Monday 30 August 2010

A new bench for Woodworking in America

(Riley chipping out the dog holes)

It seems only fitting that my newest workbench was made, in part, for the upcoming Woodworking in America conference. I cannot think of anyone who has renewed the interest (and importance) of benches more than Chris Schwarz. I was armed with his book as well as Scott Landis’s book. I poured thorough both to see if there were any bits of wisdom that I had previously overlooked. There were a few and will be incorporated into this bench - although maybe not in time for Sept. 30th.

This was bench number 4 for me. My bench use has not changed too much in the last 15 years, so the overall design is quite similar. I like a tail vice, a face vice and square dog holes, 36" off the ground and I do like the option of storing tools below. A few of the new additions will be a planing stop integrated into the end and the use of two holdfasts.

This new bench had only one requirement - it had to fit into our Jetta wagon (with the seats down) and come apart for easy transportation. I have done a bit of site-work over the last 12 months and lugging an 8' bench (when one does not own a truck) really sucks. Between that and the upcoming conference - it was time to build another bench.



Here are the specs; the top is 60" long, 20" deep and made up of a 1-5/8" thick core of hard maple. The skirt is 3-7/8" as are the bread-board ends. The tail vice jaw is Walnut, the base is Red Elm and the end panels are spalted Mulberry.

This bench also features a very new quick release tail vice by Veritas. Riley and I had an opportunity to see a prototype of this vice when we visited Lee Valley head office this past February - so when I was given an opportunity to try one out I jumped at it. For south-paws like myself, this vice is perfect - it is completely reversible and literally took a few minutes to switch the orientation around. It did pose one massive challenge though. The bench top is only 60" and the tail vice needs 17" of mounting space and the face vice on the other end needs 8". If I followed tradition and kept the base between the vices, a chipmunk would be able to topple it.

The only solution I could come up with was to position one of the legs over the tail vice hardware - to use the vice hardware itself as a support surface. There are 4 mounting lag screws that travel through the vice hardware and into the underside of the bench top. I bought two new lag screws that were 1-1/2" longer than the supplied lags and made a bridge between these two locations. The bridge had some cutouts to allow for the moving parts to move freely - but I figured it was worth a shot. As I was pondering what metal to make the bridge out of, I walked past a very large piece of African Blackwood. And then smiled. I have often joked with people that African Blackwood has more in common with mild steel than wood... so why not make the bridge out of Blackwood?



Unfortunately, the above photo is the only one I have of the Blackwood bridge and how it provides support for the leg.



Note how the leg just clears the row of dog holes.



Here is a photo of another minor modification - the bread board end wraps around the hardware.

The quick release vice is remarkably smooth and a real treat to use. Please feel free to stop in an check it out at WWIA.

I also wanted to share an odd-ball technique for dealing with really warped, thin pieces of lumber. Several years ago, I had an opportunity to buy a small pile of really striking spalted Mulberry. They were already surfaced to 1/2" thick, and sadly, were extremely twisted. They sat in my shop for years as I tried to figure out a way to use them. I decided to use two of them for the end panels of the bench. There was no way to re-saw them so I decided to try a backwards veneer approach; glue the substrate on first, then re-saw.



Here is the sandwich. From left to right; a piece of 1/2" thick, Baltic Birch plywood, 1/2" thick piece of spalted Mulberry, 7/8" BB plywood, Mulberry, 1/2"BB plywood. The three piece of Baltic Birch ply. were stiff enough to just about flatten the two pieces of Mulberry.



Here is the first re-sawn slice. The piece on the left has a 1/2" piece of BB and about 3/16" of Mulberry. The Mulberry was strong enough to introduce a bit of twist in this first piece, but with a flat face on the BB side, a few passes through the thickness planer reduced the Mulberry enough that it stayed flat. I also put the right hand side through the thickness planer - all I wanted was a parallel sandwich to re-saw the other side (to get the other 1/2" piece of plywood off). With the two 1/2" pieces of BB plywood removed, the 7/8" piece was now strong enough to keep the Mulberry flat. I counted the plys and re-sawed the 7/8" plywood down the middle. A few passes through the thickness planer, and I had two wonderfully book-matched panels.



Here is the glue-up. I really debated on how to orient the book-matches. In the end, I decided to do them differently to use as a teaching tool to show people how striking this effect can be.



Here are the finished glued up panels.




I should also confess that this is not the first time I have used this technique. One of my other benches has the same Mulberry panels (and Red Elm base). The acidic yellow of the mulberry will fade in time and “works” extremely well with the Red Elm. Which reminds me - I had better get a few coats of finish on the bench - WWIA is only a month away.

14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Konrad, good to see that Riley is developing more woodworking skills.

Let's know how you get on with that tail vice. I'm really tempted to get one.

Cheers ;-)

Paul Chapman

1 September 2010 at 11:00  
Blogger JL Young said...

Hi Konrad,

In the process of designing my own bench and intend to use the Veritas tail vise. The only thinkg I didn't like about it was that the size of the chop they show in the installation instructions is too small to my eye. Apparently to your too since I see you beefed it up. How thick and how high is the chop you used? Do you think that making the chop bigger would cause any undue stress on the vise components?

3 September 2010 at 06:50  
Blogger JL Young said...

Hi Konrad, I'm in the process of designing my own new bench and intend to incorporate the Veritas QR tail vise. I see you used a much bigger chop than what is shown in the Veritas installation instructions. I'd like to make the chop a bit more robust onmy bench as well. What are the thickness and height of the chop you used?

3 September 2010 at 06:52  
Blogger Konrad said...

Hi Paul,

I will keep you posted on the vice function. The only potential issue I can see is racking - and the fact that I have a 3-1/4" wide vice jaw may not help the situation. That being said - it feels and acts like an incredibly solid bit of hardware.

