More workbench stuff

Workbench-base re-re-design

I bought a lot of tools and equipment this week to aid me in doing the mortise and tenon needed to construct the workbench base.  My original plan was to put mortises right into the workbench top for the legs (the legs would have the tenons).  The more I thought about this the more I disliked it. "Damaging" the workbench top, those big tenons, lack of support for the center of the workbench top, just too many bad feelings about this design.  So I went online again and searched youtube for answers.  I looked at Paul Seller's workbench build in particular.  Most of the youtubers that I trust used standard stretchers to support the top and simply laid the top on the stretchers with minimal attachment - no glue either so that the top could be changed out when damaged too much to redress.

So, I moved to a design where I have two top stretchers on the short ends of the table and none on the long side.   I also decided to use half-lap joints since these are easier to make!

So I proceeded to joint, plane, and notch the base member pieces.  I really should have used a dado cutter on the radial arm saw to cut the notches, but it was so buried in crap that I decided to just use the router with some simple guides and the planer bit that I used to flatten the top.  I had some trouble keeping the guides clamped to the piece due to the size and location of the pieces.  I moved from the clamps to simply air-nailing in the guides directly to the piece.  It worked well, but the problem came when I tried to remove the nails - they broke off when trying to pull them from that hard oak!  So I simply cut the nails as close to the wood surface as possible and them counter-punched them in as best I could.  I can fill those defects with wood-filler if I want to later.  There are a lot of defects in the leg wood anyway - damn wood-borers!

It's just loose fitted here - no glue or fasteners yet.  I just wanted to make sure I had everything ready.  Too cold to glue now anyway.

Not furniture quality joints, but plenty good enough for a workbench!

Here you can see a split out in the top stretcher.  The strength should not be affected too much, but its kinda ugly.  I might glue this back in and fill with wood filler.

Hand plane experiences

I bought a cheap handplane off of amazon - a Stanley #4 bevel down general purpose plane.  By cheap I mean it was on the order of $20.  After unpacking it I read that the blade should be honed before use. So I took the blade off and tried my hand at honing it!  I also got a blade guide and new sharpening stones this week!  The guide and stones worked well and I got the blade nice an sharp in less than an hour.  I set the blade and that's where I found some issues.  The blade set on this plane is just a knurled screw on a flat piece of metal to form a compression fit.  It uses two guide screws to adjust the blade depth and alignment.   It is VERY difficult to get the depth set and aligned, and once you have that tightening of the locking mechanism tends to push the blade off center!   When I look at the high-end planes I see that they have a completely different type of mechanism on the "frog" (common language for the blade holding mechanism in a hand plane).  I also noticed that the high-end planes that do what I want are on the order of $200!

While getting our pups groomed this weekend we stopped into a "thrift store" like place that supports local pet rescue.  The manager the (Dave something) said that every once in a while he will get in some Amish tools and they will often have some decent hand tools like planes, etc.!  I left my number for him to call me when he gets some in!  I should really scour ebay too, I suppose.

Sharpening chisels and other blades..

I also tried my hand at sharpening some wood chisels.  I tried using some of the new chisels that I bought this week and was not impressed.  Then it occurred to me that I was probably supposed to hone them before use (just like the plane blade)!   Besides general sharpness desires, I also needed to sharpen some of my chisels due to abuse (a couple were highly dented and dinged!)

For the highly damaged chisel blades I used a belt sander to grind off the uneven dings.  Then I used a coarse stone and my sharpening guide tool to put back on a 25 degree bevel, then a finer stone to put on the 30 degree cutting edge.  The first 3 chisels went pretty well, but by the 4th something went wrong and I couldn't get a consistent flat surface on my blade.  I suspect that this may have to do with the coarse stone having gone a bit concave due to wear.  I am going to try flattening the coarse stone next time to see it that helps.

New lights, new workbench table legs. Tree layout and planning/ordering

Dust room "door"

Before I started any more wood work I wanted to get the door to the dust partition set.   I found a neat "zipper" product online, but it wont get here in time, so I just made a temporary door for now.  Just a piece of plastic attached above door with a wood strip attached at the bottom to weight it down and closed.  Later I intend to tape this door closed and put a zipper door in.

