Work on the bench is almost complete its piled up like an ikea flatpack until after xmas and the new year.

Merry Xmas to All and watch for some interesting new updates in the new year including

Finishing the work bench

Kalamazoo Guitar repair
Violin repair
J45/junk guitar build

Following the saying no news is good news my recent absence from the blog means good news in this instance. I have been a bit slow with the photos but I am reaching the end of this project I have all the major components ready for assembly but with Xmas looming it looks like the new year will see the birth of this behemoth work bench.

The work bench top is coming into its own now as I am using it to plane the stretchers this is no.2 just 2 more short ones to do and the final jointing and we should be 90% there.

The first leg goes in. Well goes in a bit then stops!

Well I have to walk the walk of shame and admit to another power tool. With things the way they are I couldn't knock out the mortices by hand and have purchased a router. I refuse to show the photos of such a machine.

Looks like I have mangled my deltoid. I might have to buy a router to finish the bench off I don't want to risk injuring my shoulder again in the next couple of weeks.

Unfortunately I have injured my shoulder probably by pounding on the chisel to make the mortice so construction has stopped hopefully not for too long. So I will leave you with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings while I put my shoulder in a sling.

I am cutting the mortices for the legs the old fashioned way. A slow process but I am more confident they will be straight. So far this has taken me 1/2 hour looks like I am going to be here for some time.

Its nice to be doing something other than planing. Here's a shot of the first leg. I have decided to cut all the slots production line style then the dovetails followed by a bit of finessing.

Edges are now planed ready for the legs. I have left the bottom of the top rough because I would rather keep as much material as possible and remove more from the top surface to get it flat.

The flattening continues the rough twisty knot at the bottom is taking some work to smooth out it clipped a chunk out of my blade back to the sharpening stone.

It's been slow going this week and other than a small amount of planing to the underside of the top and a measuring of the leg widths not a lot has happened. So I find myself humming this tune quite a bit as I go on.

I am leaving the top clamped up for a few days just to make sure the joint is really set. Next I am going to flatten the back and give it a few coats of finish It will be the only chance to do this before the final finishing. I am opting for a tung oil finish because thats all I have in the cupboard. Its also been a very reliable finish on my knives and doesn't stink the place out. I am only going to take the level of finishing to blade finish no sanding for me it's too dusty and slow. I may just finish off any plane tracks with the cabinet scraper.

 

The top is finally glued up it took some time to get it just right. I only have 4 clamps large enough to do it so I wanted the tightest fit I could get.

I dug out bocote from the store and it is just wide enough for a fingerboard and easily deep enough to get a bridge out aswell. The mahogany boards are only 4inches wide so I may have to make a 4 piece back and top. I did an internet search and discovered some banner era j45s had a 4 piece adirondack spruce top, also some classical makers prefer 4 piece tops to get equal grain right across the width. The only way to know if this is going to work is to try it and listen to the tap tone of the wood once it is together. If the guitar looks like it may be quite nice I may buy some spruce for the top instead.

Well the plane is flatter than it was there's still a slight hollow in the very middle but the edges are true now. I took it for a test on the last leg joint. I will have to adjust my technique now the plane is flatter I produced an upward curve at the end of the stroke rather than a downward one little more pressure on the nose is required. The plane produced fine shavings end to end and the surface got flatter rather than curvier after this adjustment. I started on the joint for the top and both edges are coming together nicely a little more fine fitting and we should be ready for a glue up. I am considering more than one dowel in the top just as an extra safety measure if the joint should open at any point in the future, or maybe an extra strut between the legs. I really don't fancy creating bread board ends on this scale they were a pain on the mini bench.

I found some 80 grit 3M sandpaper at the local Destroy It Yourself shop so I'm switching to that hopefully I'll have this plane finished today. Looks like my 9 1/2 block will need flattening it has a bow in the opposite direction.
 I started wondering if I could actually make a guitar out of the sawmill mahogany and what would it sound like ? I'm going to look through my wood store and see if I've got anything that might work as a fingerboard and bridge. I have some bocote lying around but I'm not sure its wide enough would be striking though !

