Mini-Moravian

[Dr.Al]

It'll probably a while before I start making this project (what with all the others that are on the go at the moment), but I quite like have several designs in gestation at the same time so that I can gradually play with ideas and tweak things long before I start cutting wood. Don't expect much in the way of frequent updates!

The idea for this project came from a comment posted by "BucksDad" on the thread about my travel tool chest. At the moment, when I use the travel tool chest I mount it on a Makita mitre saw stand:

That stand works really well, but has a couple of disadvantages:

1. It's a bit high. It's a very comfortable height for chisel work and engraving and such-like, but it's a bit high to be very comfortable for planing. I'd like to get the top surface of the tool chest down to a similar height to my normal work bench (1 metre from the ground).
2. It's not a home-made wooden bench. This isn't really a disadvantage as it probably results in a stronger structure for a given weight, plus of course the ease of folding it up for transporting. However it would be nice to have something that is in keeping with the tool chest (and hence made of wood) and also home-made.

I've been starting to play with a CAD model on the basis of it being a "Mini Moravian": a smaller and simpler version of the Moravian workbench described by Will Myers. This is what it looks like at the moment:

The main differences to Will Myers' bench (and the old benches upon which he based the design) are:

1. It's much smaller (1.2 m long, 350 mm deep and 670 mm high, vs Will Myers' which is 1.93 m long, 609 mm deep and 854 mm high).
2. It doesn't have anything in the way of vices (the tool chest provides the work-holding stuff).
3. It's got a split top.

With the tool chest on top, the top surface of the chest will be roughly 1 m from the ground; for chisel work I plan to sit on the bench (with one leg each side - this might need a bit of edge rounding for comfort) and I'm hoping that the ergonomics will be okay (i.e. that the chest top won't be too low if I'm sitting at the same height as its base). I might increase the height a little from there, but I'll do a bit of playing around with different heights using stuff on my workshop bench before making a firm decision.

The split top is there for a couple of reasons:

1. It makes it easier to transport as the two top pieces get moved separately (the bench breaks down into two leg assemblies, two long stretchers and two long top pieces, plus a few wedges).
2. It can be (hopefully) used as a sawing base for long rip cuts with Japanese saws: a piece of wood can be clamped to the top with the cut line along the gap and then I can saw along the line (with one knee or foot putting downward pressure on the board as the saw will be cutting on the up-stroke). This probably won't be while I'm on holiday as I'll be working with box-scale projects and can just clamp to the chest, but it will be nice for some big planks when I'm at home.

That sawing purpose is the reason I've left a gap between the upper stretcher (if that's the right term) and the top, which you can see from the end view:

The reason I'm posting this so early in the design process is that I'd appreciate some design feedback from anyone who knows anything about these things. In particular, things I'm unsure of include:

1. General sizes of the leg parts and stretchers. At the moment, the legs are designed as 80 mm × 100 mm planks (based roughly on Will Myers' version). The 80 mm probably can't reduce much if there's going to be a through tenon with a wedge going through that through tenon as there needs to be enough material in each of the parts. Is the 100 mm excessive though? In the model, it looks very "robust" compared to the chest (which is made from 20 mm thick stock). Similarly the front-to-back stretchers: I don't really know how to decide what size these should be.
2. Size of the top. I guess this is related to the previous point really. I've designed it as 150 mm wide and 60 mm deep at the moment. That makes each top piece weigh about 6 kg, which is quite easily transportable. Is it excessive though?
3. How to attach the legs to the top in a way that's robust but removable. The CAD model just has some tenons on the legs going into mortices in the top (but with the tenons stopping 10 mm shy of the top surface so nothing protrudes above the surface). Nothing is holding the top down.
4. Anything else that would make this design better!

 

[kirkpoore1]

I like it a lot, with one exception: I think the m & t joints on the top are going to get loose soon and those are going to lead to some significant wobble in use. If you can come up with some way of locking those into place I think you'll be a lot happier.

I have a friend to made a break-down workbench and he made the legs taper slightly so that they get tighter the further into the mortise they go. This may be a solution for you.

You may also want a one piece top instead of having the two separate pieces, but that's something you can correct after the fact.

Kirk

 

[CHJ]

How about attaching the top 'rails' with tapered sliding dovetails, self-locking and self wear compensating.

 

[Cabinetman]

What immediate sprang to my mind Al was move the through wedges to the front and back faces, this allows you to split the bench up into two main frames with bench top fastened on permanently and it’s just the cross rails that come off for transport.
Another way I’ve seen these used for sawing on is to have the legs on one side put on vertically and saw along that side.
But for me it’s too high for sawing anyway, 18” high and one knee on the wood to be sawn, gives an ergonomic position with best use of muscle. You’ve probably seen this before but it’s what I work on when away from the workshop, planing is a bit low I’ll admit but it’s only for small adjustments to work. How do I saw without catching the legs? Just doesn’t seem to happen.

 

[Dr.Al]

It's been a while since I last had any time to think about this workbench and it occurred to me that I hadn't replied to all the (extremely helpful) comments I had on this thread before. Hopefully I'll have some more time on it soon as I'm really hoping to have something built by the end of August!

I like it a lot, with one exception: I think the m & t joints on the top are going to get loose soon and those are going to lead to some significant wobble in use. If you can come up with some way of locking those into place I think you'll be a lot happier.

Thanks and yes, I agree. I think it was one of the concerns I raised when I did the original post and it definitely needs a better method.

I have a friend to made a break-down workbench and he made the legs taper slightly so that they get tighter the further into the mortise they go. This may be a solution for you.

That's an interesting idea and one I hadn't thought of; thanks.

