Building my Work Bench

Mike Gabbay

Member
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180
Location
Herndon VA
I finally have had time to start working on my workbench. I'm using the FWW design from the Shop and Tools edition from 2 years ago. I'm currently working on the base. I'm using hard maple for the legs, trestles, and rails.

Here's my question....

I'm glueing up 3/4 stock to make it to the final deminsions (3"x3" and 3.5"x3.5"). The plan calls for the legs to have tenons on both ends for the feet and trestles and through mortises for the top and bottom rails. My thought was to have the face of the legs facing out front. This would result in the mortises being cut through the glued edges (side to side of the leg) and the tenons would be cut across the edges (front to back of the legs). Is there any reason to worry about having the tenons be a series of glued pieces and the mortises running through a couple of glued pieces?

Does this make sense??? :dunno:

Thanks, Mike
 
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ARe you going to use the wedges for the thru trestle tenon? That might effect your glue up. Not sure though

You could also run a dowel perpendicular thru the M&T thus binding everything together.

I made this bench and I forget how I oriented the legs, but you should be O.K. doing it your way.

Joe
 
mike, anytime you glue two boards together the glue joint is stronger than the surrounding wood. so i think you`ll be fine from a structural standpoint...tod
 
Joe - I was going to wedge the tenons. Also the peg would add even more strength and a nice decorative touch.

Just curious, how heavy is the base once assembled (without the top)? I need something that would be movable up stairs. My basement shop has no walkout. I'm estimating around 60 - 75 pounds.

Tod - that was my thought....

Thanks guys! Hopefully I'll have pictures soon.
 
Mike

If you haven't glued up yet, you might consider making the mortises part of the process, e.g. cut shorter pieces and put a waxed "plug" in the glueup which is equal in size to the dimension of the tenon, then you won't have to chop the mortises out of the leg

Jay
 
I'm currently building a similar bench, but modified the base and am creating a different style. I'm mortising through both sides, and also using 3/4" laminated legs, but my legs are starting out about 4.5" x 4.5" (5 laminates), and I will taper them down to about 3.5" at the top on the 2 outer sides of each leg.

My stretchers are different since I've modified the plans, and mostly will only be using the top how LonS did it in the plans. But I do plan to assemble and add

My stretchers are 3 laminates of 3/4", one pair is 4" wide, and the other pair is 3" wide. Both have an arched cutout on the top laminate, in the Arts & Crafts style...kinda sorta...but the 2 underlying laminate pieces are full size, I think it will look ok like that though.

I have stretchers on the sides also, unlike LonS did on his bench, but I don't have a trestle base. My side stretchers will be arched also, and are 4" side (3 laminates, or 2.25" thick just like the other stretchers.

Not that it matters, but I'm putting my laminations towards the front, so that when I arch the legs towards the top, the front will have the laminations facing front, but tenons will be going through both directions at the feet, with the side stretches being above the front/lower 4" stretcher.

Those 4.5" legs are pretty heavy, solid hard maple, as the stretchers are.

My top will be 2 3/4" aprox thick with a 6" apron, similar to Lon's, but I will use a laminate of 8/4 walnut (2 pieces) for the ends of the top, and another laminate for the twin-screw. I also have 5 pieces of purple heart I was going to laminate in the top, but not sure if I'll use them or not.

My front apron will be a laminate of hickory, 6" wide, or slightly smaller when I get it laminated and cleaned up. So this will be hickory/walnut on the front for the dovetails.

I will use a emmert clone on the front, twin-screw on the end. Drawer front will probably be 3/4" air dried walnut.

I have my legs milled, stretchers milled, and need to mill up the stop runners which will sit under the table, I'm only going to use 3" thick for those, but they will be 5 layers wide to match the legs (5 layers is 4.5").

Good luck with yours, this is a lot of work to build a bench like this, but I feel it's the foundation to develop good woodworking skills. A woodworking bench is such a useful tool in itself, so often overlooked by many.
 
