Andrew Rutz's blog

The "24 Hours" have finished !

Well, here's a photo of my completed workbench. The magazine article predicted a duration of "24 hours", but it took me six months of weekends and inexperienced woodworking hands. However, I'm extremely pleased with the results.

On the front is, appropriately enough named, a front vise that consumed the majority of my time. I purchased the iron mechanism that consists of a mounting plate, guide rods, an ACME threaded screw, and two face plates. I purchased some hard maple and milled it to a thickness of 2.5 inches or so, and drilled holes so that the maple face plates could be attached to the iron face plates.

Between the pair of legs closest to the camera are a pair of stretchers. The end of each stretcher has a tenon that fits into a mortise in the leg. Each stretcher was glued and pegged to the leg using a dowel. A decorative black walnut cap was mounted in each peg-hole so that it was flush with the Southern Yellow Pine of the leg. The rear pair of legs were connected in the same fashion. These two end-assemblies were connected (along the long dimension) using a 2 x 8 stretcher that uses both mortise/tenon joinery and a brass/hardware bench bolt. The bench bolt allows the table to be disassembled... though I think this 300 pound table is probably easier to move by temporarily raising it onto casters !

I drilled a row of holes in the top for "bench dogs", along with one hole in the top of the outermost vise jaw. One can then use the vise with the bench dogs to hold an item of arbitrary length.

I finished the project by chamfering the edges of all legs and stretchers, and applying a tung oil-based finish to seal the wood's pores.

The coolest part during the making of the bench was when I realized that I would be able to do something with the bench that no one else will ever be able to do: I was able to "use the bench" before I "built the bench". (clue: once the vise is attached to the top, it becomes an immediate "friend" in the workshop...

Posted at 06:47PM Jun 18, 2007 by Andrew Rutz in :-)  |  Comments[0]