You may also want a one piece top instead of having the two separate pieces, but that's something you can correct after the fact.

I'd be surprised if I do, but as you say I can consider it later. The advantage of the two-piece top is that I can use it for sawing and there have been loads of times recently I've felt that it would be really handy to have a low-ish bench with a saw gap in the middle for long rip cuts with a Ryoba.

How about attaching the top 'rails' with tapered sliding dovetails, self-locking and self wear compensating.

Hmm... that's a very interesting idea. I don't think I would have thought of that, but it's definitely a top contender. I just need to decide which way the taper goes etc. I'll have a play with the CAD model and see what I can come up with.

What immediate sprang to my mind Al was move the through wedges to the front and back faces, this allows you to split the bench up into two main frames with bench top fastened on permanently and it’s just the cross rails that come off for transport.

That's not an orientation I'd even considered, so thanks for that. I think I'd got my head set on it being a Moravian-style bench, but there's no reason it has to be. It would result in it being slightly more awkward to pack into the car I think (and the individual pieces will become heavier, which could be an issue if I go for a fairly thick top). Definitely needs a go round in the CAD to see what it looks like though.

But for me it’s too high for sawing anyway, 18” high and one knee on the wood to be sawn, gives an ergonomic position with best use of muscle.

At the moment, I really don't think it'll be too high for sawing, but I think there are a couple of things that probably explain the difference of opinion:

1. I'm (probably) taller than you (on the basis that I'm taller than most people!). At 1.98 metres (6'6" in antediluvian units), what constitutes a normal bench height or knee height for me is higher than for most people.
2. I'm using Japanese saws. At least with the way I use them, the "angle of attack" of these is lower than with Western saws so to me it naturally feels more comfortable with the wood a bit higher up. The sawing action is along the wood rather than down into the wood. I currently do most ripping with the wood clamped onto my (1 metre high) bench top. That's definitely a bit too high (and certainly too high for knee-powered-clamping), but it's not horrendous.

As a very unscientific test, I clamped a bit of wood to the seat of a chair that's about 465 mm (so close to your 18") off the ground and it felt really uncomfortable (both the fact that I had to have my left leg bent a long way to get any weight on my right knee and also the angle of my back to then be able to hold a saw at the right angle). I then clamped the bit of wood to my office desk (which is height adjustable down to about 600 mm minimum) and tried 670 mm and it seemed quite a comfortable angle. It's worth noting though that I didn't actually do any sawing (as I didn't want to cover the dining room floor in sawdust!)

 

[Cabinetman]

It's been a while since I last had any time to think about this workbench and it occurred to me that I hadn't replied to all the (extremely helpful) comments I had on this thread before. Hopefully I'll have some more time on it soon as I'm really hoping to have something built by the end of August!




Thanks and yes, I agree. I think it was one of the concerns I raised when I did the original post and it definitely needs a better method.



That's an interesting idea and one I hadn't thought of; thanks.



I'd be surprised if I do, but as you say I can consider it later. The advantage of the two-piece top is that I can use it for sawing and there have been loads of times recently I've felt that it would be really handy to have a low-ish bench with a saw gap in the middle for long rip cuts with a Ryoba.



Hmm... that's a very interesting idea. I don't think I would have thought of that, but it's definitely a top contender. I just need to decide which way the taper goes etc. I'll have a play with the CAD model and see what I can come up with.



That's not an orientation I'd even considered, so thanks for that. I think I'd got my head set on it being a Moravian-style bench, but there's no reason it has to be. It would result in it being slightly more awkward to pack into the car I think (and the individual pieces will become heavier, which could be an issue if I go for a fairly thick top). Definitely needs a go round in the CAD to see what it looks like though.



At the moment, I really don't think it'll be too high for sawing, but I think there are a couple of things that probably explain the difference of opinion:

1. I'm (probably) taller than you (on the basis that I'm taller than most people!). At 1.98 metres (6'6" in antediluvian units), what constitutes a normal bench height or knee height for me is higher than for most people.
2. I'm using Japanese saws. At least with the way I use them, the "angle of attack" of these is lower than with Western saws so to me it naturally feels more comfortable with the wood a bit higher up. The sawing action is along the wood rather than down into the wood. I currently do most ripping with the wood clamped onto my (1 metre high) bench top. That's definitely a bit too high (and certainly too high for knee-powered-clamping), but it's not horrendous.

As a very unscientific test, I clamped a bit of wood to the seat of a chair that's about 465 mm (so close to your 18") off the ground and it felt really uncomfortable (both the fact that I had to have my left leg bent a long way to get any weight on my right knee and also the angle of my back to then be able to hold a saw at the right angle). I then clamped the bit of wood to my office desk (which is height adjustable down to about 600 mm minimum) and tried 670 mm and it seemed quite a comfortable angle. It's worth noting though that I didn't actually do any sawing (as I didn't want to cover the dining room floor in sawdust!)

I like that you’re open minded and prepared to try different methods Al.
Well you are 10” taller than me so it’s doubtful if my diddly little benches would cut it for you lol.

 

[Dr.Al]

It's been a while since I posted anything on this thread, but with the garden table project drawing to an end and my self-imposed deadline for this project (end of August) looming, I've been spending a bit of time considering the design.

With that in mind, I've made a few decisions (helped a lot by the good folks from the woodhaven forum). Firstly, I'm going to attach the legs to the top with some form of tapered sliding dovetails (aka dovetail housings). I haven't decided which direction the tapered dovetails will go yet though. I've also decided to reduce the size of the components quite a bit and design it around roughly 45 mm thick timber (more on this later). The legs will probably be laminated from two pieces so will be twice as thick.

