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Hey folks. As a computer toucher by day I've decided to get back into doing something more concrete. And by concrete, I mean wood and woodlike stuff. Which is not concrete. It's fairly unlike concrete, even. But anyway. I have a little bit of an understanding of what one can/should do and what you can get away with; I took a lot of shop classes in school and my dad does a little bit of rough carpentry, he tried to get me interested in it as a kid and it didn't take. I am also a video dork, so I'm thinking about putting together a work log on YouTube. I have a lot of friends who, as I've started putting together the tools that I'll need--thank you Black Friday sales--have said that they wish they could/wish they knew enough/etc etc to get into this stuff, and of course they can but maybe some well-produced and detailed stuff can encourage somebody to do it. Or at least to watch it and get mad at me or something. There's an absolutely awful worktable in the basement at the moment, it was here when we bought the house, and I want to get rid of it. So, like absolutely everybody else, I want to knock together a workbench--something that'll last a decent while, even if it's not forever. Turns out Fusion360 doesn't work if you're on Windows Insider, so I had to go learn how to FreeCAD. FreeCAD's pretty rough after spending a lot of time in 3D modeling tools! But I've put together the start of a plan, and I'd be very grateful for a set of eyes or three and any advice that might be pertinent.  Bench top (brown): 72" x 33", laminated pine, oriented up/down and trimmed to about 2.5". The overhang is 16", and the table will be affixed to a concrete floor. The top's supported by legs (green). They set a bench height of 36.5", which is the same height as my standing desk. I know folks say to use a lower table for hand tools, but I don't see myself getting into hand tools. I get enough of a contact high reading about y'all's Stanleys. Those legs are made primarily out of two 2x4 verticals, with one uninterrupted piece acting as a tenon through the top and a second piece, the inner one, butting up against the top (and if it's hard to tell it's whole vertically but will be used to half-lap the widthwise stringers). The third, external piece on each leg is to provide vertical support for the horizontal stringers, in blue, but they're not complete boards and so most of the weight of the bench will be supported by the former pieces. I wanted the lengthwise stringers at the top, even though I may not need them structurally, to create additional clamping room for projects. I'll probably eventually add a lengthwise shelf to the bottom, though leaving myself some clamping room. As mentioned it's been awhile since I spent any time in a wood shop, but I'm fairly certain that I'm not looking at any joints that might be a problem with regards to relying on glue--no end grain to side grain joints except the leg supports, and those will be mostly for additional compression strength, with the top glued in place with the tenons going through. Does that make sense? Am I full of poo poo? I might be full of poo poo, I don't know.  The legs, with the top removed. FreeCAD is a pain in the rear end, so there's some Z-fighting and the cross pieces look like two 1.5" pieces when it's actually a 2x4 cross-lapped to the horizontal stringer, but the idea is two across at roughly a third of the way across on top and bottom. My intuition is that this is overkill since it'll be attached to the floor, but I figure it'll be worth it when I put a shelf down there.  I really wish I understood what drove FreeCAD to do...this...with my measurements. tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Jan 7, 2020 |
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Jan 7, 2020 07:18
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Jaded Burnout posted:As a computer toucher I think you know the answer to this already. quote:Welcome, and looking forward to seeing your video series! I know enough to know what I need to figure out, but I'm not by any means an expert and I think that could be fun to put out there. Like I said, maybe it'll be interesting to somebody who was in the position I was. And it's fun to do. DevNull posted:33'' is pretty wide. I build my bench off the the Roubo plans Christopher Schwartz has in his book/video. It is 24" wide, and works just fine. Keep in mind that you will have to be reaching across for stuff, and occasionally walking around it. That's a good point. I just reached across my desk, which is 33" deep, and realized that that's an enormous pain in the rear end. And it gives me more room to move around ye olde basement at like 27" (24" felt a little too small given my horizontal reach). Thanks for pointing that out.
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Jan 7, 2020 18:05
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Can anyone recommend a decent dust mask/ventilator (either disposable or with filters) that works well with glasses? My tablesaw sucks and my shop vac doesn't and I just realized my entire nasal cavity is playing host to finely aerated tree.
