Lessons from the bench

It’s easy to cheat yourself out of experiences when woodworking. The crosspin is one of the more difficult parts of building a krenov plane. Some will elect to just use a dowel, others will create a jig and use a plug cutting bit. I tried and failed with a plug cutter multiple times. It’s a fussy setup and I never could get it quite right. This pursuit of efficiency and repeatability came at the cost of developing hand tool skills. Filing square to round and trusting your hand and eye. Took it slow tonight and did it right way, all while listening to an excellent podcast by www.handtoolbookreview.com. Check it out.

X marks the centre spot

Defined the shoulders with 4 quick cuts on the bandsaw.

Slowly taking down the corners

Hard corners, soft edges

Finished the shaping and refined the fit.

Offcuts

There’s something deeply satisfying about making your own tools. After finishing the bench build I was left with a good sized offcut, which I decided to use to make few krenov style planes. This one’s a jointer which is just over 19” long. I’ve laminated a pau ferro sole for durability and bedded the iron at just over 45 degrees. Decided against a chip breaker, as I wanted to keep it as pure as possible… besides I have a distaste for routers and didn’t want to mill a slot for the chipbreaker screw. I’m able to plane figured maple glass smooth so i’m not too concerned about tearout issues. I’m particularly happy with the form and I plan on making a smoother and coopering plane in the same Art Deco speedster style.

A Means To An End

I’ve been building this bench for so long that I’m a little sad to see it come to an end. It strange, usually projects tend to drag towards the end but this one really accelerated, so apologies for cramming a lot into this last update.

It’s been a challenging build but also a rewarding one. What i’ve liked most is that some elements have just fallen into place. The asymmetry in the top was dictated by the size of stock I had on hand. The two piece top was made of 4 beams, one was a good 7” wide and the rest were a little smaller. I used the 7” piece for the front as it was widest and it didn’t make sense to rip them all to a common width just to have the centre gap land right in the middle. I actually really like the fact that the work surface at the front totals 13” at the front and just over 8” at the rear. I also really like the fact that the 7” beam worked out to be exactly the same width as my sheldon vise. This really helped with the installation. The material for the legs had its fair share of structural defects, but all were addressed through epoxy reinforcement. It worked out to be kinda neat that I had enough material for 4 gnarled legs and 1 clear top. Without getting too mystical, in some ways i feel the bench build itself. Or at least dictated its final form. Anyways, on to the picture show.

The top was a bear to trim. I was able to make a kerf cut with my track saw but i still had 3” or so to hack through.

Man this was tough work. I nicked my fingers several times with this Ryoba, should have taped the edges….

I used miller dowels to secure the ledgers for the bottom shelf. Didn’t have to but if anyone ever looks up my skirt they’ll see a craftsman.

Next, on to the shelf boards. The veritas small plow is a finicky beast, can’t say i’ve mastered it but i was able to fiddle with it enough to get it plow an acceptable tongue and groove.

I find this type of work to be some of the most pleasurable. Light chamfering with an apron plane and a chisel.

Here she is, in the raw. Still needs a good danish oil bath and a few dog holes.

Made a quick jig to drill the dog holes straight and true. Lee valley sells this 3/4” brad point bit and 1” bushing, they make things easy.

On to flattening. You can see here the front beam lamination was slightly proud. All in all everything was sitting relatively well and it didn’t take too long to get things dead flat.

Full length shavings tell me I’ve found true flatness.

And when everything’s said and done here she is.

Another roubo workbench enters the world, built with wakened hands & built for a lifetime or two.

Beams to Dreams

It’s time to get started. No more planning, no more thinking and hopefully no more tooling up. First order of business is to start cutting my beams down to size. Though it’s not as straightforward as it might appear. I’ve learned a few things about buying wood, some which I already knew but didn’t quite register with me. I guess i’m an experiential learner… 1st off, country folk are savvy and you should drive a hard bargain. I still can’t decide whether I got a good deal… On one hand, walnut beams are exceedingly rare and should cost a small fortune. On the other hand these beams have checks, pith, debris and the tree ate a small fence and a few lag bolts back in 1982. All in, I probably did very well, especially considering I wouldn’t have been able to buy the same amount of wood in ash or oak from the local hardwood supplier for any cheaper. Actually it would have been close to double. The trade off is that I had to dig metal out of a few beams, I’ll have take care to mill the pith out where ever possible and I’ll probably end up having more dutchmen than than the Netherlands.

