Classic Workbench Build


jmaichel

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1 hour ago, Tom King said:

Can you see Bird, and Rabbit from where you are?  I know you're somewhere along that coast.

Bird is about 250 miles northwest of Oahu. Rabbit is southeast from where I am and at. I can see the Mokes and coconut island from most of the beaches by my house. 

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We're talking about different "Bird" islands.  The one I'm talking about is the nearest one to Rabbit.  My Hawaiian buddies called it "Bird" as a polite nickname.  It looks exactly like a pile of bird crap. Rabbit looks like a rabbit. Bird is the little one near Rabbit.  I don't know it's proper name.  They are both out and down from Kailua Bay.  I noticed your location is Kailua, but I don't know exactly where that is relative to Kailua Bay.  It's been a long time since I was there.

 

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Here are a couple of quick shop picks that I snapped tonight while trying to figure our where I am going to put this bench. 

My shop is a narrow part of our garage. There is not a lot of room to move stuff around and nowhere in the house to store extra "stuff" 

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At the left corner is my make shift sharpening station, it works pretty well but I absolutely hate the base. It's a shop fox base one that I bought from Grizzly and they refused to refund my money because it was outside the 90 day refund window. I let this sit in my garage for 4 months before I actually put it together. I figured it's better to use it than just let it go to waste. I put a piece of scrap granite on the top which works out pretty well for sharpening. I am not attached to it and it may end up going after the bench is built. On the shelf is a Dewalt 7 1/2 20V sliding miter saw. I really am not a huge fan of miter saws but I got it on sale for $349 which I thought was a pretty good deal. It actually has come in handy for some planter boxes that I built and couple other small non furniture builds. 

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To the right of my sharpening station is a joinery bench, that I currently use for all my hand work. It features the Benchcrafted Moxon Hardware and has really worked out very nicely. The cabinet is a shaker style cabinet base that is basically used for holding misc junk. I may end up turning this into my sharpening station after the bench is built. I am undecided on whether or not to keep the moxon hardware on the joinery bench or just build a moxon vise. It will really depend on what I decide with my sharpening station.

 

 

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Across from the joinery bench is where my dutch tool chest lives along with all my hand tools. To the right of tool chest is all the wood for sitting on top of a centipede saw horse. 

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You can see here that behind the wood is a bike/kayak/SUP rack that I built to help manage all my outdoor crap. That rack takes up a ton of space and really the reason why I don't have any room. The rack also holds my clamps and I am thinking about integrating a wood rack onto the back of it. 

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on the end closest to  the door is where I store my DW735 and a Ridgid portable table saw. The table saw does not see much so use, so I like that it folds up nicely and can be tucked in against the wall. Again, it's a tool that I really only use when build non furniture stuff. I hated the idea of getting a portable table saw but found that it has been pretty useful. Next to the table saw is another stack of poplar for a bookcase project that will be started once the bench is complete. Along this wall is where I am thinking my new bench will live. I also have a couple tool boxes that I put my hand tools in when they made the trip from the mainland to HI. I now use them to store a ROS and 20V circular saw. 

I was not sure how much I was going to like the smaller cir saw, table saw and miter saw (never had one before). Before I move to HI my shop was much bigger, I had a 36" grizzly hybrid table saw, jointer, bandsaw, a bunch of Festool stuff and large dust collector. I got rid of all the machines and right before I moved and I got rid of most of the Festool stuff the year before. I don't miss the machines but I really do miss my TS75, MFT3, OF1400 and CT26. I wish I had kept that stuff but just did not think it was worth the money to buy it again, not to mention I am probably going to move again in two years. I would rather put money into the hand tools for the time being. Once I am settled down back in the mainland it will be time for a full blown shop and most of the stuff in the garage will live in a large (hopefully) shed. 

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4 hours ago, K Cooper said:

So Hawaii's not a wood workers paridise? We'll hold your spot back on the Mainland!

I guess it depends on what you are into. If you like Koa, Mango and other exotic woods than yes it can be but it does not seem like the wood is any cheaper out here. I do think the quality of boards for Koa and Mango is a lot higher than on the mainland. 

The biggest issue I have is rust. It is always humid and I live less than 1/4 mile from the ocean. Even with my hand tools plane socks in a tool chest with DampRid I rust is an issue. My LN No. 7 if like a rust magnet, mostly due to its size. I am trying to oil all my tools down at least once a week and when I put the tools away for the day. This is sometimes hard, as I can go weeks sometimes more without using the tools. I have to make a conscious effort to go out oil them up. 

My shop is small but I am using mostly hand tools so the need for huge shop space is not really there. Once I am back on the mainland and settled down I will have a full size shop. For now I am very happy just focusing improving my hand tool skills along with establishing a very nice hand tool kit. I am at the point where I don't have anymore room in my Dutch Chest and am considering building a full size floor chest. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I made a little progress this weekend on the bench. I ripped all the boards for the top and crosscut them to a rough length of 90" and all 14 boards are various width for now. I ripped the first two boards by hand but quickly realized that it was more grunt work than I really wanted to do. I busted out the cordless circ saw and ripped the rest of the boards to rough width. 

The next step is to get a clean edge on each board and then run the opposite through the planer. I only managed to get through two boards today and hopefully I can get the rest jointed by the end of the week. 

Sorry I only took a couple pictures. 

 

 

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14 hours ago, Brendon_t said:

Sweet man,  I agree with your aversion to strict grunt type work. Sawing one board into two lengthwise doesn't sound like much fun at all

After ripping two boards, I was covered in sweat and decided to hell with this, where is the circ saw!

9 hours ago, TIODS said:

Nice job James!  Looks like a nice pile of lumber for your bench!  Enjoying the journal!

Thanks buddy!

6 hours ago, Chet K. said:

Your first picture made me sweat just looking at it.  I am looking forward to this coming together.

 

 

6 hours ago, wdwerker said:

It's reasonable to cut one by hand for the practice or to avoid a time consuming set up. Cutting the whole pile by hand is machocistic .

Thanks for another episode of " Woodworking in Paradise "

Paradise is a relative term for a woodworker. The whether is awesome but my tools don't like the hot, humid salty weather. 

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry for the long break. I noticed that my wood was not acclimated yet, then my parents came into town, then we went to visit a neighbor island, project for the wife and now finally back to my bench build. 

This week I edge jointed all the top pieces and skip planed 6 boards for glue up. I have decided the best way to proceed is to do the glue up in sections. I am going to glue up 4 sections of 3 boards and 1 section of 2 boards. I think this will make the glue up process easier and hopefully have to do less hand planing after glue up. Without a jointer this is a bit of a challenge plus my bench top planer can only handle 6" thick stock. I am hoping that this will help me hit my final width of 24".

 

I wanted to glue up 2 of the 3 sections but I ran out of glue and barely made it through one glue up.

 

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9 hours ago, JosephThomas said:

Nice, welcome back. Is glue more expensive on the island too? :D

About $1 more but then again everything is more expensive!

6 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

What kind of planer only handles 6" stock???? ?

I was referring to thickness not width. 

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