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Jan 16, 2020 03:06
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That was what my exhaustive internet sleuthing (through forums even deader than this one) suggested, but I'm glad to have confirmation. Even just doing some pretty basic rip stuff has demonstrated to me the folly of my ways with regards to a tablesaw purchase. I'm simultaneously surprised by how poor it feels to use and how surprised I am that the bottom of the market (it's a Ryobi RTS11, it was on a phenomenal sale--though now I understand why) is still a lot more functional than when I was a kid. The march of technology isn't all bad. I should've spent a little more on something better; if nothing else it'd get run at the property management company that I co-own. I will probably eventually overcompensate and get a SawStop. A solid half of everything is me figuring out how to shoot what I'm doing, though. I've not shot video outside of a completely controlled environment before and I'm real glad my cameras are weather sealed.
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Jan 16, 2020 03:40
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Dunno if anybody's looking, but I picked up a Metabo HPT C10RJS tablesaw for $349 at Lowe's. They're taking them out of some locations so they're liquidating stock. I've used a DeWalt (borrowed from a friend) before and the C10RJS feels as good, with a much nicer rolling stand. Can't believe I ever bought a saw with a "traditional" unlatch-and-latch rip fence, but I guess nobody ever accused me of being bright. They're also selling them for $349 online + shipping if your selected store online/in the app is one of the ones doing the liquidation. ($569 otherwise. Lowe's, you're weird.)
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Aug 12, 2020 22:31
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His Divine Shadow posted:Get one with a riving knife. Hearty, hearty +1 here. Lots of people will tell you "buy a used saw, you can add a splitter yourself even if it doesn't have a riving knife." These people hate you. Get one with a riving knife. If you're looking for specifics, I really like my saw. It's a Metabo HPT (formerly Hitachi) C10RJ workshop saw. Retails for almost $600 but very regularly on sale in the $300 range at Lowe's (I got mine for $349 I think?). It's got a rack-and-pinion adjustable fence that I find to be really, really nice for the size of saw and the whole thing is just solidly built and easy to deal with. The fence has a 90" rotation which could be nice for supporting the edge of sheet goods if you want to rip on it, but I'd probably try to avoid ripping on a saw this small generally unless I had an extra set of hands around. Now that we're almost done with the pay-the-professional part of the home renovation process we're approaching the point where I will have an empty 22' x 11' garage as my shop; and this will pretty much live close to the center of the shop, with a wheeled outfeed table/assembly table behind it to deal with the biggest problem I have with it (the extensible outfeed thingy at the back of the saw isn't very useful). tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Dec 20, 2020 |
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Dec 20, 2020 10:00
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Wen stuff is white-label stuff. So is Harbor Freight, so is (a lot of) Grizzly, etc.--frequently they're not identical between brands, there will be minor fit-and-finish changes (usually stuff like handles), and I have heard tell of differing manufacturing tolerances for some stuff but never seen it really substantiated. I have a Wen air filter for the shop and it's fine. The Wen dust collector looked the same as the one I got from Harbor Freight, but I could get the HF one same-day. I've never looked at them too closely for actual tools, though, just because they're rarely price competitive enough to not get something else faster/easier/etc. EDIT: also, consider support availability. Wen sells an oscillating belt sander that looks basically interchangeable with the Ridgid one or the Harbor Freight one, but I can drive ten minutes to Harbor Freight (at the cost of $15 more) or to Home Depot (at the cost of $40 more) and replace it with absolutely no bullshit if it breaks, and that's worth something to me. tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Dec 21, 2020 |
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Dec 21, 2020 00:55
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Not a biscuit joiner, but I've heard good things about this, with the caveat that the springs on it need to be replaced or pushing the thing down is brutal. Also that there are lemons from the factory, so testing and returning might be in the cards. You can also find dowel jigs; I have one, and it's pretty quick to do, but making sure I have both pieces oriented correctly can sometimes be an adventure. Can't wait for the Domino patents to expire.
