Building a workbench Part 2

Yesterday and today I got most of the workbench finished. The last time I wrote about the workbench I had the frame almost made (I had run out of threaded bar) and I had nothing at all done with the top. Also, I had no vise. Finding a normal woodworking vise wasn't all that easy. There is a lot of far eastern cheap stuff on the market, where the vise doesn't close properly or where you can't really expect it to last more that a few years at the most. I finally find what I was looking for on a website for carpenters. The vise is cast iron and built in the Czech Republic, using an english design.

On the same website that I found the vise on, I also found some bench dogs. These come from Canada, from a company called Veritas. They are really good. The issue was that they are 3/4, so I had to find a way of boring 3/4 inch holes. All of the bits in Germany seem to be metric. 20mm is too big - the dogs would fall through. I ended up getting a 19mm bit from Famag. They are about three times more expensive than their nearest competitor but after drilling one hole it is obvious why. They bore perfect holes, carry the dust and shavings easily upwards and don't get hot. Plus they are easy to sharpen. Anyway, I bored six holes near the vise, so it should be easy to plane on top of the table (using the dogs as stops) or to hold timber steady. I also bored horizontal holes in the frame to store the dogs when they are not in use.

Bench dogs in action

Bench dogs when not in action

Building a workbench

Laying out the parts

It's hard to get anything done without a workbench. You can have as many machines as you want, but if you end up trying to piece things together on the floor, you'll get nothing done. Plus, anything you try to get done will get dirty and scratched and you end up sanding and waxing more often that you plan. Before I go making bookshelves for Sandra's gallery office, I absolutely have to have a workbench. Which is why I decided to get working on one. I got the timber from Stuckenberger. It is all building quality timber - nothing fancy. The leg posts are 95x95mm and the stretchers are 50x100mm. The top of the table is a three layer carpenter's panel, which should be sturdy enough for anything I'd be doing. It's over an inch thick.

Stuckenberger cut the timber to length and squared it on his table saw. To get going, I had to cut grooves along inside of the long stretchers and in the bottom of the short ones. The idea is that threaded bars run along inside the stretchers, through the leg posts and pull the whole construction together. It should also be easy to pull it tighter if, over time, it loosens up. One thing I learned when doing this is that a router is not the right tool for cutting long neat grooves. The table saw wins that hands down. It's easy to set the fence so as to cut the left and right side of the grooves, then slightly shift the fence so the blade cuts the rest of the groove.

Dowels centre and position the stretchers on the leg posts. I used a drill press to cut decent holes in the timber, big enough to let the threaded bars through and on the outside wide enough to be able to screw a nut onto the bar and pull it tight. Once I had all the holes drilled (took longer than planned) it was relatively easy to get the frame set up. One stupid thing I did was to forget that I needed threaded bars for the bottom stretchers too, so I had to call it a day. I'll see about getting more bar tomorrow and get the frame finished. Then I have to sand and wax the top. I'm still not sure how I'm going to fix the top to the frame. Plus, I have to source a proper vise as well.