It took a bit of rotisserie but the bosch glide got it done.

Used a mdf sled to get straight and true edge.

Hot damn, it actually worked!

Legs were looking a little hairy and needed a shave.

I wasn’t kidding about the pith & checks. I might need to drown those dutchmen in epoxy.

proto-roubo | walnut-henge

Japanese Gennou

After drying out the gumi for a few weeks it was finally time to fit the head. Filed a chamfer on the underside of the gennou head and did my best to trim the tenon so that it was tight but not too tight. Difficult work to do with just a block plane and a chisel. It Took about 30 or so good thwacks or so to get it on, I had hoped to get it on a little deeper but I can live with it as is. If it loosens up in the future I'll have room to drive it down further. Once set, I applied a little tung oil to the end to swell things up, I was surprised how much the gumi took in. Should have the final shaping done this week, then it's on to setting up my Ouchi yama-ari oire-nomi.

A Cabinetmaker's Toolchest

The Finishing Line

Time to add a little structural insurance. These miller dowels will lock the lower portion of the handle assembly to the carcass while adding visual detail and mechanical strength. They work by creating a tapered hole using a tapered drill bit which is the same profile as the dowels. I really like using these little guys, they're like the western version of  Japanese wooden nails. 

Though they're not fool proof... I almost drilled into the floating floorboard. I was lucky and just missed it.. 

A little end-grain paring. 

And a little surface planing and we're done. 

Remember those magnetic saw holders? It's time to mount them, again using miller dowels, though this time using the smallest size. It was a little tricky to get the alignment right, there needed to be enough clearance to allow the lid to close and the saws to be positioned so that they were spaced without interfering with each other. 

I think it worked out A-Okay. 

A quick card scrap and I'm ready for finishing. Am I crazy for liking walnut without a finish? I debated between a tung-poly blend and shellac, ultimately the bugs won out over the nuts. 

I went with a 2lb cut of amber shellac applied thick and heavy. I'm not a fan of gloss finishes, I'll knock it right back with steel wool and wax once it's set, but that's a story for another day. 

Bandaids

I've made a few slight changes to Tom Fidgen's toolchest design, namely increasing the dimensions somewhat, using a two piece approach for the bottom runners and adding a half mortise lock. It was my first time installing a lock and although the mortising and keyhole parts went well, the selvage was sitting proud of the surface... Oh well, time to learn how to edge band. 

I'll be honest, it took a couple tries to cut the banding around the selvage plate and to the exact length of side. On the plus side, it's pretty cheap stuff so I could afford to make mistakes. 

After some ironing and rubbing with a block of wood it looked pretty good. The surface was practically flush and only the overhang was left to trim. 

A sharp razor blade made short work of the excess, I couldn't be happier with how easily this fix worked out. 

The screws for the half mortise are also sitting proud, on Wednesday I'll file them down flush. 

Magnetic Attraction

Did you know that putting a magnet in a steel cup will increase its strength by up to 4 times? I wish I had known that before I had made my saw holders. Then again, four 1/2" magnets seem to hold my badaxe bayonet just right. This portion of the build was relatively simple, I used a small forstner bit in a hand drill to bore out a few holes, dropped the magnets in and laminated a thicker piece on top. Nice and easy. 

Stay Gold

This is my Lie Nielsen No.4 smoothing plane in bronze with a few customizations. The original A2 steel has been replaced with a Tsunesaburo blade and the knob and tote have been changed from cherry to walnut. Aesthetics aside, there are a few functional improvements which can be made. A wise woodworker shared the following fettling tips with me yesterday. 

The yoke engages a very sharp steel slot in the cap iron. You can see here that it's already started to score the soft bronze of the yoke. This is on a plane that has never touched wood... 

If you look closely you can also see evidence of the bite on the cap iron, the sharp steel edge has deposits of bronze. 

The fix is to take a diamond file and break the sharp edge, top and bottom. 

A little oil on the lever cap hinge pivot goes a long way too.