I've played around a bit with an alternative layout that would have the legs attached to the tops and the long stretchers (so the removed bits are the short stretchers), but I've decided against it now as it would make parts that look (in the CAD model) quite cumbersome and awkward to get into the car.

It might not be immediately obvious from the image at the start of this post, but the CAD model at the top of this post is a lot lighter duty than the previous version. Here's a comparison showing old and new versions, both with the chest mounted:

The other decision I've made is the wood to use. As it's a bench and not exactly fine cabinetry, I want to use a species of timber that:

• Isn't too expensive (it would seem a bit daft to make a bench out of English Walnut)
• Is reasonably easy to get hold of (I don't want to have to drive halfway across the country to buy the wood)
• Ideally, is native and locally grown (I really like working with American Black Walnut, but there's a lot to be said for native timbers)
• Is stable and sturdy (I'd like it to be of good "bench calibre" so not something that's going to distort a lot or be too lightweight)

I've got a couple of timber yards relatively close to where I live. One is very close but the prices always seem to be made up on the spot and a lot more than I expect (maybe the owner doesn't like the look of me!). They can also be a bit grumpy when you want to rummage around in their store/kiln (shown in the photo above). The other, Wentwood Timber, is far cheaper, friendlier and in a beautiful part of the country! Their prices seem to me to be a lot lower than most other places that list them explicitly (at least in this part of the country).

The cheapest wood that Wentwood Timber list is Larch (at £22+VAT per cubic foot). I've never seen any larch when I've been to Wentwood Timber and it doesn't seem very appropriate for what I want anyway, so that was easy to rule out (but it did give me an excuse to include a Monty Python clip in this post!). The next tier (at £25+VAT per cubic foot) includes Alder, Ash, Beech, Lime, Poplar and Sycamore. Cherry, Sweet Chestnut and Cedar of Lebanon are not far behind at £30+VAT per cubic foot.

A few of these I ruled out quite quickly, in particular Alder, Cedar of Lebanon, Lime and Poplar as I wanted something a bit more hardy. Sweet Chestnut is a candidate, but with the garden table and travel toolchest, I've been using a lot of that lately and it would be nice to work with something else. Ash is low on the list as the stuff I used to make the shelf unit recently was a pig to plane (lots of grain direction changes). Cherry is rarely available at Wentwood so that one is probably out too.

All of that contemplation left Beech and Sycamore with Sweet Chestnut as the fall-back option. I rang Wentwood Timber and asked what they had in 50 mm (2") boards with a reasonably straight grain. They had no Beech at all, but had plenty of Sweet Chestnut and Sycamore.

The old Wentwood Timber website (still available on archive.org) had a page describing the woods that they stock. This is what they had to say about Sycamore:

Sycamore is sometimes known as the home-grown Maple. It is closely related to Maple and has similar grain and qualities, albeit slightly less dramatic grain. It has a long history of use however for kitchen utensils as it will not impart any taste or smell to food. It also looks very nice as kitchen cupboards or furniture where it is similar to Birch, but perhaps rather more attractive. Sycamore is very very stable, and is the only native timber where you are likely to be able to get a really wide board and have little or no cupping or splitting. This makes it especially suitable for furniture. Some boards will be very clean and have no markings other than the subtle growth rings (which are very pretty) and other boards will have a host of colours ranging from slight marbling through to serious spalting. Ideally when selecting boards make sure at least one face is planed so you know what you are getting.

The fact it's stable sounds ideal to me so I think we have a winner. Off to Wentwood Timber we went yesterday and I had a rummage around in their hardwood showroom, but all the thick boards of Sycamore were looking very rippled (I'm ideally after something with a straight grain to make my life easy). There was plenty of thick Sweet Chestnut that would do the trick but I was still hoping to use something different. I wandered up to the office and asked if they had any more. Coincidentally I found myself talking to the guy I'd spoken to on the phone and he led me back to their drying area, where they had plenty more Sycamore that was dry and ready but hadn't been moved to the showroom yet. We had a good rummage and pulled out these two 50 mm thick planks (which set me back about £100):

All being well, that'll be enough timber for the bench, but it's not the end of the world if I have to go back to Wentwood to get some more. I've turned a couple of bowls out of Sycamore before (using my home-made lathe) but I've never tried other types of woodwork with it, so it should be interesting to see what it's like.

My plan with the timber is to turn it into planed-all-round (or at least planed and thicknessed) boards of about 150–160 mm width. Some of those will end up getting cut in half to be 70–80 mm width, some will stay full width. When I've worked out what I've got (how thick they end up, how wide and long they end up), I'll tweak the design to suit the wood available. I'm expecting something of the order of 45 mm thick, but I'll make the design match whatever thickness I achieve.

That feels like a good way to go about it for this project. There isn't a fixed size requirement and neither is there a fixed requirement for board thickness. Tweaking the design to suit the material I've got seems much better than trying desperately to get hold of wood in a size that the CAD model says is "right".

I'm probably going to use a bit of powered assistance for this first step. Part of the reason for that is that it's flipping hot at the moment and the idea of hand planing a bench's worth of Sycamore doesn't fill me with glee. The other part of the reason is that I have imposed a fairly tight deadline on myself and I'd rather give myself plenty of time for joinery rather than using it all up on hand planing. I don't have a surface planer, but I can roughly scrub plane one side of each piece to get it to be flat-ish and twist-free and then use the thicknesser to do the rest of the hard work (starting with the scrubbed side down and then flipping over once the second side is planed). I'll still use a smoothing plane to finish it off as I definitely don't want to be doing any sanding on this project.

