Another bench

[Travis Porter]

Between cpowell and hpm67 I got the urge and have gotten the wood to build a new bench like I really want. I used sketchup to do the drawings and so far have finished the base assembly. I am making the base out of white oak and the top will be hard maple. I am thinking I will make my vise assemblies out of some purpleheart I have still got to pick up from Scott for a bit of contrast.

Lastly, I am going to cut some dovetails on this one. I have been practicing, and will practice more before I do this, but I expect I will rough cut them on the bandsaw and fine tune them with chisels and such.:eusa_pray

Below is the sketchup drawing and I will post some in progress pictures tomorrow.

 

[michaelgarner]

looks like a solid plan, looking forward to seeing the end result

 

[Travis]

That looks nice with storage underneath. I am right behind you on the workbench. I plan to start in the next couple of weeks. Picking up the oak that Kyle was drying for me in his kiln this weekend. Plan to start in couple of weeks. Are you using hard maple?

 

[Travis Porter]

Here are pictures of the base. It is all white oak. The posts/stiles are 1 1/2" glue ups to 3" thick and the rails are 1 1/2" thick. The panels are 3/4" shop grade white oak plywood from Wall lumber. I still have cosmetic work to do on the base, rounding corners, v grooving, etc, but it is coming along.

Considering I do not believe any floor is level I am attaching these leveling feet to the bottom. They have an allen screw head in the top and can be adjusted from above. They are rated for 300 lbs each and I will only use the ones needed to get it level and so it won't rock.

The top is going to be hard maple. I have started milling it up tonight and hope to glue the main slab up tomorrow. I still have to make the bench dog assembly and all that. The vises I think I am going to do purpleheart. Hopefully it will be a pleasant contrast. This is my first real project mixing wood types like this.

 

[nelsone]

Looks good! :icon_thum

 

[Bas]

Very, very nice. Also impressed with the sketchup picture. Whenever I draw say a stretcher, it looks good from the front, but when I rotate I discover it's floating in mid-air......

Good luck with the dovetails.

Bas.

 

[Monty]

Wow! That's going to be one awesome bench! The storage underneath will be ideal. Keep the progress pics coming -- can't wait to see what's next!

 

[cpowell]

Lookin good, Travis. :icon_thum

That's gonna be a big, heavy bench. I like your selection of PH for the vises...I am fitting my vises now (PH of course).

At the rate you're going you oughta have this klnocked by next weekend, huh?


Chuck

 

[LeftyTom]

Travis, I do believe the table will be oak solid. :slap:

 

[sapwood]

Moving right along aren't you . . . much like tool purchases :lol:
That will be an awesome workbench :eusa_clap
Apparently you are meandering from Felder power tools to the neander of handcut dovetails and handplanes :eusa_danc

Rock on Travis!!!
Roger

 

[Travis Porter]

Trying to have the best of both worlds Roger. Hand cuts along with precision power cuts. If I can't do it one way, I definitely have an alternative.:lol:

Chuck, how do you like the contrast in the purpleheart to the maple? How does it compare to the maple to work with? It will be my first time using it so any and all thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

As to your comment on finishing it, I think it will be very doubtful that I finish much this week. I hope to get the top glued up and maybe wide belt sanded (I have a friend with a wide belt and a 24" planer :eusa_danc) so that will knock another evening out and I go out of town again on the 24th so my shop time is going to be limited..

 

[cpowell]

Trying to have the best of both worlds Roger. Hand cuts along with precision power cuts. If I can't do it one way, I definitely have an alternative.:lol:

Chuck, how do you like the contrast in the purpleheart to the maple? How does it compare to the maple to work with? It will be my first time using it so any and all thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

As to your comment on finishing it, I think it will be very doubtful that I finish much this week. I hope to get the top glued up and maybe wide belt sanded (I have a friend with a wide belt and a 24" planer :eusa_danc) so that will knock another evening out and I go out of town again on the 24th so my shop time is going to be limited..

