I
Meant To Build It This Way!
That
is what we all say to disguise a mistake ... yes?
I
should title this "How not to build a bench"!
There
has been some progress, but it has been a lot slower than I planned
owing to changes made, and the
repairs to these changes, and then being in two minds about the
installation of the tail vise.
First of all, the bench
top has now reached the stage where it is recognisable as a bench
top. I glued the sections together to look like this ..
Next
comes the dog hole strip. This was a little more complicated than it
needed to be owing to the absence of the requisite board to build it.
I searched Perth high and low for more timber, but there is no
European Oak to be had in small qualities. So I decided to use the
off-cuts from the bench build and create a modular system of dog
holes. The advantage here would be the freedom to fit them into the
system I will finally decide on. System? More on this
later.
Building dog holes: The dog holes are 1"
wide and 1 1/2" deep across the top. They are angled towards the
vise at 2 degrees. The dog in the BC tailvise is the same size, and
also angled forward by 2 degrees.
The dogs need to be
centred in the dog strip. First the dog strip board is resawn
...
Then
a jig was built for the router ...
...
and the dog holes machined out ..
The
"bumps" are to prevent the dogs dropping out of the dog
holes.
Finally, the two boards were glued together
..
The
result was a bunch of dog hole strips with each dog hole 3"
apart ..
...
which I cut to fit the length here, but which I can re-configure as I
wish later on (also, note the difference in size of this 75"
bench top length versus the <60" length of my old bench)
...
The
width of the bench here is 20". The final width is expected to
be between 21" and 22".
What is the
issue?
Essentially, there are two choices. Either the
dog holes are placed as close to the edge of the bench (say 2 1/2",
as above), which makes it easier to use when rebating, planing
moldings, and other edge treatments ... or, the dog holes are
arranged so that the vise can hold work over the rear leg, which is
useful for work that requires hammer blows, such as morticing.
The
problem is that you cannot have both systems. You have to choose. In
the situation where the dog holes are close to the edge of the bench,
they will be interrupted by the legs (which are 5" wide and 3
5/8" deep). Consequently, there will be dead spots along the
edge of the bench. In the case of the dogs being situated at a
distance to the inside of the legs, they will have to be about 3 1/2"
- 4" out from the bench edge.
In the case that I go
with the second option, I shall need to extend the width of the bench
by 1 1/2". And no more European Oak. I decided I would use
Tasmanian Oak as a substitute. It is interesting that Tassie Oak is
not an oak but a Eucalypt, yet its colour and grain of the edge grain
is very similar to the European Oak ...
The
Tassie Oak is a little lighter in colour, but after a year I doubt
that anyone would pick it out.
Now the other area I had
a change of mind was the bench height. In an earlier post I wrote
that a height of 30" appeared to work when planing. This was a
result of using Chris Schwarz' "pinky test". Over the next
couple of days the thought began to firm that planing is just one
activity - I prefer a higher bench for detail work, such as the
moldings I made with H&R planes - and that I have become used to
a 34" bench height. I decided to compromise at
32".
Unfortunately ... I had already cut the legs
for a 30" high bench. To make matters more stressful, the bench
top thickness is going to end up closer to 3 1/2" than 4".
The slight difference in thickness does not bother me, but this
affects the bench height.
So now I began to obsess about
how I could fix the legs.
Fortunately, when I cut them
to length I left the tenons long - 2" in total. The final tenon
length will be 1".
Here
is one idea, which I shelved: molding made with the above-mentioned
H&Rs ..
This
was too busy for my taste, even if I stained the pieces dark.
I
ended up with this ...
Back
to the bench top. Here is the BC end vise (with dog hole strip) ready
for installation. Just a final decision to make about the choice
preferred ...
Regards from Perth
Derek
January 2012