A long time ago, in a basement far, far away
#61
A question for you guys out there, I'm pretty sure I know the answer but I'll ask anyway. Once you are satisfied with how everything is layed out and the vice is installed correctly do you glue the front apron to the end cap? or do you leave it simply fitted in incase the end cap needs to be removed at a later date?

I'm assuming you glue it as I'm not sure how you would go about disassembling the dovetail with the tenon in the way but I figured I'd ask. Be kind
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#62
Glue it. Part of your vise hardware is attached to the front apron and it needs to be fixed in place. If it's not glued, the apron can be pushed out away from the bench at the dovetail joint. It probably couldn't move too far since it's glued to the bench once you get past the cavity for the tail vise, but it still could move.



John.
"When I nod my head, hit it." - M. Howard.


"I think you should learn how to use hand tools before you even touch a power tool." - Sam Maloof
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#63
Alrighty... I'm a little irritated with myself and have got to take it a little slower but in an attempt to get the original dovetails to fit I undercut some of the pin sides a bit (don't ask, I wasn't thinking glue, I was thinking "fit $@#%#"). As a result even if I recut the tails I would still end up with a glue joint issue. I don't think I can get them close enough to flat to use Jameels suggestion of gluing pieces in so I'm going to redo the end cap. I started last night and for those that end up doing something similar I would stronly suggest doing your dovetails first. The rest of it is fairly simple and straight forward from a layout perspective if you already have your dog hole strip glued on.

For me anyways the most difficult part was/is the dovetails so if I had to do it all over again that is where I would start. Now that I'm going a little backwards the only issue I forsee is marking out the holes for the bolts to attach end cap to the slab. Probably just try to find center after cutting the mortice and line it up like that.

I'll show some before and after photos at a later date and hopefully I'll get it done tonight or tomorrow morning.

Again, thanks for all the suggestions.

Andy
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#64
I've said it before but I do need to get some more pictures up which will hopefully happen tonight. I flattened the top yesterday and I'm looking at the oils I have for the top. I purchased some BLO and some Watco Danish oil as per suggestions here but after reading the Danish oil instructions I've got a question. The Watco indicates that it should be applied to bare wood which makes me hesitant to put it on top of BLO. The BLO also doesn't have curing time or anything like that on it.

So, two questions.
1. should I use BLO and then Watco or go straight Watco?
2. If I do use BLO how long should I leave it before the next coat?

Thanks
Andy
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#65
You don't need the BLO if you are using the Watco, the Watco has BLO in it already IIRC. Besides, it takes BLO a bit to dry, sometimes days to fully cure depending on temp. The Watco on the other hand should dry pretty fast, anywhere from a few hours to a day depending on brand.


John.
"When I nod my head, hit it." - M. Howard.


"I think you should learn how to use hand tools before you even touch a power tool." - Sam Maloof
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#66
John Clifford said:


You don't need the BLO if you are using the Watco, the Watco has BLO in it already IIRC. Besides, it takes BLO a bit to dry, sometimes days to fully cure depending on temp. The Watco on the other hand should dry pretty fast, anywhere from a few hours to a day depending on brand.


John.




Well, yes, if the shop's warm. Otherwise, not so quick.

And I'm talking California garage shop temperatures, not central Canada, or downtown ChiTown.

But if you're comfortable in a sweatshirt, three days.
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#67
This is going to be a great workbench!
My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter!
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#68
how does a consistent 66-68 degrees work? I'm out there in a tee-shirt and shorts most of the time. I think I'm just going to go with the Watco and see how it goes.

As for maintenance what do you guys usually use for the occasional wipe down?

Out to the shop while the kids are napping.

Andy
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#69
Let me tell you as the ower of a home made bench a few years ago and one being made as we speak. At first you are going to want to rub it down with a diaper at night and you'll cringe over the slightest ding in the top. But, after the honeymoon phase you get over wanting to baby it and just use it. On my fisrt bench I put a couple of coats of a Danish Oil on it with the intention to re-apply annually, it never happened and it's no worse off for the lack of upkeep.



John.
"When I nod my head, hit it." - M. Howard.


"I think you should learn how to use hand tools before you even touch a power tool." - Sam Maloof
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#70
It's been a while without picture updates so I'll get to them now since I'm around for the morning. The last time I updated with pics was a question about my dovetails. As I mentioned the ends had a decent gap but the bigger issue was the fact that I had under cut them and wouldn't be able to fix them the way that was suggested. So I decided to redo the end cap since I had already cut and glued one up for the other side.

The first one which also happened to be my first half blind.



I'll post the second one in a second but here are a couple of things I learned that may help others. First, trust your lines. Because of how the first ones turned out I wasn't confident in the depth that I had marked out as they weren't fitting together well. The reason they weren't fitting together well was that I was using a sliding bevel to check for square (I don't have a square that is short enough). While I had set the sliding bevel to square the day before it apparently wasn't tight enough and had come out of square. As a result what I thought was an issue really wasn't and caused me to make portions of the joint alot looser then I wanted, even when I take 3 hours to nibble away at the joint. Moral of the story, make sure you check your gauges every now and then and don't assume that they have held the same setting.

So, the second one, believe it or not this one was actually a tighter fit even though it doesn't look like it. The sides were also square (once I fixed my issue above) which allowed me to glue portions in.



As an aside good shop help is hard to find...



But Jameel, I think she approves of the vice.

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