Hello
Some timber scavengers, or beginners may find this of interest
- (196.63 KiB)
Planning to turn this iroko, a timber from both the Ivory coast, and Ghana in west Africa, into a fine Scandinavian design workbench with some modifications, mainly attempting to beef up the thickness wherever possible for a few reasons,
and possibly making the tool well more functional however possible, be it inset metal if need be, although this can be designed afterwards, so I will proceed.
This will have the traditional tail and shoulder vice, Ala Frank Klausz, so I may run into trouble wanting to beef it up, but I have the Klausz plans at least to go on.
I thought I'd show some tips I've found, on processing this stuff into usable timber again, suitable for fine work.
Its getting warmer now, nearly enough to do some gluing, I've been selecting and preparing this timber for the last good while...so pretty eager to get going.
I think is worth sharing some things that would be a... If I was to start again kinda thing, here's how I would do it again
Here we go .
Getting a hold of a solid composite fire door would be a good start, these get turfed out of buildings all the time, bars and hotel renovations ...look for these in skips and the dump.
Take any softwoods suitable to make a base with too.
But always take any hardwood doors like iroko and red meranti first. you can carry a whole door easily if you have just a panel saw in your rucksack.
Cutting the rails (short lengths) at the joint is a cross grain sawing, not ripping operation.
Saw the bottom and top before anything else, and try sliding out the panels.
If having to saw out the middle rail, don't overshoot it , or you will cut into the panel. I will try to illustrate this when I find another door.
Stripping off nails, and crud afterwards, a metal detector wand is very much essential for this task folks!
So a fire door would be nice and flat, ideal for using as a reference to work to.
Construct a bench with this composite top "floating" as in... not something that is gonna deflect, by being pulled down into a warped shape.
This bench will be used as a reference so protect it from damage.
You will be able to check this for flatness when you have a plane, and two lengths
of timber later on...
- (206.99 KiB)
A cheap Bailey style plane for planing the varnish or paint off, like a no.4 or 5
for this task, is narrower than the two below...
And two nice old Stanley Baileys... no.5 1/2's with thick soles (bases) throughout the length, and not lapped by an oaf!
I use these two 5 1/2's every time I go in there.
- (201.98 KiB)
So with the timber jointed face and edge, and the tenons removed from the mortises, these salvaged lengths are left for a while till you have enough stock...
Onto some planing tips regarding jointing for a beginner ...
Here is a shot I found from a few years ago, as you can see the crayon on the timber as a result of the work being rubbed on the bench, this is the high spot to be planed off.
- (385.79 KiB)
Just rub the work for 2 seconds, or you will rub it off your coloured reference area.
You are aiming for no gap to be between the timber and the bench, only the very ends....like just a few mm of crayon on each end of the timber...
You can use an angle poise lamp to great effect here, along with pivoting the work
and making sure it doesn't wobble and stays put after you get the jist of things.
A flat bench will teach you this, and how to plane faster than any other methods,
Not in a vice, just with the timber resting, not clamped on the bench planing against a stop in front usually.
A batten clamped or doweled in will do nicely, with two dog holes 19mm thick as thin dowels will break. DAMHIK
After you're able to surface timber dead flat to your bench, you then test this by planing two lengths up, which are the entire length of your workbench.
They should match perfectly together with no gap.
Use these two pieces then as winding sticks to test for twist on your bench.
This now is an essential time to have learned how to use the cap iron, ala David Weaver (David W on youtube) He is the only one on youtube, and elsewhere who goes into detail on this, and I suggest you dismiss the rest!
The iroko will be troublesome to work otherwise, most of the time.
As one of these Stanley Baileys is setup to tackle anything, regardless which grain direction planed, it will not produce tearout
Consequentially a plane that has the cap iron in effect will not nose dive off the ends, thus is more reliable than having to employ stop shavings, as you would have to with the same plane, if it had a very mild camber.
(NOSE DIVE) as in progressively taking far more off at the ends, by not lifting up at the end of the cut.
One of the many reasons why a bevel down plane is much superior to a bevel up plane.
- (220.92 KiB)
Fast forward to today, onto the next stage...learned some more more things during this time
After surfacing the timber face and edge, marking out the stock to thickness,
flipping over the work and expecting it to be dead on, is not without some more finessing!
Don't omit to stand the timber on edge again, and offer the square up to the thicknessed piece, It will more than likely need a few swipes taken off.
These three lengths, or bearers I have heard them recently called, along with a
long blade of a machinists bevel protractor really upped my precision cleaning out these mortises.
After initial rough cleaning of the dried glue and varnish, which degrades the timber sometimes! the endgrain should be worked on next, as it is a big waste of time to have the long grain prepped for gluing, only to have to pare it again for a fresh gluing surface...months later
- (210.13 KiB)
So with the mortises marked out, a good time to check your carpenters square, if you haven't allready, and give it a knock to true it up, as its not critical work marking out these "dutchman holes" since you may have to chop past the lines anyway...as they will be custom fit.
You really want the square to be bang on when taking the last swipes before laminating these.
Laying the square on the benchtop, offering it to the work as the reference
- (176.87 KiB)
This is where the long blade of the machinists bevel and the M&W no.400 square
is a real sure thing, even though both vintage tools have significant wear, which BTW was the only way I noticed it.
Still waiting until it warms up a bit to start filling, so I will be repeating the same on the rest of the stock for the next while
Tom