Yes - Riley has taken quite a bit of ownership in this bench already... I fear I will have to pay him a rental fee or something when I want to use it:)

Cheers,
Konrad

3 September 2010 at 07:59  
Blogger Konrad said...

Jl,

thanks for the comments. The vice jaw I used is 3-1/4" thick by 4-1/4" deep. I had to recess the lag bolts quite a bit further given the extra thickness. Time will tell if this extra thickness will be an issue or not but the nice thing about it is I can always tighten the bolts if I need to.

Cheers,
Konrad

3 September 2010 at 08:01  
Blogger Lee Laird, Jr. said...

Hi Konrad,
I'm glad to see your design, especially pertaining to the new tail vise. I have a smallish bench with less than the 17" overhang "required" and had thought I'd have to wait for a larger top. I may be working the WIA, so hopefully I can slip by and introduce myself and get your thoughts on this vise.

Best,

Lee Laird
Lee@Lie-Nielsen.com

3 September 2010 at 08:17  
Blogger Konrad said...

Hi Lee,

Sorry for my delay in responding. If you are at WWIA, please do stop in and check out the bench and take it for a spin.

Cheers,
Konrad

9 September 2010 at 10:55  
Anonymous tomausmichigan said...

Konrad

Glad to see you didn't clip the corner of the vise like the Lee Valley drawings. And, of course, square dogs rule! The mulberry is just wonderful on both benches.

Tom

10 September 2010 at 20:44  
Blogger Konrad said...

Thanks Tom. Yeah - I am a total square dog hole guy. Now that I think about it - part of the reason I like them is because they are fairly easy to do and putting a 2 degree opposing angle on them really does make for sturdy clamping. I am not sure if people who use round holes angle them or not, but I really do think the angle makes a difference. That and making the dogs themselves is kinda fun too.

Cheers,
konrad

10 September 2010 at 21:20  
Blogger JW said...

Did you ever get the shaker bench finished up?

I'm still really curious to see what it looks like finished.

22 September 2010 at 10:00  
Blogger Konrad said...

Hi JW,

Sadly - the big shaker bench is not finished. The Emmert has been restored and works amazingly well... and I have a left handed benchcrafted wagon vice for it... but I need to restore the top still. I will post it on the blog when I get to it.

Cheers,
Konrad

22 September 2010 at 10:02  
Blogger JW said...

Did you get any good pictures of the Emmert restore? I'm planning on taking my own apart sometime soon, so I'm curious.

23 September 2010 at 09:56  
Blogger Michael said...

hello konrad,

i have some plum that i was hoping to use the same way you did with the mulberry. i was curious though, did you counter veneer the panels or do you plane the veneer down thin enough to not worry about it.

thanks for your time,
michael

23 November 2010 at 12:08  
Blogger Konrad said...

Hi Michael,

I did not counter veneer the panels for 2 reasons. The panels are baltic birch plywood... lots of plys and overall, still very thick. The veneer is about 1/16" thick so I think I should be pretty safe. I did use this same technique on an earlier bench base about 5 years ago and nothing has happened to it.

Have fun with the plum!

Cheers,
Konrad

23 November 2010 at 18:27  

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Wednesday 4 August 2010

Honduran Rosewood - an often overlooked infill material



I am very fortunate to have a good supply of very old Honduran Rosewood. A few lucky pieces are burls. Honduran Rosewood (Dalbergia Stevensonii) is a fairly common true Rosewood, but can vary greatly in quality. My favourite Honduran Rosewood is dark purple and red, tight grained and has those telltale (old growth) black streaks. I have seen some really poor Honduran Rosewood that has lost most of its color - almost like it has been bleached.





This plane came out of a wonderful chunk of wood that had extensive burl over the entire outside surface.



As you move away from the outside the burl decreased, so I did my best to keep as close to the surface as possible.







As you can see - it is well worth the extra effort. I am always amazed at how rough and cruddy a piece of old wood can look but lurking 1/8" under is some of the most stunning material.



This particular piece of Honduran Rosewood will yield a few more burl sets like this one and a number of sets with great color and tight grain (think A5 and/or A1 panel plane).

In other, completely unrelated news, I would like to thank everyone for your well wishes with regards to my recent finger injury. It has been healing quite well, and this past weekend I experienced the benefits of “fishing therapy”. The plane I was working on when I injured myself is just about completed - I will be filing the mouth later today. It did take some mental preparation to return to work and to return to the plane - but the repair and the rest of the plane came together perfectly.

I also wanted to mention the recent passing of Bob Baker. I had a chance to meet Bob several years ago at an event hosted by Popular Woodworking. It was the first and only time I met him, but he certainly left quite an impression... on all of us. I was looking forward to meeting him and seeing his work in person. His work exceeded all my expectations. He had managed to craft beautiful planes with unparalleled precision, while managing to keep the “human” element that is so often missing in such precise work. He has no equal.

Kari Hultman, Ron Hock and Popular Woodworking all had wonderful tributes to him.

4 Comments:

Blogger Tico Vogt said...

1/18", hmmm, looks like a new rule might help me find some interesting wood!

5 August 2010 at 21:54  
Blogger Konrad said...

Ha - the best part of "approving" blog entries is I can fix the mistakes first:) Thanks Tico.

Cheers,
Konrad

5 August 2010 at 22:58  
Anonymous tomausmichigan said...

Konrad

I had no idea that Honduran rosewood could be so spectacular, especially with steel sides.

keep up the good work!

Tom

12 August 2010 at 21:02  
Blogger Konrad said...

Thanks Tom. It is one of those woods that is sadly overlooked but can be truly spectacular when the right piece comes along.

Cheers,
Konrad

13 August 2010 at 12:46  

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