Sawbench

Bill Satko

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Location
Methow Valley
I thought I would share my building of a sawbench for my shop. A sawbench is different from a sawhorse mainly in the width and height of its top. The low & wide surface helps you to handsaw boards by allowing you to secure the board with your foot or knee. All my bench surfaces and sawhorses are of a much higher height and I felt that I needed a lower surface for some of things I was trying to do. Besides we all need some place to sit while we are pretending to be "working in the shop"!

This sawbench that I am building is based on the one Harry Strasil designed in his tutorial over at SMC. Check out his detailed tutorial that was posted around July of 2006. This will not be a tutorial, but me demonstrating part of process I will be going through as I build one. For a different type of sawbench, check out the one that Chris Schwartz builds in the Autumn 2006 copy of Woodworking Magazine and is also shown in his blog. Chris considers his version a "traditional English form". I guess that makes Harry's a traditional American form. If you are unfamiliar with Harry Strasil, I suggest to check his postings at SMC. He is a wealth of information on traditional methods of woodworking (using tools with no tails). He is also a blacksmith and posts to a blacksmith forum.

Here a sketch of the sawbench I will be building

Sawbench.jpg

It will be 20" high. I will maintain that height, but the width and length may change slightly as I proceed. You will notice that the legs are splayed out for stability. Based on Harry's design it is splayed out 10 degrees.


It is getting late and I will post more tomorrow as I show how I surfaced the malcontent board that will be my top. This board did not appreciate the warm and cozy shop I stored it in and decided to warp. This will be done with hand tools!

I must warn you that after tomorrow's post my progress will slow quite a bit because of my tendency to bite off more than I can chew. I have a more urgent chore (see my kitchen cabinet post) that I must complete, but I will try to sneak in work on the sawbench when the wife is not looking.

You see, the sawbench is NOT on the "honey do list".
 
... Besides we all need some place to sit while we are pretending to be "working in the shop"!
...


DOH. That's what the LazyBoy is for:D

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Doug,

I am confused. That is too pretty to be a workbench! But if it is...nice place to have it! Oh yeah...nice shot of the scraper plane.
 
Sawbench, the linchpin of the next few months...

Before I post the progress I have made on the sawbench, I feel a little background is needed on why this project is so important right now. When Larry & Randi Merlau came over to our house last month, Larry and I ended up in my shop/garage. Kind of obvious, what woodworker would not check out another's shop? If he was not interested, you would be rushing him to the hospital or something!!! As I was showing him around, I was pointing out the flaws in my space. Foremost was the lack of a true hand tool bench which really limited the direction my woodworking was going. My intent was to build one, but I had been stymied as to where to put it. Larry instantly suggested under the window where currently resides a bank of kitchen cabinet lowers that I was storing a lot of tools. Well, I just as instantly dismissed his suggestion with some reason why I couldn't get rid of that storage space.

Sometimes you live with a situation so long, you lose the ability to look at it in a different way. It takes a stranger without your history (baggage) to offer up what should be really obvious. Larry & Randi left and about a day or two later with Larry's suggestion still bouncing around in my brain, I realized he found the solution to making my shop realize its full potential. Everything fell into place. I was allowing the prime real estate in my shop to be taken up by storage. It was not a work bench, but a place to store tools. I realized that with some creative rearranging, I could find other room for the storage.

Now all of you with small or modest size shops realize that you don't just move things around. It takes a elaborate dance that is intricately choreographed to make it happen. If I move A over here then I need to build something so that B won't be in the way, but that means I need to do something with C and ... You get the picture.

Trust me on this (it will all become clear in the months ahead) this is the start of a shop transformation.

Thanks Larry!
 
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Sometimes you live with a situation so long, you lose the ability to look at it in a different way. It takes a stranger without your history (baggage) to offer up what should be really obvious. Larry & Randi left and about a day or two later with Larry's suggestion still bouncing around in my brain, I realized he found the solution to making my shop realize its full potential. Everything fell into place. I was allowing the prime real estate in my shop to be taken up by storage. It was not a work bench, but a place to store tools. I realized that with some creative rearranging, I could find other room for the storage.

Now all of you with small or modest size shops realize that you don't just move things around. It takes a elaborate dance that is intricately choreographed to make it happen. If I move A over here then I need to build something so that B won't be in the way, but that means I need to do something with C and ... You get the picture.

Trust me on this (it will all become clear in the months ahead) this is the start of a shop transformation.

Thanks Larry!
That is soooo weird - I was just minutes ago looking at a drawing of my shop layout thinking I devote too much space to storage and that there must be a better way to lay things out. I'll be watching your progress, believe me!:lurk: I have enough on my plate right now to keep me very busy till June, but I can see myself setting aside a month or two to do some serious rearranging next fall.
 