I've started grinding the base of my plane the fine scratches are the new ones the lower grit paper was useless so I have to use 120 its going to take a long time to get this flat, its taken an hour to get this far !

Had time to play a couple of J45 today got a sneaky look at the bracing and some other details. I am itching to get on with the guitar build I thought I'd be well on my way to finishing the bench this week. The upside of the hold backs is good because it means it was my plane that was malfunctioning not my dodgy technique. I'll be putting that to the test once my lapping plate arrives ? I tried to photograph the bend in my plane but it was hard to see in detail but what it amounts to is a downward bow that lifts the cutter height when the rear of the plane contacts the wood and causes the cutter to dig in deep as the tip leaves the wood turning everything into a banana no wonder it took me so long to get those boards flat !

Due to a lack of anything productive happening I thought I'd treat you to another favourite song.

3 legs are glued and smoothed unfortunately I discovered my plane wasn't flat which was causing some problems in the jointing. It will be a few days before I can grind it flat. Thems the breaks.

 

As you can see it took a hefty toll on my plane blade the white highlights are the damage not a micro bevel ouch ! Off to grind it back and sharpen if you decide to use this technique I would suggest separate blades for the 2 operations may be even a sharper angle. The mirror polished edge is the micro bevel I have been lazy lately and just kept touching it up on a sharpening stone. So its no big deal regrinding this it is well overdue and then my micro bevel will be micro rather than huge !

I picked this leg to try the scrub technique with the no 5 there was quite a difference between the 2 boards. I  set the plane blade at an angle and dived in.

     

It levelled the boards very quickly removing thick chunks easily.

I then straightened the blade and took out the peaks left by the blade all in all quite a quick solution.

Added a dowel to stop the surfaces sliding now for another glue up

I just used one so I could still rub the surfaces together. An update to using the no5 as a scrub plane it worked ok on my next leg I'll document the process.

Wish I had......

I am really regretting not having a scrub plane to deal with the rough sawn timber, the planing process is going slowly very slowly. It makes me appreciate the guys who did this and had no alternative. I just read a post about using the no5 plane as a scrub by angling the blade for a deep triangular cut then angling it the other way and repeating finally straightening it and taking off the humps. In theory it sounds good but I'm beat will be a few days before I can face the planing. My hand swelled up on the thumb joint and my arms ache. I'm going to cool off and put my feet up. Here's another favourite song to keep you going while I'm away.

Just a thought for those intending to make their own bench here are the tools used so far
7 urwin mini grip clamps
workmate
Japanese ryoba (saw used to crosscut to length)
Stanley No 5 plane
1 metre rule
2 pieces of aluminium angle used as winding sticks.

1 leg glued up. The glue made the joint move all over the place I normally use hot hide glue but I decided to go for titebond instead because of the amount of glue needed. I basically had to lean on the top to keep it level. Seems okay now I just hope it doesn't pop up again. Might have to make a jig to stop this happening again.

Legs cut to length next flattening and straightening

Just a bit of tidy up work and pins and we are done. Scale up time.

I'm on the final stretch now with the mini bench just 4 mortices to go and the pins. It has been a good learning experience as a result I will be making a few changes to the full size one. I'm leaving out the end pieces and am going for a top made out of 2 pieces this should cut down the gluing process. The legs will be square 4x4 rather than rectangular giving me more room for the joints and the pins. I'll also be chiselling out my tenons in more than two blows to avoid any blow out on the shoulder. I'll be glad when the pile of wood starts looking bench like. One more job to do on the mini bench is to adjust the shoulder height of the joints for the top so they set level and add a small wedge to cover an overly zealous mortice cut. Overall this mini bench is super sturdy if the big one retains this strength I'll have no problems with a jumpy bench.

Cut and fitted the small stretchers just two long ones to go my mortice and tenon work is improving with each one. I should be an expert when it comes to the big one !

