WorkBench - workbench.pdf - Woodworking Plans - t240

$175 Workbench

For $175 you can build a

bench that will retire after

you do.

I’ve hauled my grandfather’s

workbench across snow-covered

Appalachian mountains, down

narrow stairwells and into a dirt-

floored garage that should have

been torn down during the

Eisenhower administration. I’ve

built a lot of good stuff on that

bench, but now it’s time to retire

the old horse. For starters, the

bench is too low for the way I

work. And the top is pockmarked

When you glue up your top, you want

to make sure all the boards line up.

Lay down your glue and then clamp up one

end with the boards perfectly flush. Then

get a friend to clamp a handscrew on the

seam and twist until the boards are flush.

Continue clamping up towards your friend,

having your friend adjust the handscrews

as needed after each clamp is cinched

down.

with three different shapes and

sizes of dog holes. And during

the last few years I’ve become

fed up with the tool tray. The

only thing it seems designed to

hold is enough sawdust for a

family of gerbils. So I need a

new bench, but there’s no way

I’m going to spend $1,200 to

$1,400 for a high-quality bench

from Hoffman & Hammer or

Ulmia.

Enter Bob Key from Georgia. He

and his son have been building

benches using off-the-rack pine

for a few years and have even

built a website showing how

quick and easy this is to do (visit

them at

www.mindspring.com/~bobkey/

beginners.htm). I was impressed

with their idea. So I spent a

week reading every book on

benches I could find. I pored

over the woodworking catalogs.

And after a lot of figuring I came

up with a simple plan: Build a

bench for less than $175.

Drilling the 3/8" holes for the bolts is

easier if you do it in this order. First

drill the holes in the legs using your drill

press. Now assemble the leg and front rail.

Drill into the rail using the hole in the leg as

a guide. Remove the leg from the rail and

continue drilling the hole in the rail. The

hole you drilled before will once more act as

a guide. You still need to be careful and

guide your drill straight and true.

Believe it or not, I came in 92

cents under budget and ended

up with a bench that is tough,

sturdy and darn versatile. I made

a few compromises when

choosing the hardware to keep

the cost down, but I designed

the bench so that it can later be

upgraded with a nice tail vise.

However, I made no

compromises in the construction

of the top or base. You can

dance on this bench.

Another illustration of step 2.

Let’s Go Shopping

OK friends, it’s time to make

your shopping list. First a word

about the wood. I priced my

lumber from a local Lowe’s. It

was tagged as Southern yellow

pine, appearance-grade. Unlike

a lot of dimensional stock, this

stuff is pretty dry and knot-free.

Even so, take your time and pick

through the store’s pile of 12-

foot-long 2 x 8s with care to get

the best ones possible. You can

hide a few tight knots in the top,

but with luck you won’t have to.

After you cut your tenons, lay them

directly on your work and use the

edges like a ruler to mark where the

mortise should start and end (this picture).

Use a 1" Forstner bit in your drill press

to cut overlapping holes to make your

mortise (step 5).

Here’s the story on the

hardware. The bolts, nuts and

washers are used to connect the

front rails to the two ends of the

bench. Using this hardware,

we’ll borrow a technique used by

bed makers to build a joint that

is stronger than any mortise and

tenon. The Bench Dog and

Wonder Dog will keep you from

having to buy an expensive tail

vise. Using these two simple

pieces of hardware, you can

clamp almost anything to your

bench for planing, sanding and

chopping. The traditional face

vise goes on the front of your

bench and is useful for joinery

and opening cans of peanut

butter.

Now square up the edges of the

mortise using a mortise chisel and a

small mallet (step 6).

Preparing Your Lumber

Cut your lumber to length.

You’ve probably noticed that

your wood has rounded corners

and the faces are probably less

than glass-smooth. Your first

task is to use your jointer and

planer to remove those rounded

edges and get all your lumber

down to 1-3/8" thick.

The mortises in the front rails are also

made on the drill press. Make them 1-

¼" deep to make sure you can get a

washer in there. If you can’t, try clipping an

edge off of the washer.

