Workbench Progress
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- This topic has 367 replies, 51 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 10 months ago by
Mexiquite.
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Anonymous8 December 2012 at 10:42 pm #4416
I look forward to the saw sharpening Paul, I have put sharpening off  till I can see how you do  it.
Many thanks 🙂
Anonymous10 December 2012 at 9:44 pm #4512Question about workbench width.
Ok getting on quit well, I think mine will be part Paul’s, part make it up as I go along. the question, I don’t want my bench to wide about 21”
That is also the outside width of the legs, as the top will be flush with the legs. Now is that footprint enough so there will be no sideways tilt, as in planing across the width.
Cheers 😉
10 December 2012 at 10:30 pm #4517There are a couple of things here, Ken. When the bench gets narrower, and the vise is out, and if it’s a large vise, the bench will hold fine but if you are on pull strokes, the narrower bench will tend to be levered toward you. It’s not a problem if you know this but can be if you are caught by surprise. I usually have a shelf across the rails and have the shelf loaded and this counters it anyway. Going three inches narrower will work fine but be conscious if this detail. If you are against a wall there is generally no issue.
Ken,
My bench is 48 in long, 24 inches wide. The only time I have moved the bench when working was when I ripping boards held in my vice, it wasn’t enough to cause me problems but going narrower may result in a bit more movement when working across the bench, but just add weight to the bench. Â A couple sandbags on a shelf would do the trick or make a shelf to add storage.
Anonymous10 December 2012 at 10:46 pm #4519Paul / Dave…..Thanks guys. Ok I’m going to go ahead with it at 21″ wide, it will be 72″ long so plenty big enough for the projects I will be making. It will also give me plenty space in the work shop / room.
Thanks for the help 😉
Anonymous11 December 2012 at 12:48 pm #4545Ok scrap 21″ I set the legs out as they would be in the finished bench, they just looked silly. I moved them to give a width of 23″ and they looked right.
Getting there 😉
Anonymous11 December 2012 at 1:27 pm #4547Thanks Jesper, I hope so buddy first time building a bench, so fingers crossed 🙂
Anonymous11 December 2012 at 5:40 pm #4568I’m calling it done for now. I tried turning the vise handle on my lathe and somehow my calipers got off. Long story short, I remembered how Paul made the legs of a stool using a handle plane. So that’s what I did and it’s incredibly easy, for both the handle and the caps.
Anonymous11 December 2012 at 5:59 pm #4570The bench looks great Jeff, is that the vice you had bother with?
Anonymous11 December 2012 at 6:15 pm #4571Thanks Ken, and yes that’s the vise that gave me trouble. I ended up loosening the screw on the bushings very slightly and the vise doesn’t bind any more. It seems to work better with use as well.
11 December 2012 at 7:42 pm #4573Nice bench! I just started mine this weekend. I already have a Scandinavia style bench with a tailvise, but it’s rather low and it has a pretty small inconvenient front vise. Last week my new front vise arrived and it’s huge. Can’t wait to use it, but first some elbow grease.
Anonymous12 December 2012 at 5:42 am #4618Thanks all. After using the bench and vise a bit, I think it’s absolutely the most important tool in the shop. Having a dedicated workplace with all of your tools in one place within easy reach makes it easy to just work. No distractions like “Am I going to need a new type of router bit?”, or “Is my table saw wide enough to cut a dado across a 48″ bookshelf side?”, “I need to go buy a dado blade set before I can to that.”.
That’s what is really great about Paul’s total method of using a small tool set and old techniques. It’s all in one place and it all works together with just you and the wood. The tools are just the instruments of your hands and your skill. It’s no longer a matter of who has the most expensive or largest number of power tools. It’s just you, your skill with a small tool set, and the wood. You cannot make a table saw any more accurate than it was manufactured. You CAN practice your skills with a tenon saw, chisel, and plane and make them better.
I’ve been a computer graphics consultant for about 20 years now, and there’s a very similar thing happening now in my industry. In the past, the guy that had the most knowledge about how the software and hardware worked was the winner, not the best artist. Â Now there has been a shift whereby the software complexity has gotten out of the way of the artist, and the truly talented artists are really shining through. The tools have gotten out of the way of the artist. And I believe Paul’s crusade to bring back the simple ways are doing the same thing by getting the tools out of the way of the artist in each of us.
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