CT's Most Excellent Workbench Adventure

[Brent I]

The dovetails are perfect. I know you are proud of them.

[Jim McCoy]

Well, I posted this before reading the entire thread. But I'll leave it in case somebody else likes the idea.

Regarding the tooltray, you could put one in the center, or you could make a separate tool tray that slides out from the back end on three or four slides mounted under the bench, which would not only allow you to clamp from that end, but also would increase your potential bench width for bigger work pieces. Not my idea--I saw it somewhere or other.

[Crooked Tail]

Biocmp: The mortises in the base for the stretchers are 4" x 3/4". Now that I think about it, that's a pretty big tennon... maybe I should have made it a double tennon. The stretchers themselves are 5 1/2" wide by 1.5" thick.

The mortises for the legs and the crossmembers are 1" x 2".

I am looking forward to working with "normal" sized joinery soon.

[biocmp]

Thanks CT, what size mortise chisel did you use? Are you supposed to match the width of the mortise with the width of your chisel?

that seems like an awfully big chisel

[Crooked Tail]

I... well... ummm... didn't use a mortise chisel. And that was a bad idea. (See page 6.)

For the long sides of the stretcher mortisesI used a 1" chisel (after I put a new handle on it - Frankenchisel), which is the biggest I have. Just line it up in the groove left by the mortise gauge, and try to keep it straight.

I also used the same chisel for both sides of the leg/crossmember mortises.

[FordPrefect]

Wow, CT. That bench is looking great!

Those dovetails are pretty much perfect too. Good work!

One comment, even though my bench doesn't look that nice, I do find it works better if you stand it on the legs rather than the bench top

[Crooked Tail]

Thanks for the compliments Ford, and the suggestion also... I just KNEW that something didn't look right!

I did get around to mounting the facevise hardware today... Wow, that was a lot harder than I anticipated. This has actually been one of the most frustrating parts of the bench so far... all because I was being stupid.

My first problem was that the underside of the bench where I needed to mount it was not flat, because I accidentally cut too much out of one of the slats where the hardware goes. So I messed around shimming and adjusting it for over an hour.

Now, I learned long ago that it's better to read the directions before you just jump in and wreck something and frustrate yourself. A harder lesson has been this: After you read the directions, FOLLOW THEM!

The directions said to cut the holes for the guide rods at something just under 1" (it was in metric). "Well, 7/8" looks good enough to me!" says I. The directions said to cut the hole for the screw at something about 1 1/8". Hmph! "One inch is plenty!"

Well, it wasn't. So I spent another hour messing with it and enlarging the holes until the vise finally glides easily. The hardware holds the vise. The bench does not hold the vise. The bench is just there to be the rear jaw. Therefore the hole size is not critical, except for one aspect: they must be big enough for the guide rods, and to allow a little error in layout and drilling.

Grasshopper now understand the nature of facevise...

The moral of the story is: if you're going to read the directions, you really ought to follow them also.




Shower, martini, Harry Potter, and bed. In that order.

[FordPrefect]

What are you planning for the face material? More purpleheart, maple? Or are you planning to snaz it up with some waterfall bubinga

[Crooked Tail]

The face material will be purpleheart and maple, a la Gabe's bench. (Which obviously supplied a lot of the inspiration for my bench.)

Waterfall bubinga will have to wait for an "inside" project. No sense in using it on something that will live in the garage!

[Bob Zajicek]

Nice looking dovetails.

Sounds like the vise install was quite a party. Is yours from LV? I installed the smaller LV version for use as an end vise on my bench. Knowing the vise was an import, I just measured the rods with a caliper and found the closest corresponding drill to match them. This is one of the perks of being older and wiser.

I noticed a few things about your vise install. First, the grip looks to be a little shallow... about 2" maybe? I'm estimating the distance from the bench top to the top of the guide rods, BTW. This will probably work OK, but usually this distance is twice that.

Another thing, the bench skirt is serving as your rear jaw. This is fine, but the jaws tend to get chewed up after a while and you'll want to replace them. This is much easier if the rear jaw or skirt is sectional and can be unscrewed and replaced as necessary.

Another workable solution is to just add an auxilary rear jaw and cover that area of the skirt from the git go. The rear jaw does not have to be absolutely flush with the skirt, it will function fine if it protrudes a half an inch or so.

Just a couple thoughts to ponder. Keep up the good work, I'm enjoying the photos and progress reports.