 

[AndyT]

At the beginning of your post, I thought I'd suggest going around to any local building projects (especially loft conversions) and seeing if you can scrounge offcuts of whatever joists/rafters they are using, or else some the nice old slow grown softwood they'll have been pulling out and putting in a skip, that just needs the nails and soot removing.

But I'm too late for that, so I'll just hope that it cools down a bit for all the planing you now have ahead of you. I would probably use my electric planer for preliminary sizing on a project like yours. I've mentioned it before in the spirit of full disclosure, but you might struggle to find any photos of it .

 

[duke]

Nice to see that you had a good experience at Wentwood, as compared to the grumpy yard. We, followers of Monty Python have adjusted well to society. My wife disagrees.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I would probably use my electric planer

I think I need to go and lie down. This heat (38C) is obviously making me hallucinate.

 

[Woodbloke]

Never done nowt in Sycamore but it's got to be a lot easier than the Paduk I'm currently using! - Rob

Edit - Steve M, now raining in Salisbury

 

[Cabinetman]

Those boards look nice Al, and not too overpriced. It’s been a long time since I’ve used any and I seem to remember that it has dark streaks here and there, but it’s a lovely timber to work being hard and takes a chisel or plane on end grain a treat.
Shall follow with interest, don’t think the tops on Moravian’s are screwed on though? But then yours isn’t a full size one.
I have dozens of bench pics I will see if any are likely to be of interest.
Ian

 

[Dr.Al]

Never done nowt in Sycamore but it's got to be a lot easier than the Paduk I'm currently using! - Rob

If it's the same stuff as the Padauk (with an "a" - I assume that's just multiple spellings for the same thing) that I got from Yandles a couple of years ago & used for some boxes, then there aren't many things that wouldn't be easier to work with!

 

[Dr.Al]

Those boards look nice Al, and not too overpriced. It’s been a long time since I’ve used any and I seem to remember that it has dark streaks here and there, but it’s a lovely timber to work being hard and takes a chisel or plane on end grain a treat.

I'm really looking forward to experimenting with it, but that does sound promising.

Shall follow with interest, don’t think the tops on Moravian’s are screwed on though? But then yours isn’t a full size one.

It's been a while since I've looked at the stuff I previously saw about Moravians. I had it in my head that the top just sat on dowels, but I'm not convinced that would be strong enough with a split top (and I might have remembered wrong).

I'm not sure where the "screwed on" comment comes from though: I'm going to use tapered sliding dovetails (unless the plan changes...)

I'm calling this a "mini-moravian", but I'm not set on keeping it in keeping with anything historical. It just gives a more interesting title than "small dismantle-able bench".

I have dozens of bench pics I will see if any are likely to be of interest.

Thanks Ian.

 

[Woodbloke]

If it's the same stuff as the Padauk (with an "a" - I assume that's just multiple spellings for the same thing) that I got from Yandles a couple of years ago & used for some boxes, then there aren't many things that wouldn't be easier to work with!

Surprisingly, the more I work with it, the easier it becomes. It's an absolute barsteward for tearing out on quarter sawn sawn surfaces but on the crown cut sides it's wonderful. Before I tackle it with a very sharp (high effective pitch blade) plane I always thrice check which way to plane the stuff and I'm then usually OK. That said, you can still get some tear out but it's easily cured with a sharp cabinet scraper if not too deep. Without wishing to hijack this excellent thread and posted for your interest:



...this was the current state of the carcass yesterday just prior to gluing on the top with a single coat of Rubio Monocoat applied - Rob

 

[Cabinetman]

I'm really looking forward to experimenting with it, but that does sound promising.



It's been a while since I've looked at the stuff I previously saw about Moravians. I had it in my head that the top just sat on dowels, but I'm not convinced that would be strong enough with a split top (and I might have remembered wrong).

I'm not sure where the "screwed on" comment comes from though: I'm going to use tapered sliding dovetails (unless the plan changes...)

I'm calling this a "mini-moravian", but I'm not set on keeping it in keeping with anything historical. It just gives a more interesting title than "small dismantle-able bench".



Thanks Ian.

Yes they normally sit on dowels, I got the screws thing from your CAD drawing, but maybe that was just representation.
I found a few pics, hopefully the makers will take my reproducing the pics as a sign that they’ve done a good job, apologies if not.
Legs going in all directions on these benches. Interesting that the sloped legs are on the end to take the force from a r//h person planing on some pics with vertical legs on the other end. Another where the legs are vertical on the front face but splayed out at the back on a narrower? bench.
And the dowels, designed to keep the top flush with the front face if the top expands or contracts.

Sorry one file was too large so couldn’t upload it.

 

[Dr.Al]

Yes they normally sit on dowels, I got the screws thing from your CAD drawing, but maybe that was just representation.

Ah, was that the two holes at one end of the bench top? They're just there as I was toying with the idea of including a couple of 20 mm dog holes, either for use with holdfast clamps or as a stop of some sort. No idea whether I'll add them, but I don't have to decide for a long time yet.

I found a few pics, hopefully the makers will take my reproducing the pics as a sign that they’ve done a good job, apologies if not.
Legs going in all directions on these benches. Interesting that the sloped legs are on the end to take the force from a r//h person planing on some pics with vertical legs on the other end. Another where the legs are vertical on the front face but splayed out at the back on a narrower? bench.
And the dowels, designed to keep the top flush with the front face if the top expands or contracts.
View attachment 34137View attachment 34136View attachment 34135
Sorry one file was too large so couldn’t upload it.

Really useful, thank you. I really like the idea of making a bench with one of those long leg vices one day, but it'll have to be when I've got a bigger workshop.

The last photo in particular looks a lot like the sort of thing I'm aiming for (except obviously a lot smaller, without the vice & with a split top)

 

[Woodbloke]

Really useful, thank you. I really like the idea of making a bench with one of those long leg vices one day, but it'll have to be when I've got a bigger workshop.

