The Hand Forged Works Shop
It takes a bench to build a bench... or 13.
550 board feet of 10/4 Hard Maple. This is the rough lumber for the bases and vise parts.
I've made cardboard templates to layout the rough oversized dimensions for each piece. I've also written the quantity of pieces needed.
All of the pieces have been cut to length.
Joining a face and two sides.
Using the table saw to remove excess wood in order to lighten the load on the planer.
Prying off the excess wood. I now have plenty of shim stock kicking around.
Planing down to thickness. I'll use the next door neighbor's 36" wide planer to do the final mill as this little guy here leaves a bit of snipe.
Ripping to width. Forrest blades are WORTH IT. What a clean cut they produce!
Sanding the 2" x 4" parts before going to final width and length.
My setup for cutting to length. The L stick makes it so every piece is exactly the same length.
All the base parts are down to final dimensions.
The mortise routing template.
A sample mortise and tenon joint. The template works!
The dogs have been cut to length and now the ends are being chamfered.
I'm drilling the holes for bullet catches.
My jig for cutting the angled flats on the dog faces. The drill bit locates the holes drilled into the dogs in reference to the flat.
After the cut.
Now to finish them up...
Chop the waste...
Chamfer the end.
Sand the face and edges.
Press in the bullet catch.
Hammer it down all the way.
Voila!
Laying out the mortises...
A number on the inside top corner will keep things in order.
A rough mark to insure the mortises are in the right spot.
The L stick hooks the end so I can scribe the location of the top edge of the mortise.
Drawing a rough pencil outline for drilling purposes.
I'll use a forstner bit to hog out most of the waste.
All 104 mortises have been drilled.
Now on to routing the mortises. I'm using the same scribe to locate the template...
There are two brads that get hammered down about 1/8" into the maple to keep the template from sliding. The holes from these brads will be hidden by the shoulder of the tenon.
Clamps to secure the template to the leg.
One of the least pleasurable tools to use that I know of.
But there is a mortise, perfectly square to the face.
And the sample fits nicely.
A few of the wide legs had checks in the end grain that were worrying me, so I've made a butterfly key template and a long piece of key stock to use to inlay butterfly's where there are checks.
Now I've cut the long piece into several small keys at 5/8" thick.
The tenons are rounded to match the 3/4" dia. router cut mortise.
Test fit's on the side stretchers.
Front and back stretchers.
Tools...
To mark the location of the holes for the bolts that will hold the benches together I used a story stick with tick marks on the edge that was 1/2 the thickness in it's width of the legs.
Ready to be drilled...
Using the double drill press to it's full extent!
First the larger holes are cut to recess the nut and washer, then the hole is drilled to house the threaded rod.
On the other side just the 1/2" holes are drilled for the rod.
The 1/2" holes are connected with a long drill bit. This is a tool that makes you feel like a cool dude.
Another tool that makes you feel like a cool dude.... The threaded rod came in 6' sections only and I need 38" sections, so I've cut that out of each piece and now I'm about to weld a 4" piece to each 34" cutoff piece. I'm heating the ends to burn off any oil that was on the rod so there is a solid weld.
TIG welding is cool.
Routers are kind of cool. Here I'm cutting the mortises for the railing on the front vise. I've already used a similar template to the ones I used previously for the stretcher mortises. Now I'm bearing off of the newly cut surface to bring it even deeper. I'll finish it off by coming in from the other side with a flush cut bit.
All of the mortises are routed. The holes for the front vise screw have also been drilled. I drilled the hole on the vise face to the exact dimension and the hole on the leg 1/8" oversized.
Making pins for the side stretcher tenons.
Here I'm chiseling out the rounded corners left by the router in the front vise railing mortise.
Clamping pressure is applied while drilling and hammering the 1/4" wooden pins in place.
There it is.
Now I have all the bases together and I'm cleaning up all the joints and smoothing everything out.
Jungle gym.
Here I'm testing out the location of the front vise hardware. I've made a centering device (very bottom of the shot, looks like an upside down mushroom) to locate the female threaded part on the backside of the vise leg.
It's helpful to have cheap chisels around. I round this one down to fit the width of this mortise in order to chop the corners out.
First I chop down...
Then lever the chisel out to shear the remaining wood.
And it's square! Or close at least. I'll clean it up with a nice sharp chisel.
The railings are shouldered 1/16" all the way around.
Using the original template (bottom) I've flush cut a more durable template made of dense MDF glued to softer MDF.
I've made saw cuts on all of the vise face boards because it produces a cleaner cut than what the router would leave behind.
Now all of the vise faces have been bandsawn close to the line. I'll now use the router to flush cut them to shape.
I've installed this bolt to clamp down the template because there is no where else to put a clamp. This way works great. I've also glued 100 grit sandpaper to the face of the template so it won't move around.
Now half of the vise faces have been taken down all the way with a larger bit. The pile on the left has been cut just once on each face with the template.
Here's the template I'm using to mark the location of the holes to be drilled for the front vise railing. They will also get a small version of the shape cut on the face. When it comes time to drill I will gang up two railings at a time to make this move faster.
Here is the template used to cut the shape. I've located the two screws in the location where two holes will be drilled anyways.
Here is one vise face dry fit together. The inside corners of the shaping still need to be cleaned up with a chisel. The long edges and end will get a decorative shaping too.