Not beautiful, but effective enough for now.

Shop Lights

Since the dust partition blocks the light from the LEDs over the metal tool area, I decided to install the remaining 6 LED lights that I had in the workshop area.  This had always been my plan, but now I had to put them up since its so dark now!  I had to go out and buy an extension cord and some fixtures to accommodate these lights.  A lot of fiddling around, but I got it done.  Each of these lights has a single drop down chain/string to turn them on and off.  Not my ideal solution, but it gets me up and running this weekend!  I need to get this shop rewired sometime.

I had to put one of these lights above the garage door - above the rafters to avoid getting hit by the garage door.

WOW!  It sure is a lot lighter in here!

New workbench base

Since I have decided to build a new workbench base for my new work bench top, I had to find some suitable wood.  I went out to the sawmill barn and found some useful lumber.

Found a 17 ft 5x6 and a 17 ft 4x4.  Rough milled oak.

Its a bit curvey/warped, but I am using short lengths, on the order of 34" long.

Quite a bit of checking at the ends, but I have long enough pieces that I can just cut this off.

Cut to length

Jointed and planed to dimension (S4S)

I treated the bottom end of the legs with danish oil to protect them from absorbing water from the concrete floor they wil be sitting on.

More checking than I prefer, but it should be ok for legs.  The danish oil went into those cracks to hopefully that will stop and powderpost beetles.

I trimmed the bottoms off with the chop saw as best I could.   They seem to stand straight, so I guess its good enough.

Jointer knife replacement

Last fall I put a good size dent in the jointer knifes about halfway (centered) in the blade.  This makes it impossible to flatten anything wider than 4 inches (even 4 is pushing it really). I had purchased the replacement blades last year but simply never got around to installing them.  I knew it was going to be an affair! I used youtube a lot to get some help with this.  I even checked the tables for proper alignment while I was at it.  All in all it took almost 5 hours of fiddly work!  Ugh.  But I used it to mill the table legs above and it worked so nice!

For future reference, I removed the springs under the blades because it just makes life hard - they claim that those springs are to help when you are using a magnetic setting tool, but I don't see how that would help - that magnets would hold the blade in position.?  Then I used some of my metal working tools - an indicator and stand - to check the knife alignment and height.  It was loads of fiddly adjustments but its done!  I am seriously thinking of getting a shelix head for this jointer!

Aligned, sharp, and beautiful!

And while I was at it...  the planer!

After having put a couple pieces of end grain material (saw offs from the workbench glueups) and blowing up my planer I noticed that the planer produced these marks on the surface of the boards.  I tried eyeballing the cutter heads to look for damage, but I couldn't notice any.  So I simply put pieces of wood through the planer and backtracked where on the head the defective cutters must be to produce the defect.  I found them and rotated them (I even marked some! sigh - should have marked all of the ones that I rotated)   While reseating one of the inserts, it blew up!  It literally shattered and threw pieces everywhere!  I made sure to turn my head when reseating the rest of the inserts!  I got the planer to a point where I couldn't find any more large defects in the resulting boards.  Some advise rotating all of the cutters in a row when doing this.  I don't know how that helps and seems like you would be wasting a lot of use of the inserts.

They look ok.  But your really can't see the defects with the naked eye I guess.

Tree layout and planning

While I had already ordered many trees from coldstreamfarm.com, I still needed to complete my orer from the county conservation district.  Mostly I was waiting to see how much space my chokecherry and choke berry shrubs would take.  It finally stopped raining enough for me to get out and do some layout marking in the field on Saturday (?)  It was muddy work, but I got it done.  All the new hazelnuts, choke cherries and berries, cherry trees, and a good idea where the apple trees and apricots are going.  I think I have all of the trees planned out now - I figured I needed 16(!) sour cherry trees - 3 to replace the ones that died in front and 13 to plant near the barn lane - I will try to keep them "up" out of the wetter spots along there.  All in all I am ordering over $1,000 in trees and plants this year!! Its going to be a busy spring planting!