I think Classic Hand Tools do some nice kit to make one of those long leg vices...not cheap though! - Rob

 

[Cabinetman]

I have drawn up plans for a quick release version, but I’m not sure to be honest that I even want one, but I’ve never played with one so who knows, they have certainly become popular.

 

[Dr.Al]

I think Classic Hand Tools do some nice kit to make one of those long leg vices...not cheap though! - Rob

Now if only I had some metalworking tools that could be used to make my own

 

[Dr.Al]

While the garden table base is being glued together and I can't use the workbench, I thought I'd do the first bit of wood preparation for the bench. I said I was going to use powered assistance for the first step. That powered assistance will involve three power tools. The first one will be a tracksaw to roughly cut the planks up into more manageable sizes (with a bit of help from a Ryoba hand saw to minimise wastage). The second will be the bandsaw to rip the planks to width. They'll then get roughly hand-planed on one side until flat-ish and twist-free and then the thicknesser will be the last power tool for now at least.

Today I did the first job: using the tracksaw and the big Ryoba to break the two planks up into smaller pieces. This was done in the back garden on a couple of high trestles:

After gradually working my way through the two planks, I was left with this pile of pieces:

The one at the back will eventually become the two long stretchers. In front of that are two pieces (you can only see the top one in the photo) that will become the two bench top halves. In front of that at the bottom are two big pieces that will get cut up into eight smaller pieces and then laminated together in pairs to form the four legs. The pieces lying on top of the longer ones will eventually become the four shorter stretchers in the leg frames.

After all that chopping up, I was left some long barky strips off the edges of the board, a handful of bits with extremely short grain that'll only be useful as firewood and these three pieces (300 mm rule for scale):

The two bigger pieces have quite short grain, but I think I can probably use them for making boxes (and perhaps the wedges for the bench). The longer, thinner one will just go in the stash for future use unknown.

The good news is that it looks like I'll have enough wood to make everything I need without needing any more trips to Wentwood Timber. The bad news is that there isn't much excess (although all the pieces I've prepared are oversize in varying amounts to give me some room for adjustment) so if I make a complete mess of any of the pieces, I'll need to buy some more wood to make up the loss.

 

[Cabinetman]

As a general rule I like to keep the wood as long as I can for as long as I can, yes cut to width - a bit. But it’s only after planing that you can see all the splits etc. But you are where you are, so hopefully it will all be good, it’s never easy at a Timber yard estimating how much you need, trying to measure around the all the defects, splits softwood bark and knots and occasionally inclusions- bullets horseshoes etc. so well done.
Looking good up to now Al, and yes those off cuts will come in and match the bench, bench hook?

 

[Dr.Al]

As a general rule I like to keep the wood as long as I can for as long as I can, yes cut to width - a bit.

Yes, I get that. I often cut to width early though as I've had quite a few boards with bows. Cutting them in half lengthways means you don't waste anywhere near as much trying to get them flat.

As for length, having boards much longer than a metre or perhaps 1.5 m (which is the length of the longest plank in this stack) isn't practical in my workshop as the bench is only 1.6 metres long. Any longer & it'll be hitting (or hanging out) the garage door! Even 1.5 metres will have to hang out a bit so the plane has somewhere to go at the end of the stroke (rather than crashing into the drawer unit at the end of the bench).

I suspect there's also a hand-tool vs power tool difference there. If I were doing everything with power tools (surface planer & then thicknesser), then keeping boards long makes a lot of sense. By hand, shorter and narrower boards are a lot easier to flatten! Flattening a board that's twice as wide as it needs to be is doing twice as much work vs is needed.

I'm obviously using more power here than I have in recent projects, but I still have to hand-flatten the first side (as I don't have a surface planer).

But it’s only after planing that you can see all the splits etc. But you are where you are, so hopefully it will all be good, it’s never easy at a Timber yard estimating how much you need, trying to measure around the all the defects, splits softwood bark and knots and occasionally inclusions- bullets horseshoes etc. so well done.

Bullets?! You've been spending too much time in America!

When I bought the thick bits of sweet chestnut that became the legs of the garden table I severely underestimated the amount of knots, splits etc in the plank so I really didn't get that much wood out of it. Hopefully I did better this time. I spent a long time examining it, but without actually planing it, one never can be sure.

Looking good up to now Al, and yes those off cuts will come in and match the bench, bench hook?

Thanks. I'm sure I'll find uses for them, either of that ilk or for other little projects.

 

[John Brown]

Have you tried Williams Hardwoods in Frampton on Severn? I've not been there myself, but my friend and neighbour was impressed by them.

 

[Dr.Al]

Have you tried Williams Hardwoods in Frampton on Severn? I've not been there myself, but my friend and neighbour was impressed by them.

I've been there a few times yes. That's where the first photo (just before the Monty Python video) in this post was taken. I much prefer Wentwood.

 

[John Brown]

I've been there a few times yes. That's where the first photo (just before the Monty Python video) in this post was taken. I much prefer Wentwood.

Interesting. I did wonder if it was them you were referring to!
I'll bear Wentwood in mind the next time I need anything. There's a lot of timber in the Forest of Dean, but that bloody river's always in the way.

 

[Dr.Al]

Interesting. I did wonder if it was them you were referring to!
I'll bear Wentwood in mind the next time I need anything. There's a lot of timber in the Forest of Dean, but that bloody river's always in the way.

Yeah, that river can be awkward sometimes, can't it?

