From log to workbench journal

[Beechwood Chip]

On 5/17/2026 at 11:02 AM, Botch said:

You may be the first person in history to cut tenons with a tracksaw!    

I'm sure people doing timber-frame buildings cut tenons with tracksaws.  I've seen videos of them using circular saws.  But those "tenons" were bigger than your stock!

[Von]

A little time this morning on the bench. I've been bouncing back and forth between the bench and shop projects which are intended to make room for the bench. It dawned on me that I need to clear floor space to have room to fully assembly the base. I plan a full dry fit of the base before glue up.

I had a good chunk of material to remove from my tenons so I broke out the rabbeting plane. It makes quick work, I quickly learned to check my fit frequently.

One rail fitted.

 

[Von]

Started on what will hopefully be all the dowel I'll need for the draw bores. It's 7/16" now. I'm going to let it sit a couple days to acclimate and then drive it down to 3/8".

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 5/21/2026 at 10:04 AM, Von said:

I quickly learned to check my fit frequently.

Good man. It's amazingly easy, and frustrating, to blow right past your ideal fit. Ask me how I know...

[Von]

First dry fit of the base. Gotta some room for tuning and some todos, but it's coming along.

[wtnhighlander]

Looks sturdy! What is your plan for attaching the top?

[Von]

On 5/25/2026 at 2:28 PM, wtnhighlander said:

Looks sturdy! What is your plan for attaching the top?

The top rails have holes drilled for bolts that will go into the top. The holes are 5/8" to allow some movement with 1/2" bolts.

And the legs have stub tenons on top, which will have corresponding mortises on the bottom of the top, to keep it from shifting around.

[fcschoenthal]

I remember in your initial planning, you were questioning how large to make it. So how big is this monster going to be?

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Base looks awesome! Well done!

[Von]

On 5/25/2026 at 3:39 PM, fcschoenthal said:

I remember in your initial planning, you were questioning how large to make it. So how big is this monster going to be?

It's the TWW Hybrid bench lengthened to the size of my current bench, 7'x2', but a lot beefier. The top will be about 4" thick and have a couple inch wide split. I'm lengthening it in part because that's what I'm used to and to allow me to put the shoulder vise outside of the legs.

[Von]

Fixed where the router hit some wonky grain and caused a small blow out at the bottom of a leg to prevent it from further splitting in the future. I tweaked one joint that was a little stubborn going together and finished the chamfering on the long rails. And then lots of sanding. I going to sand at 80 and then 120 then see how that feels. I suspect I'll be content with that. 

[Von]

Finished sanding the workbench base to 120. Decided that was far enough. With this many parts, sanding means lots of penciling as well to keep track of what I've sanded and to what grit.

I finished some dowels to 3/8". Lots of failures. I have enough for one or two subassemblies but not the whole based so I started making some more.

One last dry fit and glad I did this as I noticed some drawbore holes not lining up. I had a rail mis-labed and upside down. Fixed that and idiot marked everything. Decided it was too late in the afternoon to break out the glue so left things there.

[Von]

Glue up time. I admit I went into this with some anxiety, but I got a satisfactory result and a few lessons learned. Everything still measures square, which is good because i have no idea what I would do if it didn't. I left things in the clamps until tomorrow.

First lesson, I tried to clamp a piece of 5/8" steel across the inside of the leg to keep the draw bores from bursting out. This was a bust as my f-clamps wouldn't stay on in the face of draw bore pounding. Abandoned quickly.  I saw no evidence go forward it was needed.

I also tried using a draw bore pin (no photo), but it was too much in the way of my hammer. I was afraid I was going to hit the pin causing who knows what damage. I don't think it was doing much since I had the clamps across the legs pulling the tenon in already. So it was quickly abandoned.

Now, the big lesson. I had two draw bore pins break as I drove them (lower left and lower right in my first photo). Both got about 2/3 of the way in and then mushroomed and broke, meaning they got through the tenon and then get hung up getting from the tenon into the other side of the mortise. I just left both as is, I figure they are doing something, they have a good partner draw bore on the joint, and the only way I could think to get them out was to drill them, which would seem likely to do more harm than good.

It did get me thinking. The holes on the inside of the mortise had no chamfers because I couldn't think of a good way to chamfer them. Scratching my head a little, I came up with this bit in a die grinder.

Using that bit, I was able to reach into the mortise through the main opening and hog a rough chamfer on the back of the inside of the draw bore hole. A little fine tuning with a riffler down through the draw bore hole cleaned things up. We'll see if that helps going forward.

Last task of the day before I ran out of time was to make enough draw bore pegs to finish. I hope to glue up the other pair of legs tomorrow.

 

[wtnhighlander]

Something I have often thought about draw-bored joints is that anything greater than the slightest offset really should get a green wood dowel pin. Dried, especially kiln dried, lumber seems more likely to splinter and crush under the force of pounding. Longer tapers on the leading end might help.