I've drilled two holes down from where the wedge will go to prevent the railing from splitting any further.
The mortise is ramped on the face to give room for the wedges that will be glued in place.
There it is! I used Rosewood for the wedges.
Flushing up the vise faces.
I bought a 6' rod of bronze for the vise pins. I've cut them into 5 3/8" sections and here I'm turning a few channels onto one end to act as a grip.
The finished pins.
A blurry shot of the pin in place.
A coat of Waterlox varnish to seal the wood and keep it clean.
Overhead cranes are so damn cool. 1400 lbs. of bench top ready to go.
Now it looks like a bench!
I'm using a block of paraffin wax to lubricate the railing that will slide in the bench leg mortise.
Drilling for the bullets to receive the tops.
All glued into place.
This is my template for marking the location of the dog holes. Right here I'm marking a bench top.
There are three dog holes on the bench top and five on the vise.
Here is the rough outline of the mortise that the violin makers need for a special jig they use. I used that same template for the dog holes here then connected the four corners with pencil.
This is the coolest drill press ever.
Here are the holes drilled on the top. I've used a 49/64" bit for the dog holes so that the 3/4" dogs slide nicely and never bind up.
Each leg has a right angle bracket securing the top to its base.
The brackets are all screwed in.
After sanding the hard edges of the dog holes a coat of Waterlox is applied.
The bench top mortises are squared up using this thin Spear and Jackson backsaw. The stick of wood in the mortise is just a sawblade thickness less thick than the 1" wide mortise.
Once the four kerfs are cut a chisel is used to square the corners.
Filing everything smooth...
And the sharp edges are relieved with the same file.
On the underside of the top there will be blocks glued in place to receive the mounting screws of the tail vise. I'm using a paint scraper followed by a card scraper to remove the acrylic finish.
The stand-on-cart allows me to bandsaw these tops close to the line for the tail vise cutout.
The waste pieces will be milled and glued to the underside of the tops to receive the mounting hardware.
The first step now is to route against a pattern of the final "L"shape.
Second I'm going another pass deeper with the same 3/4" long bit.
Then I flip the top and come in with a flush cut bit which has the bearing on the bottom instead of the top.
The final move is to saw and chisel the corners square and apply a few coats of varnish to seal the end grain back up.
This is Andy my shop assistant, making sure the crane works.
The scrap wood from the cutouts has been milled and will now be glued to the underside of the vise area.
Here is one vise all installed. It works great so far! Time to do the other 12.
A straight edge MDF template is used to route the rabbet for the vise.
Here's the rabbet all cut.
And then it's chiseled square.
Side project time... I made these two tops in exchange for...
...a sweet belt buckle!
All the plates are in place and the applied blocks are flushed and finished with a coat of Waterlox.
The parts to make the tail vises are all rough milled.
I've finished one complete vise to get everything down and figure out the quirks. I'll do the next 12 piece by piece.
It slides very nicely! It's quite sturdy yet easy to open and close.
Bottom.
Here are the 12 returns being glued up.
Here are the first half of the tail vise assembly's glued up.
The first step in the process to glue these up is to arrange the board so the grain direction is alternating. This will keep the vise from cupping. I also placed the more quartersawn face up.
Apply glue...
... and roll smooth.
The stack is sandwiched together now.
First the blocks are clamped to the end grain to keep the three boards from sliding around. Then the pressure is applied from the tail vise.
Next hand screws are added on each end to ensure proper contact throughout. I'll leave the assembly like this for twenty minutes or so.
Then it's clamped to a table out of the way overnight.
Here I've flushed up all of the end grain of each vise.
Next step is to drill out the waste where the vise nut will travel. This is the nut that is attached to the plate on the bench.
And the cavity is routed smooth.
Two holes are drilled for the vise bolts and one big one in the end for the vise screw.
Now I can continue with getting the assembly complete. Here I am cutting a rabbet which will allow a board to be flush with the edge of the bench. The depth of the rabbet is related to the amount the vise plate sicks off the bench.
Now I am gluing the rabbeted return onto the assembly. I've screwed on the guide plates to locate the return piece so it is aligned properly. After a half hour when the glue is set I'll remove to plates as not to glue them to the assembly. The clamp will stay on overnight.
Here are the last pieces of each vise. These will be the plates that cover the metal guide plates.
The boards have been rabbeted to receive the metal guide plates.
Dry fit...
To mark the location of the screw holes that will join the top guide plate to the rabbeted board I used a block cut to the width that I want the plate away from the bench edge.
Then the board is butted up to the bench with a paper shim inbetween to give the proper clearance for movement of the vise. The holes are marked with a pencil from below.
Gluing up the rabbeted board with the guide plate screwed in place.
Filler blocks are glued in place on the guide plate ends.
...and then they are planed flush.
A groove must be cut out of the filler piece on the bench end of the vise.
Lunchtime is fun!
I wish starting fires was part of my job...
The front face of the tail vice is knifed along the bench edge. Then the vises are planed to this line with the joiner.
Pure justification for having a #8 in the lineup.
The end grain is planed flush to the bench edge.
This is the jig to mark the holes for the tail vise bench dogs.
The front vise legs are planed flush to the bench edge.
Of course nothing is complete without a makers mark.
Putting finish on the vise...
I've had a few free days waiting for the front vise screws to arrive, so I built this shave horse with an extra maple board from the benches.
FIN.