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Dec 22, 2020 01:35
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:E: Re: Dowels. Dowels do much the same thing as biscuits, but because they are round, they are not nearly as good a glue joint, and the glue joint around dowels fails fails fails. Tons of late 19th C./ early 20th C. furniture was doweled, and I've had to repair plenty of it. Because a dowel is round, most of the glue area of the dowelled butt joint is end grain to long grain (weak) and very little of it is long grain/long grain (strong). The hole for the dowel usually gets made slightly oversized as the drill bit wanders, and dowels just don't have much cross sectional area vs. an appropriately sized tenon. Use epoxy instead of glue with dowels. Epoxy doesn't care about grain orientation and does better with a sloppy joint. Dowels have their uses, but I'd generally go with a biscuit over a dowel. I was taught (and here is where I note that I am an amateur, this is something I am unsure about, though I enjoy the process of building with them) to use grooved dowels and to use a jig to avoid wandering, and to do them in pairs if you can. As I understand it, that should deal with the issues you describe? (And that's pretty much what a Festool Domino is, isn't it?) Epoxy is interesting though for sloppier dowel joints, I didn't know about that, thanks. tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Dec 22, 2020 |
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Dec 22, 2020 05:38
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Interesting. My understanding was that a grooved dowel like this one (though the ones I've used are 1/4", and way cheaper) presents sufficient porous surface to be at least in the ballpark. (I'm trying to rationalize buying a Domino next bonus at work anyway, so I'm definitely not saying they suck.)
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Dec 22, 2020 06:06
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Gotcha. That makes sense. Thank you. And THANK YOU, DAD :|
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Dec 22, 2020 07:09
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Last time I was able to do anything "woodworking" as opposed to "construction", I was starting to shoot B-roll for a "I have not swung a hammer since high school [though I swung a lot of hammers in high school], let's bootstrap a home shop and do some fun stuff" video series. That was...late 2019, I mentioned it around here when I was flogging some very basic plans for a workbench. Then COVID started, and I figured maybe playing with power tools wasn't the best idea, and then we bought a new house. So I've been swinging a hammer sometimes but it has not exactly been Fine Woodworking. Downside: early stuff, like my questionable attempt at a workbench, could not make it out of the basement of the old house. Less downside: it sucked and I'm still learning, no big loss. Upside: house renovations made it permissible to buy some nicer stuff a little ahead of schedule; me having a decent saw on-site has been helpful for the contractors (who are mostly business associates working for us on the cheap, so not having to lug their stationary tools and just using mine has made things easier for them). I love that Metabo HPT tablesaw and that little compound miter saw that was linked above/talked about earlier. Absolutely love 'em. More upside: new house's entire basement is mine; half is my recording studio, and half (the garage half) is going to be the wood shop. I have a hard time seeing 23' x 12' not being enough space for one novice-to-intermediate for a very long time, and since it's gutted right now I can make it nice. Two 240V circuits (neither occupied at the moment but the year is young, and even if I don't end up needing 240V tools anytime soon I'm considering an electric car for my next vehicle), five 120V 20A circuits (two for tools with scram switches, the rest for stuff like dust collection, air filtering, and climate control), and I've got time and space to lay down a self-leveling epoxy floor to hopefully get it more or less flat and more or less level (though I'll take the latter if I can't have both, my contractors are pretty sure we'll be OK). The oil shed was used for wood storage by a previous owner, as it's already got wood racks; it isn't temperature controlled but can easily be humidity controlled at least, and I can steal a little bit of it as an "indoor outdoor" space to stick the dust collector so I don't have to go whole-hog on buying a massive cylinder, etc. for the metric standard Harbor Freight 2HP dust collector. (yet.) It'll also be adjoining the studio, so cameras/audio/etc are easy to rig and to run cables from (and the inevitable purpose-built studio furniture to carry in). I have half a mind to livestream the projects I'll be doing in the shop, which for the foreseeable future will be "making shop furniture until my hands fall off". I think my first stop is an assembly table that I can put on casters and have double for an outfeed table for the more-or-less statically positioned tablesaw. Then start filling in the rest of the space. The foundation of the house is a bit weird on the outside, so one wall has this funky outcropping that I'm gonna have to probably build a counter over, but I'm hoping to do something clever so I can use the rest of that wall as a single long runway for the miter saw, my near-future router table, and so on. I have only the dimmest idea of what I'm doing, as I've never built my own shop and just used my dad's/my school's, but hey. It'll be fun? Question mark? tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Jan 3, 2021 |
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Jan 3, 2021 06:58