William's British Hardwoods definitely has its place. Wentwood rarely have any very thick timber. I think the thickest I've ever seen at Wentwood was about 60 mm and most boards are 25 to 50 mm. I've bought a bit of 75 mm (3") thick beech (for future plane-making projects) from William's British Hardwoods and also some 100 mm thick lime for my Dad (who's into wood carving/whittling).

In general though, I'd choose Wentwood just because it makes the process so much easier, with all boards organised by species and thickness and individually priced. Everything's accessible as well - you can grab any board and have a good look at it all over to decide whether it's right for what you want. In WBH you have to ask them to move (or help move) all the boards that are piled on top in order to get to one you want to have a look at and then you have to ask how much it is.

WBH is about 20 minutes drive from here vs 50 minutes to Wentwood, but I'd always go to Wentwood by preference unless there's a strong reason not to (such as needing a very thick board or, I guess, if there was some reason I wanted kiln-dried rather than air-dried as that's another difference between the two).

 

[Woodbloke]

As a general rule I like to keep the wood as long as I can for as long as I can, yes cut to width - a bit. But it’s only after planing that you can see all the splits etc. But you are where you are, so hopefully it will all be good, it’s never easy at a Timber yard estimating how much you need, trying to measure around the all the defects, splits softwood bark and knots and occasionally inclusions- bullets horseshoes etc. so well done.
Looking good up to now Al, and yes those off cuts will come in and match the bench, bench hook?

I tend not to do that but buy boards of whatever timber I'm after and then see much later on what I can get of them, or it, in the case of a think chunk of Cocobolo at Yandles that was too good to pass. For example, a couple of years a scholar and a gentleman donated some very nice bits of Victorian Mahogany and they still haven't found a sizeable project! - Rob

 

[Cabinetman]

I tend not to do that but buy boards of whatever timber I'm after and then see much later on what I can get of them, or it, in the case of a think chunk of Cocobolo at Yandles that was too good to pass. For example, a couple of years a scholar and a gentleman donated some very nice bits of Victorian Mahogany and they still haven't found a sizeable project! - Rob

Rob, I’ve been called a whole lot of things in my life but that was lovely thank you, a Scholar AND a Gentleman

 

[Dr.Al]

I'm dreaming of a surface planer...

I was away on the motorbike last weekend and the evenings after work have been far too hot to consider going near the workshop, so today's the first day I've been out there since the last update.

The next job to do is get the planks planed on two faces. As I've said in an earlier post, I'm planning to do this by hand planing one face enough that it can serve as a reference for the second face. Then when the second face has been dealt with by the thicknesser I'll stick it back through upside down to sort out the first face. That's the minimum face hand planing I can get away with. It'd be much easier with a surface planer as I'd just do the first face with that and the opposite one with the thicknesser.

I haven't got very far yet!

I started today by getting the planks on the bench to have a look at. Some of them are quite long compared to the bench, so they could be quite challenging to deal with if I don't cut them down at all:

The stretchers in particular are quite long and will stay long so I'll just have to deal with them, but (with the exception of the top pieces) most of the others can be pre-shortened. I wasn't sure whether to do that though until I'd put them on the bench for a decent look. As you can perhaps see in this photo, there's a bit of an end-to-end bow in this plank (which is destined to become four leg halves):

If I tried to plane that bow out I'd lose a lot of thickness, so I decided it was best to chop the board in half before planing:

The plank was also slightly bowed the other way so I figured I rip it down the middle. Now these planks are quite thick (about 50 mm). Ripping all of them in half sounded to me like it was getting perilously close to resawing (okay, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration), so I decided to rip them with the bandsaw. There isn't much space in my workshop in case you haven't gathered (hence not having a surface planer). To use the bandsaw for long material I either have to move a lot of things out into the garden (including the motorbike and one of my benches). Alternatively, I can sometimes get away with some careful manoeuvring and blocking off the metalworking end:

If I clear the metalwork bench and get the alignment right (neither of which I did this time!), the bench can act as a board catcher. Failing that, they drop onto the little horizontal bandsaw as one of the stretchers did here:

To be honest it's not that bad really: the planks are light enough that I can keep them horizontal (by pushing down on the near end) until the cut has finished and then gently lower the left one before reaching round to grab it.

Having been cut in half lengthways, the leg boards were a lot easier to rip:

That left me a big pile of chopped up boards plus five potentially useful off-cuts, which got labelled with species before moving them out of the way:

With the 8 leg halves, the four short cross bars, the two long stretchers and the two big top pieces, I'm feeling rather daunted by the prospect of dealing with all of this (hence the dream of a surface planer):

Chopping the boards up dealt with quite a lot of the bow in the boards. The top boards seem pretty flat despite their length, so that's good. Unfortunately, the long stretchers have quite a big bow along the length (this measurement is in the middle of the 1.4 metre plank):

That much bow means that if I plane it completely flat, the maximum thickness I'd get out of what is currently a 50 × 83 mm plank would be about 36 mm (and that doesn't leave any allowance for actually planing it smooth). I guess I can probably cope with that as long as I orient it right to make sure there's enough thickness for a tenon-in-a-tenon (the wedged tenon in the end of the stretcher). Alternatively I could live with the bow, but I suspect that will make life much more difficult as the tenon shoulders at each end of the plank should be parallel with each other and that's not easy if the faces aren't flat.

Anyway, the forecast suggests it'll be a bit cooler this weekend, so hopefully that'll help with the enormous planing job I've got to do!

 

[Malc2098]

If you fancy a trip down the M5, Al, we can set up my Record PT260 and plane the faces and edges.

 

[Dr.Al]

If you fancy a trip down the M5, Al, we can set up my Record PT260 and plane the faces and edges.