Once your lumber is

thicknessed, start working on

the top. If this is your first

bench, you can make the top,

then throw it up on sawhorses to

build the base. The top is made

from 1-3/8" x 3-3/8" x 70"

boards turned on edge and

glued face-to-face. It will take

five of your 2 x 8s to make the

top. Build the top in stages to

make the task more

manageable. Glue up a few

boards, then run the assembly

through the jointer and planer to

get them flat. Make a few more

assemblies like this, then glue

all the assemblies together into

one big top.

Drilling your dog holes may seem like

hard work using a brace and bit. It is.

However, you get an amazing amount of

torque this way — far more than you can

get with a cordless drill. Sadly, I had

cooked my corded drill, so this was my only

option.

When you finally glue up the

whole top, you want to make

sure you keep all the boards in

line. This will save you hours of

flattening the top later with a

hand plane. See the photo

above for a life-saving tip when

you get to this point. After the

glue is dry, square the ends of

your assembled top. If you don’t

have a huge sliding table on

your table saw, try cutting the

ends square using a circular saw

(the top is so thick you’ll have to

make a cut from both sides). Or

you can use a hand saw and a

piece of scrap wood clamped

across the end as a guide.

Build the Base

The base is constructed using

mortise-and-tenon joinery.

Essentially, the base has two

end assemblies that are joined

by two rails. The end assemblies

are built using big 1"-thick, 2"-

long tenons. The front rails are

attached to the ends using 1" x

1" mortise-and-tenon joints and

the 6"-long bolts. Begin working

on the base by cutting all your

pieces to size. The 2¾"-square

legs are made from two pieces

of pine laminated together. Glue

and clamp the legs and set them

aside. Now turn your attention

to cutting the tenons on the

rails. It’s a good idea to first

make a “test” mortise in a piece

of scrap so you can fit your

tenons as they are made. I like

to make my tenons on the table

saw using a dado stack. Place

your rails face down on your

table saw and use a miter gauge

to nibble away at the rails until

the tenons are the right size.

Because pine is soft, be sure to

make the shoulders on the

edges 1" wide on the upper side

rails. This precaution will prevent

your tenons from blowing out

the top of your legs.

Now use your tenons to lay out

the locations of your mortises.

See the photo at right for how

this works. Clamp a piece of

scrap to your drill press to act as

a fence and chain-drill the

mortises in the legs. Make your

mortises about 1/16" deeper

than your tenons are long. This

will give you a little space for

any excess glue.

Once you’ve got your mortises

drilled, use a mortise chisel to

square the round corners. Make

sure your tenons fit, then dry-fit

your base. Label each joint so

you can reassemble the bench

later.

Bed Bolts

There’s a bit of a trick to joining

the front rails to the legs.

Workbenches, you see, are

subject to a lot of racking back

and forth. A plain old mortise-

and-tenon joint just won’t hack

it. So we bolt it. First study the

diagram at left to see how these

joints work. Now here’s the best

way to make them.

First chuck a 1" Forstner bit in

your drill press to cut the

countersink in the legs for the

bolt head. Drill the countersinks,

then chuck a 3/8"-brad-point bit

in your drill press and drill in the

center of the counterbore

through the leg and into the

mortise.

Now fit the front rails into the leg

mortises. Chuck that 3/8" bit into

your hand drill and drill as

deeply as you can through the

leg and into the rail. The hole in

the leg will guide the bit as it

cuts into the rail. Then remove

the leg and drill the 3/8" hole

even deeper. You probably will

have to use an extra-long drill

bit for this.

OK, here’s the critical part. Now

you need to cut two small

mortises on each rail. These

mortises will hold a nut and a

washer and must intersect the

3/8" holes you just drilled. With

the leg and rail assembled,

carefully figure out where the

mortises need to go. Drill the

mortises in the rails as shown in

the photo. Now test your

assembly. Thread the joint with

the bolt, two washers and a nut.

Use a ratchet and wrench to pull

everything tight. If your bench

ever wobbles in your lifetime, it’s

probably going to be a simple

matter of tightening these bolts

to fix the problem. Remember to

tell this to your children.

WorkBench - workbench.pdf

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