I like working with purpleheart. It's hard but the stuff I've worked with machines well unless the grain is a little squirrely. Here's a pic of my end vise jaw. I will profile the jaw ends later.

Chuck

 

[Travis Porter]

I got the purpleheart from Kyle through Scott today. VERY NICE boards. I got 1 11 foot long around 12" wide. Unfortunately, it rained on me, but I won't be able to do much to it for a week or so anyway so it will work out.

The contrast looks good from the pic. How do you like it? This is my first real project inter-mixing woods.

 

[cpowell]

The contrast looks good. It will look better once the jaw ends are thumbnailed/rounded.

It has been nice to use the end vise (upside down) to practice making hand-cut DTs. I'm on my third practice set. There's definitely a learning curve involved. :lol: :lol:

If I had enough PH stock I would have used PH for the front apron and both end caps and made the vise jaws in maple.

I'll probably use PH on the cabinet faces to tie in the color.


Chuck

 

[Travis Porter]

The contrast looks good. It will look better once the jaw ends are thumbnailed/rounded.

It has been nice to use the end vise (upside down) to practice making hand-cut DTs. I'm on my third practice set. There's definitely a learning curve involved. :lol: :lol:
Chuck

Tell me about it. I have quite a few to cut on this bench and am a little concerned. I can rough cut them on the bandsaw, but still, I can see me screwing them up.:roll:

If I had enough PH stock I would have used PH for the front apron and both end caps and made the vise jaws in maple.

I'll probably use PH on the cabinet faces to tie in the color.

Chuck

I halfway thought about doing that, and I do have enough PH to do it. Like I said, this is my first time intermixing, and maybe I should. Should I?

 

[Travis Porter]

I haven't had time to get a lot done on the bench. I did get the slab glued up and cut to size. I used splines for alignment, and then to flatten it, I did something that I wasn't to sure about. I whipped out the handplanes and flattened it. This is a first for me, but all in all it turned out pretty good. I used a #4 1/2, #5, and an old #8 I had bought from a member here about a year ago. The #8 did a sweet job of getting the high spots, and I can say was very well tuned and sharp. I can't remember who I bought it from, but they definitely had it tuned up.

The downside to handplaning was that I got some chip out/tear out on one side. I had a bit of width to play with so I put it on the saw and cut it off. Squaring and ripping with the new saw is too easy.

 

[mburke911]

Looks like it's comming along nicely! That saw makes the top look small (which it definately isn't). Glad your enjoying it!

Mark

 

[cpowell]

The bench is coming along nicely Travis. :icon_thum

Nice drive-by gloat on the Felder BTW. Couldn't help but notice the strategic cameras angle to show off the machine name. :lol: :lol: :lol:


Chuck

 

[Sully]

Looking good on the bench. Man, that is one big saw.

 

[Travis Porter]

Still tinkering away at this bench. I have begun working on the aprons and making the large through dovetail joints for attaching them. After seeing Chuck's bench with the purpleheart, I am making the aprons and the front and back boards out of purpleheart to wrap the maple. I think I will still make the vises out of maple for the contrast..

I cut the walls of the sockets with the bandsaw. I was pretty happy with the results and put in a few relief cuts to make chopping the waste out easier.

I was going to just chop out the dovetails by hand but that got old as it was taking forever and purpleheart is not the easiest wood to work with. After about 15 minutes I was here on one dovetail.

I figured there has to be a better way so I got a bearing on top pattern bit and put an extended base on my router. I chop out most of the waste and then let the router ride the bandsaw cut sides of the sockets.

It worked pretty well. One thing I will say about routing purpleheart, it makes a fuzzy mess everywhere. As hard as this wood is, I would have thought it would have made big chips like oak and maple do.

Here is the end vise side dovetail dry fitted. I still have a little work to do on it to get the fit of the joint right. It is close, but not quite there.

Wrapping up the day, I glued the back board that ties the tool tray to the bench slab.

Hopefully, I will get some shop time tomorrow.:eusa_pray