That's a very kind offer, thank you Malc. At the moment, the 3½ hour round trip on the M5 (or possibly a lot longer given it's summer) is feeling less appealing than all that hand planing, but if that changes when I'm halfway through I'll definitely be in touch.

 

[Cabinetman]

I'm dreaming of a surface planer...

I was away on the motorbike last weekend and the evenings after work have been far too hot to consider going near the workshop, so today's the first day I've been out there since the last update.

The next job to do is get the planks planed on two faces. As I've said in an earlier post, I'm planning to do this by hand planing one face enough that it can serve as a reference for the second face. Then when the second face has been dealt with by the thicknesser I'll stick it back through upside down to sort out the first face. That's the minimum face hand planing I can get away with. It'd be much easier with a surface planer as I'd just do the first face with that and the opposite one with the thicknesser.

I haven't got very far yet!

I started today by getting the planks on the bench to have a look at. Some of them are quite long compared to the bench, so they could be quite challenging to deal with if I don't cut them down at all:

The stretchers in particular are quite long and will stay long so I'll just have to deal with them, but (with the exception of the top pieces) most of the others can be pre-shortened. I wasn't sure whether to do that though until I'd put them on the bench for a decent look. As you can perhaps see in this photo, there's a bit of an end-to-end bow in this plank (which is destined to become four leg halves):

If I tried to plane that bow out I'd lose a lot of thickness, so I decided it was best to chop the board in half before planing:

The plank was also slightly bowed the other way so I figured I rip it down the middle. Now these planks are quite thick (about 50 mm). Ripping all of them in half sounded to me like it was getting perilously close to resawing (okay, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration), so I decided to rip them with the bandsaw. There isn't much space in my workshop in case you haven't gathered (hence not having a surface planer). To use the bandsaw for long material I either have to move a lot of things out into the garden (including the motorbike and one of my benches). Alternatively, I can sometimes get away with some careful manoeuvring and blocking off the metalworking end:

If I clear the metalwork bench and get the alignment right (neither of which I did this time!), the bench can act as a board catcher. Failing that, they drop onto the little horizontal bandsaw as one of the stretchers did here:

To be honest it's not that bad really: the planks are light enough that I can keep them horizontal (by pushing down on the near end) until the cut has finished and then gently lower the left one before reaching round to grab it.

Having been cut in half lengthways, the leg boards were a lot easier to rip:

That left me a big pile of chopped up boards plus five potentially useful off-cuts, which got labelled with species before moving them out of the way:

With the 8 leg halves, the four short cross bars, the two long stretchers and the two big top pieces, I'm feeling rather daunted by the prospect of dealing with all of this (hence the dream of a surface planer):

Chopping the boards up dealt with quite a lot of the bow in the boards. The top boards seem pretty flat despite their length, so that's good. Unfortunately, the long stretchers have quite a big bow along the length (this measurement is in the middle of the 1.4 metre plank):

That much bow means that if I plane it completely flat, the maximum thickness I'd get out of what is currently a 50 × 83 mm plank would be about 36 mm (and that doesn't leave any allowance for actually planing it smooth). I guess I can probably cope with that as long as I orient it right to make sure there's enough thickness for a tenon-in-a-tenon (the wedged tenon in the end of the stretcher). Alternatively I could live with the bow, but I suspect that will make life much more difficult as the tenon shoulders at each end of the plank should be parallel with each other and that's not easy if the faces aren't flat.

Anyway, the forecast suggests it'll be a bit cooler this weekend, so hopefully that'll help with the enormous planing job I've got to do!

If I’ve understood correctly I don’t think you will lose that much of the thickness, plane the ends on one side and the middle on the other.
Still hard going in the heat though.

 

[Dr.Al]

If I’ve understood correctly I don’t think you will lose that much of the thickness, plane the ends on one side and the middle on the other.

Yes: I was being dense when I wrote that! I've planed that piece now & as soon as I put it on the bench & drew a line down the edge I realised my mistake.

Still hard going in the heat though.

Oh yes!

I've done one face on all 8 leg halves, all 4 cross braces & one stretcher by hand today. I was feeling pretty knackered so cheated (you'll see how very soon) a bit on the second stretcher (although the "cheat" still involved a fair bit of hand planing).

I'm now fully back to hand planing, this time on the first top piece. Thankfully they're not as warped so it doesn't feel quite as daunting as the stretchers were.

 

[Dr.Al]

Today I have been mostly planing...

What I was aiming for with the planing today was to get one face flat enough that it could serve as a reference for the opposite face when the board goes through the thicknesser. When I've got a lot of material to remove, I generally prefer to use wooden planes as they're so much lighter than their cast iron counterparts. This is the one I use most often:

I'd like a slightly shorter (but preferably still handled) wooden plane; I think that's something to add to the project list as it would be nice to make my own.

This photo shows a finished leg board:

Most of them ended up quite a bit smoother than that one, but I wanted to give an idea of what I mean by "flat enough". The two areas that are still rough are small enough that I don't think the (50 mm thick) board will distort as it goes through the thicknesser. As such, it should allow me to get the opposite face flat and then this one can be dealt with afterwards.

Getting all the short cross pieces and the leg halves done was quite straightforward as they didn't have much bow. The stretchers needed rather a lot more work. The first one wasn't bowed as much as the one I shared a photo of in the last post, but it still needed quite a bit of work. That called for the scrub plane:

When planing the first stretcher, I put a piece of leather (which seemed about the right thickness) under the middle of the board to stop it pushing down as the plane passed over the top. As you'll see in later photos, the other stretcher needed rather a lot more shoved underneath.