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Hypnolobster posted:The Dewalt fence is good and accurate and has plenty of power. It's a really good saw, and probably the best in the compact table saw realm. Obligatory stanposting for the Metabo HPT CJ10RS, which has a similar fence and is often a lot cheaper. I've used a friend's DW745 and it's really good too, but I'd go for whichever one you could find cheaper. CommonShore posted:I just looked Ryobi up on Wikipedia and apparently they make the Milwaukee tools too - are the batteries cross-compatible or are they loving dicks. They are absolutely loving dicks. Every brand line has its own batteries, more or less, with a couple really edge-case exceptions (like the MAC tools sold by Snap-On are literally rebadged DeWalts and use the DeWalt batteries just fine). Even when they're roughly equivalent lines from the same source, like nu!Craftsman and Porter Cable...new batteries. It used to be that some manufacturers are really out of line for battery pricing, but over the last few years it seems like pretty much everybody (except, weirdly, Ridgid?) has collapsed to about the same price points, aside from sales. You can expect to get 2x 4Ah or 5Ah batteries for about $150, sometimes with and sometimes without a charger but once you've got a charger or two I find the rest end up just in a box somewhere. Important to note that "aside from sales" is doing some work--Ryobi right now has 2x 4Ah batteries for $80 and I've bought 5Ah DeWalt batteries for $55 apiece at my local Ace Hardware on sale. tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jan 4, 2021 |
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Jan 4, 2021 17:11
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more falafel please posted:Definitely leaning towards the Makita. That would also break the seal on having more than one batter platform, meaning I don't just automatically buy the Ryobi tool in the future. Hello, fellow future track saw owner. I've got a DeWalt set I got for silly-cheap on Black Friday a couple years ago and now I'm in the same "but Makita has good stuff..." boat. Not that I'm buying any tools until the shop space is ready. Inching towards the day...
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Jan 21, 2021 08:31
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Sylink posted:I will say my big Bosch router is the most terrifying thing to use. I am perpetually terrified of hand routers to the point where I will go out of my way to use the router table even if it makes my life harder. Stationary tools just make more sense to me.
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Jan 26, 2021 02:26
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dupersaurus posted:I’ve got the kreg track thing for circular saws and while it’s a PITA to get the saw set up in the shoe, once it’s there it’s waaay better than dealing with straight edges I've got the Bora one. It's a little fiddly but I really like it.
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Feb 24, 2021 00:02
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Deteriorata posted:I'm building some cabinets for our bathroom that included shelves that butted up to the wall in a corner. Even though they were only about a foot apart, each had to be custom cut to fit the contour of the wall and corner at that particular point. this is my bathroom right now, except the same guys trying to build the shelves (and doing an...acceptable job, kind of) were the ones who put in the framing and the drywall. it did not help.
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Mar 9, 2021 00:21
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I have a few HF wood screw clamps and they're really handy for just about everything. Stick them on the bottom of a leg of something so you can work it standing up, among other things. I don't use them much for clamping though. Their ratcheting and their quick-release clamps kinda suck (if you aren't careful it's really easy to bend them), but their aluminum bar clamps are totally fine even when you get up to 36". Past that I think I'd be a bit suspicious though. I have a couple HF corner clamps too. They're not as good as Rockler's corner clamp jig but they cost $10 and each Rockler set cost $40 so you take what you can get. tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Apr 4, 2021 |
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Apr 4, 2021 19:12
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I have no insight into jointers generally but that thing looks terrifying.
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Apr 5, 2021 04:50
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This isn't technically "woodworking" I guess but I feel like the folks here will appreciate it more: I hate pressure treated wood. I'm building a new fence gate and drilling GRK screws into it feels like I'm drilling into cheese and it's faintly disgusting at all times.
tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Apr 7, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2021 01:48
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Bathrooms and kitchens. We call them ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs) here. Some folks are a little more paranoid and have them on any circuit with a plug on it that could conceivably end up near water (all of the outlets in my basement and shop/garage are on GFCI breakers) but that's unusual.
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Apr 12, 2021 14:12
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Bloody posted:This is a code requirement now TIL. I would have used them anyway, as I am a fallible moron, but good to know!
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Apr 14, 2021 23:02
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Yeah, that gave me the Rockler twenty miles from me which carries tiny pieces and scrap and missed the lumber yard five miles away.