Feet up its the weekend !

Just thought I'd add a video of one of my favourite singers to keep everyone entertained while I contemplate the next section of the build. Sorting out the mortice and tenons for the stretchers. Enjoy !

Plans are here

The plans are here delivered from Stewmac. I will be making so modifications as we all know not every piece of wood acts the same. I'm torn for wood choice on the top traditionally it should be adirondack spruce but that's pricey and import vat and postage add up to make it worse. I'm leaning towards alpine spruce and avoiding sitka.

A keen observer noticed these mahogany boards

I picked them up to practice making a neck before cutting into the expensive AA stuff. I was going to do this in the standard pine you find at hardware stores but it turned out this is cheaper ? With the advantages it is the same type of wood. I also got some thinner stuff that will be great for bending so I can run a test piece through that process. There is probably enough to make a side table and a uke aswell all for a £10.

Legs

3 legs fitted my preference for a joint is the one on Chris Schwarz's roubo seems really firm the straight mortice racks a bit. Still got to do the stretchers. Then on to that lovely pile of wood. I'm itching to plane it all down schoop schoop schooop!

Wood is here

That sure is a lot of timber thanks to the guys at Geenix sawmills. There is no turning back now.

Still considering which style of bench and which vices to use. Here's the Roubo!

This is what I am aiming for.

2 joints cut

The tenons are both cut on the front legs. Just have to dovetail the double one

A little snack for the guitar builders

Ok enough on the workbench the guitar builders are getting twitchy. I purchased the Alex Willis book as my general guide Step by step guitar building. I also watched a few builds on youtube here's one to get you started.

I'm off to work out how the rising dovetail is made still no clues?

leg joints

As this is a test piece I thought I'd try a different joint per leg so here's the options standard mortice, mortice and sliding dove tail, rising dove tail any thoughts for a fourth. Here's a treat for you Chris Schwarz petite roubo bench.

Knots !

I got the legs levelled up but had a knot tear out on me. I am not going to lose any sleep over it. It will disappear into a joint or be hidden in the foot.

Oops measure twice cut .......

Due to a slightly inaccurate measurement I have so remedial work to do. I will use the flat cut saw to getrid of the worst and then apply the block plane

From rough to smooth

With the legs now cut its more planing. Just a couple of seconds with no 5 and the job is done. I also included the homemade dog ugly but effective. Its much better than the big plastic ones that came with the bench. One leg to go.

The finished top (mini bench)

I added a couple of end pieces. It was quite difficult to make a long straight mortice but a sharp chisel did it in the end. Then I planed the wood to thickness with a record no 5.

I finished off with the cabinet scraper. It took me a while to get a good edge on it but I did it in the end following these instructions

On to the legs and stretchers more mortice and tenon cutting. Don't worry for the hand tool obsessed I won't be using a router. I am also going to try draw bore pins to hold it together so the glue will be back on the shelf from now on.

Bench top

I planed up some pine for the mini bench and glued it together. It should be good exercise to brush up my woodworking skills before working on the big bench and finally moving onto the guitar build. The eagle eyed among you may have noticed my drill on the left yep that's the only power tool in operation.

Some Inspiration

I'd like to thank workbenchdesign for many links and great design ideas. I also enjoyed following this build.

prototype bench

While twiddling my thumbs I decided to build a protoype bench in 1:4 scale keeps me out of misschief. I'm guessing this little guy might come in in handy. They call it the little victor !Buy a Little Victor

First things first....

I had the idea I would build myself a guitar. The drawbacks of having minimal tools and not much space meant there were a few things to sort out.

1. Nothing but a workmate to build on. This leads me to the decision I need a workbench a solid platform is essential. So this blog will start from the very beginning the building of the bench. I surfed the web and noted down some ideas and saved some plans. Next find the wood. I surfed again and eventually  found a local sawmill who could supply me with some beech JB timber excellent now all I can do is sit back and wait for the timber. I also got some offcuts of mahogany to practice planing and bending the sides can't wait to get going !