Joe - I was going to wedge the tenons. Also the peg would add even more strength and a nice decorative touch.

Just curious, how heavy is the base once assembled (without the top)? I need something that would be movable up stairs. My basement shop has no walkout. I'm estimating around 60 - 75 pounds.

Tod - that was my thought....

Thanks guys! Hopefully I'll have pictures soon.

Mike: I didn't make the base out of Maple, I used clear pine, ala a Wood Mag recommendation.

The base is suprisingly light. It is easy to move around. It is a great design.
 
My frankenstein design

Mike,

This is my design for my base, you can see how I planned to have a tenon going through both ways, with the side stretcher tenons above the front stretcher tenons.

I'm planning to do wedge tenons for all of them. Glue lines will face the front.

This has morphed a couple times, from the original design, and some things have been changed in regard to sizes and/or location of piece, but this is pretty much how it will end up...hopefully! :rolleyes:

There were a couple things that changed due to size of material, I tried to maximize and sacrifice some, like the thickness of the top which you can see was planned for 3", but ended up 2.75" as not to waste too much. Side stretchers were brought down to 4" to utilize some particular wood, and things will move around slightly.

You can also see how much time has gone by since I first sketched the dovetails when I rennovated a bench in my garage about a year ago. It was intended that I would build my woodworking bench with that bench. ;)

(linky for plan evolution PDF)

 
Alan - that looks good. I should have some photos of mine this weekend. I'll be ready to start cutting mortises and tenons in the trestles, feet and legs. Unfortunately, I've run out of maple and need to make a run on Monday to pick up a load. I hope to have the stretchers cut next weekend. Maybe this will be finished by New Years! I bought a butcher block slab for the top so that will make it go a little faster.

Just curious, how are you attaching the apron on the ends? Also, it looks like you are using half blind DTs on the corners.

Mike
 
Mike,

The aprons will attach just like LonS did in the plans, a tongue and groove to hold them on, dovetailed in the front.

Ok, I have to confess, I've procrastonated quite a bit, yeah...I admit it...

I'll be laminating the top myself, I have the maple milled already, but it's not laminated together. I'm planning exactly how LonS did the top, except I'll have a pattern maker's vise on the front.

The stretchers changed to only arch the front laminate with an arch, and I like the look. I'll be cutting my tenons and mortising the legs over the upcoming break for me (off between Xmas and New Years).

I still need to cut some pieces to laminate up for the runners that sit on top of the base and connect the front and rear legs to hold the top, but might be able to use some of the 3" maple for that I have cutup for the top. I only need 10 pieces, 5 per side to match up the width of the legs.

I'm gonna try to cut a houndstooth dovetail for the apron/end joinery, similar to the bench I rennovated last year. This will be some decent sized stock, using a laminate of 3 pieces of 4/4 hickory for the front apron, double 8/4 laminate of walnut for the ends and the end vise.

BTW, the estimate in your base at 60-70 lbs. could be off, I think you would have 4 laminates for a 3" leg, and I would guess those will weigh about 20-30 lbs. each. I would guess the base will weigh more like 150 lbs. when you have it done, but I could be wrong.

Frank, Stu, yeah...I like to sketch out on the veritas paper when I can, it really helps get a perspective on things.

My biggest problem is that I don't work as consistently on a project as I would like, as I get easily pulled in various directions with different projects I have going...and it takes me quite a long time to finish things...I don't think I hold any monopoly on that scenario though... :p

EDIT: Mike, my plan was to leave 2" on the bottom of the legs to give the mortise some strength, and to hopefully leave another 2" on top of that between the 2 opposing mortises, where the front and side stretchers will connect through the legs. Hope that makes sense, that is kinda in respect to the m&t joints. As I said, glue lines will face forward for me, not that it really matters though, I just think it will look best oriented that way.

EDIT2: Here's a link to some pics of the stretchers, legs, and yet to be laminated top.

(linky pic)

 
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