A long time ago, in a basement far, far away

[Funky Space Cowboy]

Loving this thread, already one of my favorite bench build-a-long's please keep us posted!

[flink]

Fine Woodworking would love this. The old issue had great stories.

You are the only one who's really loving Jameel's bench.

[Guest]

flink said:

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You are the only one who's really loving Jameel's bench.

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Flink,

Surely you meant, "You are not the only one who's really loving Jameel's bench."

[Todd O. Cronkhite]

Hank Knight in SC said:

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[blockquote]flink said:

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You are the only one who's really loving Jameel's bench.

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Flink,

Surely you meant, "You are not the only one who's really loving Jameel's bench."

---

[/blockquote]

I'm pretty sure that he did. I know I'm loving Jameels' bench.

How's it going Hank and what cha' working on now----now that the Huntboard is fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally finished?

[shavingCanuck]

Every now and then while he was waiting for his wood to cut itself he would gaze through his IMac mirror in longing at the wondrous bench crafted products (for reference see here and here ) and frequently his maiden would walk by shaking her head.

Then one day in a fit of irritation she turned to him and said in a stern voice that caught him more then a little off guard.

"Stop staring at the darn things like a lost puppy and just buy them!"

But knowing the state of his tool spending account (although it's amazing how much money you save not playing soccer three times a week and going out for beer and wings afterward, after all why play at this age if you're not drinking afterward , but I digress,) he replied in a meek voice, "I do not yet have the scratch to pay for the marvels in steel".

"I don't care" she said as she turned on her heel, "it's your birthday soon so just bloody well get them and stop drooling on the keyboard."...

As you can well imagine he was dumbstruck, in all his days he had never heard a sentence more wonderful. Trumpets blared, angels sang, it was a glorious moment.

"IMac, IMac on the desk, take me to the vices that are best"... and after spending some time on micro brewery sites he finally made it to the house of shapely steel. An order was placed through the paypal guardians and the waiting began...

...

...

...

Half an hour later he entered his favourite meeting place and sent off a couriered message to the proprietor of the well crafted bench implements.
"So, have they shipped yet?", to which he received no response.

Where could the owner have gone, it's only 2am, why isn't he around his computer? Finally six hours later he had his response. A couple of weeks would be the time to ship... Oh, fiddlesticks....

A week and a half passed and then much to his delight one of his cubicle denizens was planning on a 4000km drive to pick up a race car (don't ask)... as coincidence would have it he was driving within 50miles of the benchcrafted birthing place and would be able to pick it up... oh glorious day. A bundle saved in shipping and it would be in his hands 4 days later. It was a long, long weekend of waiting and anticipating.

Tuesday morning dawned crisp and bright. Our cubicle warrior stewed as he had not heard anything about the exchange and was unsure as to what had transpired, was there an accident? was the hand off fumbled? was someone in the clink while my glorious steel sat in purgatory? but then, through the distant body odoured haze and across the cubicled horizon came a hero in khaki and stripes... this motoring warrior bore a prize so glorious it caused very little work to be done for the federal government that day

[shavingCanuck]

So now that he had all the desired components for his blatant rip off of someone else's design (thanks Jameel) the building began in earnest. Dimensioned pieces were glued up (if you don't have a bench a table saw top works fairly well)...




Once all the legs and two top sections were glued up a top section then makes a decent bench when clamped to the tablesaw...



Unfortunately your handsome narrator did not have a camera around (wife and kids had it out of town) to document the cutting of the tenons at the top of the legs (by hand), side stretcher mortices, side stretcher tenons (1 by hand, 3 by bandsaw, simply got tired of cleaning them up and bandsawing them is quite quick), drilling of the draw bore holes for the stretcher mortices, etc.

However, the light capture device did return in time for the documentation of the front and two back front stretchers... which will be documented in the next post...

[shavingCanuck]

While our secretive bench builder isn't inclined to share his front and back stretcher secrets I am here to share it with you... but shhhhh, don't tell him....

The creation and fitting of the front and back stretchers occured after the side stretchers were already completed. Although there is one item that I will share regarding the top side tenons. Be very careful with your dry fitting if you are using a softwood (the maple at the bottom of the glide chop mortice seems alot stronger) and your fit is snug. The top of our builders mortice cracked a couple of times when pulling the dry fit apart, not putting it together. there is about 3/4 inch of material at the top, perhaps there should have been more, or cut your mortices before you cut your top tenons if you are using them. These are also being pinned so the fit could have been a little looser which may have prevented it as well.