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Apr 26, 2021 14:34
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I’ve got in my house Home Depot acacia butcher block counters, and they look and work nice. Sturdy enough, although I’ll have to replace one piece at some point because the contractors left the kitchen island/breakfast bar bit unsupported and it’s sagging, but I really like the look of it. My ex burned a backwards LODGE into the countertop by putting a hot cast iron on it, but that’s kind of a bonus, it’s artsy ‘n poo poo.
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Apr 29, 2021 14:56
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I think he means a hand planer, not a hand plane?
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Apr 29, 2021 19:10
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:No, I meant the unpowered hand tool. It really doesn't take long to flatten the edge of a board with a hand plane, but yes, it is a new skill to learn.
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Apr 29, 2021 20:01
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FWIW - the ryoba brand I see recommended a lot, Suizan, sells a folding ryoba. Looks neat. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075L4P4FN
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May 6, 2021 06:59
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The house renovation nears completion and I almost have a shop space to get rolling with. The basement of the old house was unusable for woodfuckery (though I did try) due to low ceilings and massive dust and me not wanting to really get into hand tools, so I'm excited to get back to it. I grew up doing low-key carpentry type stuff with my dad and I've done some of the house renovation along the way, but I want to get into Actual Woodworking (tm) and have been idly performing retail therapy over the last ~10 months while I waited for the renovation to get to a point where I get to do stuff in a space I actually fit into. So I've got some modestly priced toys to play with and some ideas for what to do. I am a videographer for the day job so I'm excited to figure out how to apply some of that to this new hobby, too. Also, dog.  Three 120V circuits, with two of them intended for power tools (alternating on the right wall with two on the left wall as well, plus switches for hard power cutoffs) and one for utility stuff (the back wall, most of the ceiling outlets). Two 240V in the garage for future expansion, too. Rough layout is going to be the tablesaw around the midpoint of the shop with an outfeed/assembly table behind it; plans get hazy from there. Dimensions are about 22' x 12', and the oil shed to the left of the garage runs the entire length of the house, so it's roughly 33' x 5'; that'll be for storage, as it's basically empty save for an oil tank at the waaaay back of it. I've had a 120V and a 240V run to there for future dust collection (and, y'know, lights--lights are cool) and I should be able to, eventually, vent to an outside collection bin. But that's pretty far down the road. Getting started on shop furniture this weekend. Knock together some boxes, annoy the neighbors with power tools. Good times. It's super nice finally being able to do stuff. My local Home Depot won't cut 3/4" MDF though, so I gotta figure out a way to get a full sheet (a few, really) home for a tabletop... tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 19:14 on May 6, 2021 |
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May 6, 2021 19:08
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That Works posted:Rent a truck from the same HD. Or if you have a vehicle that can accommodate a trailer hitch a cheap 4x8 or 5x10 trailer off of craigslist are great for HD lumber runs etc if you're like me and don't have a truck. I haven't driven a truck in a decade. I am probably just going to hilariously overbuy sheet goods and tell myself I'm amortizing out the delivery costs.
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May 6, 2021 20:02
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Yeah, I think I have talked myself into MDF for shop furniture for now. I like the painted look and I really like that it's only ("only") $40 a sheet. Plywood and dimensional lumber when it makes the most sense, MDF for the rest. If I don't like it later, rip it out and redo it.
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May 6, 2021 20:16
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Looked up that jointer. The manual says it didn't come with a motor and you had to buy one separately. Wild.
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May 13, 2021 12:54
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I have a Dustopper from Home Depot which I kinda like because it just pops into a 5-gallon bucket, but I'm really interested in the JET separator (also in that $150 range) once I finally have electric out in the dust collector closet. Seems like it's a patent-evading riff on the Harvey dust separator? Seems to work pretty well.
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May 25, 2021 21:05
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There are a few ways out there, some of which are less functional (in the "works at all" sense of the term) than others, to generate a cut list from a Fusion 360 project. Anybody have a recommendation for a good one?
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May 30, 2021 03:03
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Workbench top. I had insufficient clamps. But I have a Harbor Freight nearby. Now I have sufficient clamps. They might explode the second time I use them, but I only need them to work the first time, so it's fiiiiine. The lack of anywhere to put anything is getting to me, though. Once the bench is done I can start thinking about places to put all my poo poo. Like all these clamps I have now.
