can mill all the parts and work on the doors. That will keep me plenty busy.
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Crooked Tail - 01-13-2008
OK, so the last installment probably wasn't very exciting for you guys. It was exciting for me, because I was getting pretty dang sick of dovetails. But yesterday and this morning I made some progress... lots of pics!
The carcase, finally getting glued up. A real mess, but at least it is starting to look like a cabinet!
This morning I started working on cleaning the corners. You can see that I left a lot of material on the dovetails. Bleh, this means a lot of work planing end grain.
Why did I do that? I hate planing end grain. Here's the first set of dovetails I did, showing the gaping hole because I wasn't paying attention when I laid the tails out. That hole is the groove for the pegboard.
I'm trying to fix it by gluing a plug into the hole. The glue is still drying. I'll cut it off with a saw and then plane it flush. We'll have to see how that turns out.
Here's the end that will be by the face vise, i.e., the most visible end of the cabinet. I did these dovetails last, and I hope you can see some improvement.
In this picture you can see the difference in the purpleheart and the maple. The maple will compress a little, the purpleheart... not at all. The slightest mistake sticks out like a sore thumb.
Now I'm planing the top and bottom of the corners flush. Man, this is a lot of work. Next time, I'll pay more attention to how much waste is left on my tails.
You'll also notice that I didn't line up the purpleheart and the maple. Didn't occur to me to check it until it was too late. Oh well. I think the transition area will be hidden behind the legs anyway. Another lesson here is grain matching. You can sure tell the difference between the two halves of the side panel. The panel on the top in this picture will be the bottom of the cabinet. I at least got that right... so those ugly dark spots won't be seen.
I'm now glad I'm writing all this down. I'll have to go back through the thread and pull out all my mistakes and lessons, and write them into a list, for easy reference for the next project.
Time to take a break.
So a few days ago, we had the biggest snow storm we've had in a couple years. Today it's 55 degrees, the snow is all gone, and I'm going golfing.
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Jonathan S - 01-13-2008
CT, that looks great. Definite improvement in you dovetails overt he course of the project. What happened to you dt saw, I must have missed that. By the way, if you did not point out your oops, no one would notice! When it comes time for my cabinet, I hope I have the courage to dt them. You are certainly an inspiration!
Jonathan
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Skip J. - 01-14-2008
Crooked Tail said:
OK, so the last installment probably wasn't very exciting for you guys. It was exciting for me, because I was getting pretty dang sick of dovetails. But yesterday and this morning I made some progress... lots of pics!
The carcase, finally getting glued up. A real mess, but at least it is starting to look like a cabinet!
CT - what is there left to say??? Yours is the best looking work on a bench on here, and you just keep on improving it!!!!!! Patching one little hole in a place that may not even show after assembly just blows the rest of us away.... once again..
Well Done!!!!
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Crooked Tail - 01-14-2008
Thanks, guys.
Although I think if you actually saw the bench up close, you wouldn't be so generous with your comments. 
Jonathan: I got a Lie-Nielsen dovetail saw a while ago, but it turned out it was not straight. They said to ship it back, and they'd send me a replacement. It must have got damaged in shipping. That was another thread. Great customer service, though!
I finally finished planing all the corners flush. Here's the face vise end and the top:
However, I have a problem. Here it is from the front:
When I took the clamps off after glue-up, the sides bowed out.
I thought the wedged through-tenons were going to hold it tight in the middle, but you can see from the gap at the top of the divider, it didn't work. I should have glued in the divider, let that set, and then glued the ends on, I guess. Instead, I tried to do it all at once. 
Is there anything I can do to fix that? Or should I just mark it up to experience, and make my drawer faces slightly curved, so there won't be a big gap? I don't know what to do about the gap in the divider. I could try shoving some purpleheart in there, but patches like that don't work well, in my limited experience. I could also put screws through the top into the divider to pull it tight. But that would be screws into endgrain. I'm sure the purpleheart will hold it, for a while anyway. It would also mean screw heads on the top of the bench, but they wouldn't be visible once the cabinet is installed in the bench.
Any suggestions welcomed!
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Scoony - 01-14-2008
What about using a few screws and then plugging the holes?
BTW looking good.
Re: CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure - Crooked Tail - 01-14-2008
Scoony said:
What about using a few screws and then plugging the holes?
BTW looking good.
Hmm. That's not a bad idea. The screws would be through the purpleheart. Maybe I could plug them with maple, to make it look like I meant to do that?