Checking it was done was a combination of:

• An igaging 600 mm straight edge (that is nice and thick so stands on its edge, but isn't long enough for this board) - used for checking it was flat enough across the width.
• A Maun Industries 1 metre straight edge (that is thinner and likes to fall over, but is longer than the igaging one) - used for checking across the length (in stages as the board is quite a bit longer than the straight edge).
• My 2020 extrusion winding sticks.
• The simple expedient of flipping the board over and making sure it sits flat on the bench! That one relies on the bench being flat, but I tend to just check it in a couple of different areas of the bench to be safe.

For the second stretcher, there was a lot of material to remove and I thought it would be useful to have a gauge line to work to. After a quick rummage around for a good option, I picked a surface gauge that I inherited from Carolyn's father. However, the hole in the mounting clamp was too big for any of the pencils I have, so I picked a cheap and relatively small carpenter's pencil (not an ideal choice, but it's what I had) and whacked it through a home-made dowel plate, gradually working down in size:

On the penultimate hole (6.5 mm), the pencil snapped...

...but there was enough that had already gone through the dowel plate that I could just saw off the broken bit. The carpenter's pencil really wasn't a good option as the lead is rectangular, so it ended up poking out the side of the reduced-size pencil:

Nevertheless, it did the job and I could mount it in the surface gauge (with some tape to stop the lead coming out the side) and mark along the length of the board:

That's rather a lot of material to remove (although, as Ian rightly pointed out, I was being dense yesterday when I said it would take it down to 36 mm - it'll only reduce by the distance from the edge to the pencil line, not twice that):

I was already feeling a little hot and bothered by all the timber I'd dealt with up to this point so for this (second) stretcher, I decided to cheat. I considered putting the board up on its edge and feeding it through the bandsaw, following the line as best I could, but it felt a bit awkward and unwieldy for that so I dug out a tool I associate far more with rough-and-ready DIY than I do with fine (ish) woodworking - an electric planer:

In that photo you can see all the bits of wood that are piled up underneath the plank to support it and stop it bowing.

That made pretty light work of bringing the board down to a little above the line, leaving a millimetre or so to be dealt with the hand planes and winding sticks again:

All of that left a mixture of different shavings on the floor, with the pretty hand plane shavings, the little scrub plane curls and the long and thin planer curls.

The last pieces to deal with were the top planks. These had a little bit of a bow to them but nowhere near as much as either of the stretchers so I decided to stick with the hand planes for them, starting with the scrub plane:

This feels a good time to sing the praises of that little scrub plane. I bought it in March 2022 and it has been used fairly regularly since. Whenever I've got a reasonable amount of stock to remove, but not enough to be worth bandsawing, the scrub plane is my tool of choice. Before I bought the bandsaw, the scrub plane was the only option short of a lot of hand saw effort.

Being wooden bodied, it's nice and light, which is ideal if you've got to do a lot of passes to take enough wood off. The thing that amazes me about this plane is that, having bought it in March 2022 and used it fairly often since, I've yet to sharpen the blade (it still has the factory edge). I'm sure that won't be true forever (and it certainly doesn't produce a nice finish!) but for now it just seems to keep on going.

Anyway, after the scrub plane had done its thing, it was back to the wooden jack plane to get the plank flat enough that it wouldn't rock when face-down on the bench:

With that (and the other one, obviously), all the planks have had one face roughly prepared and they're ready for feeding through the thicknesser:

I needed a break after all that effort, so it seemed a good time to come in and write this post!

 

[AndyP]

Hate to spoil your fun Al but I am wondering if you could have used a sled to pass those boards through the thicknesser to make the first reference face?

 

[Dr.Al]

Hate to spoil your fun Al but I am wondering if you could have used a sled to pass those boards through the thicknesser to make the first reference face?

That definitely would have been a possibility. I've used a sled before (before I tried hand tool woodworking) and it's okay for one board, but I found it quite a faff & I wouldn't want to do it for lots of them.

I tried various options (including sandpaper glued face up on the sled & a baton to stop stuff shifting), but the only one I found that worked for bowed/twisted boards was lots of wedges & lots of hot melt glue (without the glue, the wedges tended to move). The glue was then a pain to get off, even with IPA. That's not great when you've got 16 boards to do!

I seriously considered it for the heavily bowed stretcher though. I even went as far as digging out my sled... only to find it wasn't long enough!

 

[AndyT]

Thanks Al, I may not be doing much woodwork at the moment but I'm getting plenty of vicarious enjoyment watching you do yours.

Some of your challenges do seem a bit familiar - it's nice to see I'm not alone in sometimes letting the metalwork tools help with the woodworking. See also https://www.thewoodhaven2.co.uk/threads/ash-bed-wip-finished.6588/post-115844 - you could have just used the scriber, but then you'd not have had the fun of resizing the pencil!


And for anyone who thought I never used an electric plane, here's where I showed mine - https://www.thewoodhaven2.co.uk/threads/ash-bed-wip-finished.6588/post-113998



Keep up the good work!

 

[AndyP]

Supposin’ you screw the board to the sled? Obviously the heads would need to be well countersunk and you would need to sacrifice some timber after screws were removed. I was wondering if a much larger version of the one I made for squaring a small log on the band saw might work where I screwed into the ends which are then cut off.

 

[Dr.Al]

Thanks Al, I may not be doing much woodwork at the moment but I'm getting plenty of vicarious enjoyment watching you do yours.

Some of your challenges do seem a bit familiar - it's nice to see I'm not alone in sometimes letting the metalwork tools help with the woodworking. See also https://www.thewoodhaven2.co.uk/threads/ash-bed-wip-finished.6588/post-115844 - you could have just used the scriber, but then you'd not have had the fun of resizing the pencil!

That's a good point, why didn't I think of that?!