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Jun 17, 2021 00:05
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Khizan posted:No such thing. *for the moment
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Jun 17, 2021 00:14
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Falco posted:Is this the Anarchists Workbench? It's been on my list for the past year, and now that lumber is 3x what it was last year, it's not helping with my motivation factor. It isn't, no, it's my own design. At least so far as it's "designed". I don't think there are really too many ways to put together a bench according to the limitations I'm dealing with, though, so I'd bet it's probably pretty similar. My joinery sucks, so I'm doing it all just as half-laps (pre-glue cut-outs in one side of a laminated pair of 2x4 or 2x6) or a mortise and tenon (putting a 2x4 or 2x6 through a hole in three or more laminated pieces). This is the 2x4 laminated top I'm building now, and I'm doing it such that I'll leave mortises through the top for half of the bonded 2x6 legs to go through such that the tabletop rests on the shoulder of the leg and the mortise-and-tenon itself isn't under constant stress--not that I expect it'd be a problem with the amount of glue going into this thing, but no reason to risk it. I posted a 3D design of it here like a year ago, before I realized that my old house basement would not work as a workshop (and then sold that house and bought this one, where my garage is very workshoppable). I'm shooting footage to do some video stuff about the bench now, too; I kind of want to chart progress from "I have read some stuff and I've done some carpentry work" to wherever I end up, and I'm a videographer in my day job so that will probably be nicer than the builds. 
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Jun 17, 2021 02:33
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This bench project is firmly in the land of it's-fine woodworking but I'm enjoying putting it together. I've been shooting video the whole time ("empty garage to wood shop") but editing that will be the death of me and I kinda wanna talk about it because I've laminated up enough poo poo over the last two months of weekends to never want to hear the word again, until next time. The original plan for this bench was rather less ambitious and sorta borne out of knowing a little bit about construction but much less about woodworking. Originally my thinking, in part due to COVID wood prices and in part due to novice-ry, that I'd just do the entire thing out of 2x4s. I've heard of a face-laminated top before, and in my original and very abortive attempt at a bench in my last house (the one with the 6'2" basement ceiling), I'd started in on a test piece and it sure was rugged, so, sure, let's give it a go. Needed some stuff for house remodeling too, so stupid me ordered a bunch of 2x4s in the Lowe's delivery, then promptly had to figure out how to return the most unusable 20% of the batch (which is a trick when you drive a Hyundai Veloster). Ran each of the "HEM-FIR" 2x4s for the top through my tablesaw to take down the rounded corners and to try to even everything out as best I could, going down to about 2.75" per and mostly getting this absolutely garbage wood into a manageable state. Mostly. Then, glue. Glue forever. (I would learn things shortly after building this part.)  This was not the most successful endeavor of my life. Which is to say, it went together, but between my less-than-perfect tablesawry (no outfeed table, so sawhorses and one of those Ridgid flip-top gizmos - I did my best, and it wasn't great in places) plus our awful swamp of a summer plus general hand-eye bumbling means that the top was a touch wavy. Not terrible, but probably needing an eighth of an inch removed on both sides. It's fine, it's fine. (Also, this benchtop stayed incomplete for a while - 11 of 15 laminated pieces, because the plan was to glue up the top as mortises around the tops of the legs, tenoned through the surface. Which I'm doing, and works. More on that in a sec.) I also immediately, and I mean immediately, learned a truism: the second you have a flat place in a workbench, it becomes a Work Surface. I popped open one of my cameras to fix its thermal compound just right on top of those sawhorses and that bench top. This actually made finishing the bench take longer than I'd intended, because now at least I had a place to put stuff that mostly wouldn't walk away on me if I leaned on it. Anyway, this is when I learned (and here is my sunk-cost-fallacy mistake) that Lowe's in my area sells wood supplied by different vendors for standard stud length (2"x4"x8') and longer/wider pieces. The 2x6s I ended up breaking down in the Lowe's parking lot to fit in my delightful Hyundai Veloster were...better. Even I could tell that. They were dried better, less splintery, just all-around Less Garbage Wood. They're marked "white fir", which the internet says is also "hem fir", but the bench top was a bunch of absolute poo poo-garbage wood, over-dried in places, and has turned pink in the last month and nothing I've bought since has, so...I dunno. Anyway, the plan from here on out started as two laminated 2x6s, with the ends of one serving as the tenon through the mortise of the top. But I realized three things here: 1) trying to do anything with the benchtop on top of two sawhorses sucked. I want More Weight. Everybody says a heavy bench is better. So More Weight. It's not a ton of More Weight, but let's make the legs out of three 2x6 lengths. 