Flattening the tops of the sawbenches

You may notice the plural in the posting title. No mistake, I am preparing enough stock to build two sawbenches. I will not be building the the second one right away, but I figured I would get the drudgery of stock preparation for both out of the way.

A few weeks ago I went to one of the local lumber stores and hand selected the best 2" x 10" x 8' doug fir I could find (about 3 sticks). I could tell by its weight that it still retained a lot of moisture. Three weeks is probably not enough time to become fully acclimated to the shop, but I guess I got impatient. They were very straight without any warp to them. I can not say that now. They definitely twisted & cupped. I rough cut by hand the lengths for two tops out of the board with the least defects. I also cut out the lengths for the legs (roughly 24" long). It just happens that I will be able to cut out two legs in one 24" section by sawing diagonally, but I will not separate the two legs until I have flattened and dimensioned the stock. It will become clear in a later post when I get that far.

Now I could have cut these sections in no time at all by firing up the electrons, but I am trying to slow down and enjoy the journey. Not to say that I am going to carry this two far, I will be using machines in some places. In fact I am only going to use hand planes to flatten one side enough to run it through my planer to get it to the correct thickness.

Honest truth is that I need more practice at hand sawing. Funny how I got away from it, but it does not take long for the muscle memory to come back. I wish I could say the same about the muscle endurance! I took a few breaks. :)

Ok now it is time to make some wood shavings!

Below is one of the tops securely fastened in my top of the line bench.

Sawbench1.jpg

I have created a lot of wood mulch on that bench, but it takes a very special technique. First you need to be able to plane with one foot on the benches' lower shelf and you need to take a light cut or you will be chasing it around the shop. I always wear my running shoes...just in case it gets away from me. I use to plane on it with the garage door open, but one day I looked up from fighting a piece of wood and I was half down the drive way. Kinda embarrassing.

On to the task at hand. You will notice two winding sticks sitting on the board. Also you will notice that I have shims placed at one corner. You will not get it flat and level if the board is rocking on the bench. It also needs to be fully supported. You know what happens when you put a board with warp into power planer, same thing here. My experience is that you will deflect the board down while hand planing and then it will bounce back, just like in a power planer.

Sawbench2.jpg

On to the next post for the rest of the story
 
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Flattening the tops (part 2)

Disclaimer

What I am relaying to you is my experience. I am by no means a woodworking expert. I am probably like many of you, taken shop in junior high and high school, but not worked professionally as a woodworker. Maybe also like me you dabbled in building things over the years, because it was your nature. And now you reached a certain time of your life that it has suddenly become important to pursue woodworking more seriously. I am sure we all have our reasons why. What I am saying is do not take my methods or understandings of how things work as gospel. I am learning more about this each day I wake up. So if anyone has a better way or noticing something wrong with what I am doing please speak up. For most of us, the only mentors we will ever have will be each other. I suspect that is why many of us are here.

Now that the weasel words are said. I have found the hard way that you just can't start hacking away at the wood with a plane and hope for the best; you need to have a course of action. Taking the winding sticks and also using one as a straight edge, I have marked the high spots. Boy this board has problems!

Sawbench3.jpg

Well, I hit the high spots with my jack plane. I would recommend starting with your "coarsest" plane and work toward the finest, just like sanding. Otherwise it will take a long time. I start by going diagonally across and then working lengthwise. Below is a picture of my jointer plane and I will repeat the process.

Sawbench4.jpg

I got a little tear out with the grain going in different directions. I have my smoother out and I have penciled in which way the grain is going. The cathedral seems to be line of demarcation for the grain. A little work with the smoother and most of the tear out is gone.

Sawbench5.jpg

The side is perfectly flat and ready to run through the planer. I do the same with the other top.


Sawbench6.jpg

The first time I hand flattened a board, I could not believe it was that easy.
 
Great pictorial, Bill. For those of us with limited hand tool experience, it helps to watch someone else go through the process. :thumb:
 
jist got lucky

bill i just got lucky that day and saw something with clear eye's, hadnt had the normal alcohol dosage and so my mind slipped into normalacy:D thanks for postin your tutorial on this for the family to see..:thumb::thumb:
 
I had set this project aside as I was busy with many other things. I got tired of moving the materials out of my way, so I decided to finish up one of the saw-benches. I managed to squeeze in time between other projects. Except for using the planer for the initial thickness planing, the rest of the work was done with hand tools.

First picture is after I cut out the rip notch and the rest after I finished it with a beeswax, turpentine and BLO mixture

SawBench 01.jpg

SawBench 02.jpg

SawBench 03.jpg

SawBench 04.jpg

SawBench 05.jpg

SawBench 06.jpg
 
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