Bench Build-Part 5B Stretchers

[Master-of-None]

As promised, and zipping right along, here's how I added the stretchers to the legs. I will make this post a bit longer since I'd like to get into the techniques that were used, just in case some readers are not familiar. Hope it will be helpful!
The plan is to use four stretchers. I want this bench to be rock solid with no excuses for any kind of movement. The stretchers will be dovetailed, glued and bolted.
Here we go:
I'm starting with the long stretcher by laying out a dovetail at one end:

   

   

As you can see, after using a pencil to mark the dovetail, I use a knife and then a chisel to create what Paul Sellers calls a knife wall. This marks the locations where the cuts will be made with a saw and allows the saw to kind of fall into the cut that needs to be made. This pretty much guarantees a straight cut:

   

   

Because this will be a half-lap dovetail, I need to remove quite a bit of material. To do that I crosscut the area that will be removed. This makes it easy to remove large chunks of material without being too careful. I use a chisel first, followed by a router plane, to get it to the exact depth.

   

   

   

   
I leave the right shoulder at this point, to help and support the router.

The router produces a nice smooth surface once it's done.

   

And now since I don't need that shoulder, I cut it off. The exact length of the dovetail does not matter too much at this point, as long as it's a little long. It will be trimmed later.

   

To be continued shortly!

[Master-of-None]

Now I need to form the dovetail. Because the dovetail is so large, I cannot use a regular dovetail saw. Fortunately I have a cheep Japanese-style pull saw. Since it doesn't have a back, I can cut as deep as I want to. Once the dovetail was cut out and cleaned up, I put it against the leg to mark the cuts there.

   

   
After the layout on the leg, the rest proceeded the same as in the half lap dovetail:

   

   

   

   
And a dry fit of the stretcher in the leg:

   
Now with the dovetail in one leg, I lay out the dovetail for the other leg, and repeat...

   

[Master-of-None]

As I mentioned way above, I wanted to put short stretchers as well, i.e. going between legs on the same end of the bench. This was done exactly the same as described above, the half lap dovetail was cut first, the corresponding cuts were then made in one leg, the second dovetail was cut and then the leg.
Here's a picture of a dry fit of the short stretcher. The gaps that you see on the outside of the legs are for the long stretchers:

   
And here's what it looks like with the long stretchers attached. I should mention that the short stretchers are going on the inside of the legs:

   
One more short stretcher was made and then it came to gluing all this up. Here you can see all the clamps holding everything together until dry.

   
And all pretty without the clamps

   

   

   
 And finally, I drilled holes and put in carriage bolts to make sure everything stays where I put it! (not taking any chances here.)

   

And since the bench was still upside down, I put knife walls on both ends to get it ready for trimming off the waste.

   

[MarkSingleton]

Wow!!

Looking good!!

[msweig]

Looks good.  But soon you are going to have to turn it over.

[arnman]

It is looking great, and you are making it look easy. I really appreciate the details you are putting into this build-along. I agree turning it over could be exciting. Could you post a video of that?

[Master-of-None]

Thank you for the compliments gentlemen.
Yeah, turning it over could be exciting. From my estimates, the whole thing should be around 230 pounds. So it's not really heavy but certainly enough for at least two people! One thing that I am thinking that may work is to take off the top, turn the base over, and then put the top back. I'm not sure that will be possible, but we'll see very soon!

[MarkSingleton]

Two pieces ,  top and legs. Sounds like a good plan to avoid problems/injuries.

[hbmcc]

Thank you for the compliments gentlemen.
Yeah, turning it over could be exciting. From my estimates, the whole thing should be around 230 pounds. So it's not really heavy but certainly enough for at least two people! One thing that I am thinking that may work is to take off the top, turn the base over, and then put the top back. I'm not sure that will be possible, but we'll see very soon!

I think you will find it easier to do the turn in one piece, even when that heavy. Pushing four legs into as many pockets at one time is likely *eight times* harder to do than one leg tenon into a top mortise. Just my experience.....

[Master-of-None]

I guess, finally the time has come to right this beast!
As pointed out in some of the comments above, there were a few ways to do that, but only one proved feasible. Certainly taking the legs off the top, righting everything and then putting the top back on the legs, seemed the most doable. Well, that was not going to work. Even with some effort, first by myself, and then with the help of my son, the leg structure would not budge! Of course, in retrospect, that makes perfect sense. The "leg structure," that is the legs with the stretchers, is very stiff and will not give. Because of that, you need to get all four legs out of the top at the same time! And that's not happening!
I finally remembered that I had a pulley that I purchased years ago, and never used, and decided to use that. I screwed in a short piece of a 2x6 to the joists of the basement ceiling, and hung the pulley there. With the help of my son, we were able to lift the bench off the sawhorses and lower it unto a blanket on the floor. I then moved the rope so that it was  in the middle but now on one edge, so that when we started lifting it again, the top started coming up first, with the legs following. When it was high enough, now with the additional help of my wife, we were able to right the bench. 
Sorry, no action shots. I was in the middle of the action. And doing a short video arnman, would have been nice too, but I would be worried about too many expletives that would need to be deleted. 
Here's some post-action pictures: 

   

   

   

   
Since the tenons were made to be too long, they needed to be leveled with the bench top. A flush cutting saw made short work of it:

   

   
And finally, a close-up of the tenon showing a very small gap. All four of them had very small gaps like that.

   

Although I don't like the gaps, they don't seem to have any affect on the bench at all!
I tried pushing the bench this way and that way, and it was rock solid. It did not move, and that's what I wanted.

Once I trim off the ends I will make one last post, to show it of when it's completely finished.