2) Yeah, the length-wise stretcher would be glued in place between the leg assemblies, and the glue's strong enough that that not-quite-a-half-lap joint doesn't really matter, but we can do better, right? 3) Gotta do width-wise stretchers too. Having something to make mortises out of (oh boy, chiseling!) would be better than bolting poo poo together, right? So, triple-thickness legs it was. LEGS!  Herein you see the attempt to glue in place the length stretcher into one of the two leg assemblies. Which actually worked really well, it came out dead square, I'm happy with it. Lesson immediately learned: eff these lovely Harbor Freight trigger clamps. They're cheap, so I don't regret buying them, but they're barely useful for anything other than holding the thing tight enough to align. Just can't get nearly enough pressure for a tight glue-up. Fortunately, that's all these are for in this picture; I have a bunch of equally lovely but actually clampy Harbor Freight screw clamps (see above) that went on to do the actual squeezing. This was the second layer; the top layer is where, halfway through the first one, I realized I wanted some aprons on this bench. More surface area, more weight, sure, whatever, let's try it out. So I cut down the 2x6 leg and bonded in another 2x6 on each leg assembly, even with the interior shoulder of the leg. The plan from here was to slot in the center bit of the workbench I'd been using (which was exactly four 2x4 widths shy of my desired final width of 22.5") into those interior shoulders, then laminate the rest of the mortises around the upright tenons. The leg assemblies came out pretty well. Then came the mortise chopping, which, well.  Not bad for a first try, with some thoroughly budget chisels? I guess? (I did clean out the waste after taking this picture. I'm not a monster, I'm just clumsy.) My hands are still thanking me for not trying to hack these all out, though. I have a Milescraft Drillmate and just augered straight on through with the biggest Speedbor I had, and then whacked away at the edges until it was mostly squarish. Honestly this was kinda fun. They're not good. But it's a workbench, IDGAF (that much). Lots of work though. Time for a dog break in the near-Canadas of northern Vermont (aka my parents' house for the first weekend out of the state since COVID started).  Came home, house wasn't burned down, finally time to start trying to assemble this godforsaken thing. I have a big piece of foam insulation that I'd ordered along with a bunch of renovation crap. Intended to use it for sheet good bumbling, but it's stable and I can walk on it and it's flat, so here we is:  Gluing these in was actually kinda tricky, because even if I propped the leg up higher, trying to put a clamp on pulled it out of square (because, duh, the mortise bottom wasn't flat and level, but I didn't fully understand that yet). So I it's-fined it, making sure the top angle was square to the leg and let it dry. Worked fine. Thennnnn I had to put the two together. My plan was simple: put the receiver leg assembly on the bottom, drop-fit in the assembly with the stretchers already glued in, use spacersand that was rather emphatically less fine. I still am not 100% how this happened, but while I'd been super concerned about the length stretchers being too long and thinking I'd cut them a little short intentionally (it's stability more than weight, right? It's OK if these aren't all the way into the mortise so long as they're deep enough to get a glue hold)...somehow I had made them way too long for the benchtop's width. Like, by a lot. Somehow I missed it during the dry fit, because I wasn't going to haul the whole benchtop over (poo poo's heavy) and dry fit that in, too (lesson learned!). So, while the glue was in the mortises, I was hauling around the leg assembly I was going to drop-fit in and eyeballing cuts with my circular saw. The foresight to have spacers made saved my rear end, though, and I now did have the cuts short enough that they'd glue in but the spacers held the weight so I'd avoid screwing up the dimensions for the top. While I was watching that set, though, I started to get a little nervous. I'd decided I'd join the leg assemblies and then lay in the benchtop, but I was realizing I Did Not Like This Approach. I was worried about trying to flip it on its feet, stand it up, and fight through the existing glue-up to get the top into place. So I decided--well, YOLO, let's get the benchtop in there now. (I had, through accidental foresight, already marked out where the benchtop needed to go in order to make this whole scheme work.)  (The casters on the bottom are leveling-feet/casters and while I think they'll be solid on my tablesaw stand--next project--they're not great here. I am removing them and screwing a tie strap to each lengthwise stretcher so I have a place to put an automotive jack and drop a skate underneath. They've been super useful in having to get the thing outside, though.) Bar clamps on the not-yet-removed "ears" of the stretchers to pull the benchtop down, and (removed, so not pictured) clamps all over the goddamned place to keep the leg assemblies in place and glue them up to the face grain of the benchtop sides. Despite the Tenon Panic of 2021, this ended up being pretty...ok?  Seven feet of moderately competent construction.  Hard to tell from this picture, but I promise the top is not hilariously angled--the caster leveling feet are a little off. And for now the bench is intentionally too tall; wasn't sure about the casters, and leaving myself an out by not cutting the legs down is paying off now that they're going away. Also note my very stylish "hey how do I actually get this trimmed down to length?" attempt with a tracksaw on the ends of the benchtop (which, for reasons now inscrutable to me, I'd done before it was finished--you can see boards #2 and #13, forming the side walls of that benchtop mortise, not having such tender mercies visited upon it). My kingdom for one square angle on a board...which I have since kinda come to grips with...which is why the bench build hasn't been finished yet. A lot of my squaring issues, etc. is that this top sucks. The assembly wasn't great, but the material is what's really troubling me. It's sturdy (it better be, there's an entire bottle of glue in there) but the wood sucks and is splintery. I'm pretty sure I will have no end of trouble even after I put finish on it. Even after being clamped-and-glued all to hell there's some subtle twist; the faces aren't parallel enough to get an even approximate square to them, and do I think I'm able to deal with that with my current skill, do I want to be dealing with the fallout from that for a decade? Also, it's pink. I don't know why in the pictures it's color-corrected out, but it's noticeably and strikingly pink and looks stupid with the much more pale legs. That isn't why I'm unhappy with it, but it's not not why, either. The final nail in the coffin, though, is that during my trip to my folks' house I finally read The Anarchist's Workbench. Most of which I have accidentally reasoned my way towards, which I find kind of awesome? Like, having some validation for the intuition that went into building this is really nice. But the one big divergence (because I don't feel like there's a ton of difference between 2x6 and 2x8 construction? it's a bench) is in terms of bench thickness. He recommends 5" to 6". Mine will be 2.5" after planing and sanding it flat. Intuitively, that's been feeling too thin since I made it and it just looks wrong when I look at the bench, so I've been thinking about things. SO. I think I can kill two birds with one stone here by building atop the existing benchtop (that's why I didn't put on pieces #1 and #15 of the top yet). I'm going to sand it flat and clean it up, and then I'm going to laminate up, edge-to-edge, a top made of this better white fir I've got kicking around. Effectively I'm going to box in the top, both edges, and the ends in something that, now that I have a bench to do some work on and a little more proficiency in doing this stuff, I can hide my benchtop crimes. It'll still be beneficial, as there's weight and structure there, but I incredibly don't wanna look at it or fight with it for the next ten years, so let's go I guess? Plus, learning experience, etc etc. I need a beer just thinking about all this, and it's only 11AM. tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jul 9, 2021 |
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Jul 9, 2021 16:01
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Aw, thanks.  And to be clear, I'm not unhappy with it. I'm pleased, given that it's the first nontrivial thing I've ever put together that doesn't have screws and nails in it (home remodeling is one thing, building poo poo like this is quite another). It's not that it's not perfect, it's that tracecomplete fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jul 9, 2021 |
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Jul 9, 2021 16:49
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The 2x6s I just got for the top are about 25% off the 2x6s I got for the legs, which is nice.Jhet posted:Pictures of my coffee table that only took 2 years and 2 moves to complete. That looks nice. I am digging the legs.
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Jul 9, 2021 17:07
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"You can sand it down" is technically true, but other pieces in the same collection mention a "pre-catalyzed lacquer finish", which kinda makes me wonder if you will not be opening a can of worms later when you seek to match the finish (either partial matching or redoing the whole table but getting the same look you paid for). I'd wait, IMO.
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Jul 9, 2021 18:01
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