[Mark J]

Wouldn't the green dowel shrink as it dried?  Or would that be an issue?

[Dave H]

On my bench when I built it, the top was over 4"s thick I bought some hold fast's and they wouldn't bite in the dog holes, the top was to thick. So I didn't do anything at the time... years go by and I had to flip the bench over and with a forstner bit I believe I used an 1 1/2"bit and eroded an 1" or so on each dog hole now the hold fasts work. I attached my top with a dove tailed through tenons  the legs so I had to flip the whole bench over to work on drilling the bottom of the top for the dog holes. So my advice is make sure the dog holes work with hold fasts before you attach the top and save yourself a PITA of having to drill it later. Your bench Is looking great Von!

[Chet]

That is some nice progress Von. 

[wtnhighlander]

10 hours ago, Mark J said:

Wouldn't the green dowel shrink as it dried?  Or would that be an issue?

Quite possibly. I would still consider them where the draw-bore offset was more than ~1/32" though. Or go Japanese-style, and chisel out a tapered square mortise for a tapered square peg, instead of round and straight.

[Von]

I glued up the second sub-assembly/pair of legs.

On 6/3/2026 at 8:08 PM, wtnhighlander said:

Quite possibly. I would still consider them where the draw-bore offset was more than ~1/32" though. Or go Japanese-style, and chisel out a tapered square mortise for a tapered square peg, instead of round and straight.

I had two more draw bore pegs fail on me. While it's working overall, a 25% failure rate is not good. I was talking with my wife about it afterwards and it occurred to us that a 3/32" offset sounds small, but's it's 1/4 of the diameter of a 3/8" peg and I just never thought of it in those terms! The feels like I've been asking for a lot of deflection relative to the size of my pegs. I have four pegs left to do, for the long rails, and plan to decrease my offset to 1/16" or thereabout.

I sawed the pegs flush on the first pair of legs and cleaned up the squeeze out. TAD rewarding: an offset chisel and Backside sandpaper were very useful for getting into the shoulders.

Finally I flipped the first pair of legs upside down and put some Tung oil on the bottom surfaces while they are easy to get to. Mostly for the reward that comes with the look from the first bit of finish.

[Von]

Well, today was one of those days.

I started by cleaning up the second pair of legs and then set up for gluing up the long rails. I reduced my drawbore offset down to 1/16" (from 3/32"). I figured out I could get the long rails on my drill press table so I didn't try the undersized transfer punch to do the offset.

I glued the base up, started driving the drawbore pegs and things quickly went sideways with about half the pegs breaking on me. I'm been scratching my head why and my best guess is that swinging the hammer sideways and between my clamps was really awkward. I think my issue is that if I got the swing even a little askew, the lateral forces were just snapping the peg.

Anyways, I got the base assembled and left it the clamps to set up overnight. I figure I minimally I have M&T joints. I think the drawbores are helping a fair amount but were definitely challenging.

My on-the-fly trashcan-based support for the long rails on my drill press.

 

 

[Chet]

On 6/4/2026 at 2:41 PM, Von said:

I reduced my drawbore offset down to 1/16" (from 3/32").

I think you would find that reducing you offset to 1/32 would help a lot.  If I am not mistaking 1/32 is a pretty standard offset.

[wtnhighlander]

^This. If the m&t slips together and fits flush, the draw bore needs very little offset to clamp it tight.

[Von]

On 6/4/2026 at 6:06 PM, Chet said:

I think you would find that reducing you offset to 1/32 would help a lot.  If I am not mistaking 1/32 is a pretty standard offset.

Thanks all for the advice. At this point I am happily done with my drawboring but I will highlight this advice for anyone reading this thread in the future.

I am also skeptical about my riving process for making dowels. While I think it produces stronger dowels in theory, I think commercial dowel makers may have better QA processes. I have a few leftover pegs and if I can find some commercial oak dowels, I'll do a comparison.

 

 

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 6/5/2026 at 7:16 AM, Von said:

Thanks all for the advice. At this point I am happily done with my drawboring but I will highlight this advice for anyone reading this thread in the future.

I am also skeptical about my riving process for making dowels. While I think it produces stronger dowels in theory, I think commercial dowel makers may have better QA processes. I have a few leftover pegs and if I can find some commercial oak dowels, I'll do a comparison.

 

 

I'm a little late to the party here but agree with Chet. Just a tiny little offset is all that's needed to snug it up.

When i built my bench, i bought the dowels instead of making them. There were still some inconsistencies, i ended up chucking most of them in a drill, wrapping with sandpaper and taking them down to size in that manner, which worked pretty well. None were undersized, but this was also in the summer so i just assumed the size difference was moisture content. 

Bench is looking great so far @Von and I'm enjoying the ride along. Thanks for posting so diligently!

[fcschoenthal]

On 6/5/2026 at 7:16 AM, Von said:

I have a few leftover pegs and if I can find some commercial oak dowels, I'll do a comparison.

The Woodcraft close to me has dowels of various hardwoods.