So, on to our front and back stretchers (unfortunately we don't have visual documentation for parts of it). When doing your layout (mark the tops and bottoms of the stretchers on your leg, also determine the center point between the top and bottom and carry that line all the way to the other side where you will drill your hole for your bolt) align the top of the stretchers with the top of the corresponding side stretchers especially if your stock is different height (don't ask me why, it just didn't occur to him to make it the same). This will help when adding case or shelf in the future. Our builder added stretchers at the top of the back as well as the bottom ones at the font and back.

After performing your layout on the legs the next step was to decide how large a shoulder to use for these stub tenons. They are stub as knock down hardware will be used to attach them which seems to be a fairly common occurrence. Once that was decided (for reference the shoulders on these are 3/8 and they are 3/4 inch long) the tenons were ripped on the bandsaw and crosscut by hand with the shoulders all being the same width which makes set up very easy. Our bench builder prefers to cut his tenons first as he finds that he can be less precise and perform a simple bandsaw set up faster, cut them and then measure from them to determine his mortice placement (your mileage and opinion on this may vary, but he finds he is more accurate at morticing then sawing by hand, and cutting on the bandsaw may be a little finicky with the blade kerf). As an example the following pictures weren't taken initially but just set up, taken and transferred in about a minute and a half.





Once you have your tenons cut use a marking gauge to determine the distance from the front edge to your mortice. Use this to lay them out on your legs. These should all be the same but you can verify that on each tenon if you'd like. (Ignore the holes and stain, these were just taken after the fact)



Then using the same front edge and determine the back of your mortice. once again lay them out on all the legs.



As for determining the width of the tenons you can lay the stretcher on your leg (balancing is a bit of a chore with a stretcher this long) or simply use the layout lines you created initially and measure in from them. Once your mortice is fully laid out use whatever preferred method you have for chopping them. All these mortices were chopped by hand as our builder needed some practice.

Till next time...

Trying to provide a follow along in the third person doesn't really work

[shavingCanuck]

Once the mortices are cut (or just laid out) the centers were transfered to the opposite side of the leg. Our builder then drilled all the way through the leg on the drill press using a bit that was 1/8 wider then the size of the bolts that were going to be used (in this case the bolts are 1/2 inch so the bit was 5/8) which allows some room for fitting.

Once the hole was drilled the bolt was put all the way through and a mark was placed on the bolt at the base of the mortice using a sharpie. After that was done the leg and stretcher were assembled and squared (creativity was key as there weren't any clamps long enough, and yes, believe it or not the mallet at the end was actually used as a counter weight to help get things square)



Once the stretcher was set up and checked for square the hole that was created on the drill press was used as a guide to drill into the stretcher about 2 inches.



Once that was done, the contraption was taken apart and the hole was finished freehand using the already drilled hole as a guide. This is where the mark on the bolt came into play. Every now and then the depth of the hole was checked until it was as deep as the mark on the bolt.





If everything was laid out accurately at the beginning it should all be centered now. In order to reduce the possibility of error the top of the bolt hole was found simply by eye and used to transfer a reference line to the BACK of the stretcher (check and check and check that it is the back of the stretcher, don't ask me how I know that).



That marked bolt will come into play once again here. The distance from the bottom of the threads to the mark made on the bolt was measured and this value was marked on the reference line that was just made on the back. If everything was done initially on center the reference line should be exactly in the middle of the stretcher and the mark that was just made should be exactly where the hole ends.

Once the end bolt locations were marked they were taken over to the drill press and drilled out using a fairly large bit (in this case I think it was 1-3/8, same size as the BC clearance holes) to a depth that would accommodate the bolt as well as the nut (a washer could be used but wasn't in this case as one side should really be flattened and really, who has that type of patience ). If the holes aren't exactly centered it's not the end of the world, close enough works just as well.



After everything is drilled, giver a go and put it together. It was shocking how strong and stable the joint was.

[flink]

Hank Knight in SC said:

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[blockquote]flink said:

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You are the only one who's really loving Jameel's bench.

---

Flink,

Surely you meant, "You are not the only one who's really loving Jameel's bench."

---

[/blockquote]

When I get excited, I start thinking faster than my fat fingers can get the words out.

Yeah, I love that bench. Especially the wagon vise!

[Martin_Cash]

"After two and a half days of planing and some seriously aggressive scrubbing (anyone else get burn marks at the mouth of their scrub?) "

This only happens to me when I have my Scrub plane set to "Full-Phaser".
Set it to "Stun" and your problems will cease.

Beautiful work by the way.
MC