Not quite finished yet but I've been working on this for a week and finally got to fit up all the main pieces last night. With a few splinters and a squished finger from a jigsaw I thought I'd better take a day off and throw up some pics of my progress.
I started a shed refit nearly a couple years ago to line it with gyprock, insulate, add shelves etc. Part of the process required the removal of the old L shaped bench which had a steel tube and angle iron frame welded to the shed's frame and covered with hefty pieces of mainly Vic Ash with the longest 4 being 4m x 180mm x 50mm. The shed was built in the early 80s by the previous owner and I'd guess these Ash pieces would be over 25 yrs old. I figured I'd use these pieces to make another benchtop.
I had about eight used Redgum sleepers from maybe 10 years ago. Most crappy ones were burnt but I saved two that looked the most promising for future use. In this case I thought I'd use them on legs and stretchers. I figure the redgum would be about 20 yrs old, or more.
This has been testing for two reasons. Firstly as a newcomer I've slowly been building up hand tools for a few years, just the basics. Fascinated with tradition and history I thought I could one day do everything by hand. But I can't. How to rip and dress the bigger lumber into usable pieces? In the past I've ripped small logs and other sleepers freehand with a chainsaw so they can be further milled on my bandsaw which isn't really suitable for cutting heavy thick timber accurately. I don't have a thicknesser/planer nor a jointer and I needed to cut these bench pieces to acceptable dimensions for further work by hand. I caved in and bought a table saw, Makita 2704. It's something I thought I could do without and have held off for a few years when one would've been handy. But along with a Bosch SCS I bought a few years ago, it's become an indispensable tool.
Secondly, dealing with accuracy. Butt and flat joins with screws were all I could do previously. This bench would involve dovetails and through tenons. I thought it'd be easy enough but it's been a struggle to clear out waist from tails and paring mortises and tenons. I wont go into detail but in the end, snug fits and some freeplay has led to a workbench frame that somehow sits flat. But the ends of all the joins do look a bit gappy, not that anyone else seems to notice. But you know what it's like. I'm not a perfectionist as such but when you've done something that looks twisted, bent, misaligned etc, you know it and it's a bit of a pain, but lessons are learnt.
So bring on the pics.
- Here's the Vic Ash being removed from the old workbench in July 2013,
- 4m lengths cut in half, (love that grain)
- and ready for ripping.
- RG sleeper for milling. This one was cut into full lengths. The second one had the ends chopped off then only the middle section was ripped. From two sleepers I got four 80x80mm posts plus side stretchers, plus a few other bits for use later. There's a lot of waste though.
- The TS has a max 90mm depth cut and the sleepers are 120mm thick I think. So most cuts required two passes with the timber being flipped to complete the rip.
- After a number of squaring cuts there's four legs there, plus a bunch of other material got thrown through the TS, just for practice.
- A better view of the legs after some planing. I love fiddleback in RG.
- Rough sawn vic ash for benchtop
- Laying out and ready for planing
- A lot of planing to get to this point, gut gee that's a nice timber.
I started a shed refit nearly a couple years ago to line it with gyprock, insulate, add shelves etc. Part of the process required the removal of the old L shaped bench which had a steel tube and angle iron frame welded to the shed's frame and covered with hefty pieces of mainly Vic Ash with the longest 4 being 4m x 180mm x 50mm. The shed was built in the early 80s by the previous owner and I'd guess these Ash pieces would be over 25 yrs old. I figured I'd use these pieces to make another benchtop.
I had about eight used Redgum sleepers from maybe 10 years ago. Most crappy ones were burnt but I saved two that looked the most promising for future use. In this case I thought I'd use them on legs and stretchers. I figure the redgum would be about 20 yrs old, or more.
This has been testing for two reasons. Firstly as a newcomer I've slowly been building up hand tools for a few years, just the basics. Fascinated with tradition and history I thought I could one day do everything by hand. But I can't. How to rip and dress the bigger lumber into usable pieces? In the past I've ripped small logs and other sleepers freehand with a chainsaw so they can be further milled on my bandsaw which isn't really suitable for cutting heavy thick timber accurately. I don't have a thicknesser/planer nor a jointer and I needed to cut these bench pieces to acceptable dimensions for further work by hand. I caved in and bought a table saw, Makita 2704. It's something I thought I could do without and have held off for a few years when one would've been handy. But along with a Bosch SCS I bought a few years ago, it's become an indispensable tool.
Secondly, dealing with accuracy. Butt and flat joins with screws were all I could do previously. This bench would involve dovetails and through tenons. I thought it'd be easy enough but it's been a struggle to clear out waist from tails and paring mortises and tenons. I wont go into detail but in the end, snug fits and some freeplay has led to a workbench frame that somehow sits flat. But the ends of all the joins do look a bit gappy, not that anyone else seems to notice. But you know what it's like. I'm not a perfectionist as such but when you've done something that looks twisted, bent, misaligned etc, you know it and it's a bit of a pain, but lessons are learnt.
So bring on the pics.
- Here's the Vic Ash being removed from the old workbench in July 2013,
- 4m lengths cut in half, (love that grain)
- and ready for ripping.
- RG sleeper for milling. This one was cut into full lengths. The second one had the ends chopped off then only the middle section was ripped. From two sleepers I got four 80x80mm posts plus side stretchers, plus a few other bits for use later. There's a lot of waste though.
- The TS has a max 90mm depth cut and the sleepers are 120mm thick I think. So most cuts required two passes with the timber being flipped to complete the rip.
- After a number of squaring cuts there's four legs there, plus a bunch of other material got thrown through the TS, just for practice.
- A better view of the legs after some planing. I love fiddleback in RG.
- Rough sawn vic ash for benchtop
- Laying out and ready for planing
- A lot of planing to get to this point, gut gee that's a nice timber.
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