Travel Bench Part 7

Here's a view of the vise end of the tops with the cavity complete.



This is the cavity for the "lefty" side of the bench.



These are the two end caps showing the layout for the mortise. The mortise is curved on one end to match the cavity profile on the top's tenon. The mortise is about 3/16" longer than the tenon, at the square end (the back edge of the top) to allow the top to move. I milled the mortise with a plunge router and fence. The mortise about 1/16" deeper than the length of the tenon to allow the end cap to seat nicely on the tenon shoulder.



Testing the fit of the end cap.



Good fit. The end cap has not been cut to length yet.



It's important that the shoulder on the show side be tight. I don't worry about the shoulder fitting perfectly on the bottom. It should seat against the top nicely, but cosmetic issues are not important underneath.



Both end caps fit to their tops.



Here I'm placing the front laminate in position, fitting it to the dog hole strip, and preparing for laying out the dovetails that join the front laminate to the end cap.



Before cutting the dovetails on the front laminate I drilled for the bolt and captive nut that joins the end cap to the top. The holes in the endcap are a bit oversized to allow the top to move. I used 3/8" x 5" bolts. I also counterbored for decorative plugs that will cover the bolt heads.



View of the underside of the top showing the mortises for the captive nuts.



With both end caps bolted in place I began the layout for the dovetails. The joint between the dog hole strip and the front laminate has already been fit. I slide the end of the front laminate into the inside face of the end cap and after making sure the slot for the dog block is parallel, I mark the end cap for length.



I lay out the dovetails on the end of the front laminate.



Here's the joint compared to the original on my Ash Roubo bench. The dimensions are the same.



I've seen some bench end caps and vises with really skinny half-pins at the top of the joint. Some tapering to as thin as 1/8". I like the look of skinny pins, but I never understood why on a bench. Leaving only 1/8" of material here means that less than 1/8" of an inch can be removed from the top of the bench before compromising this joint. I prefer to leave more material here for this reason. This is about 5/8".

Travel Bench Part 6

I proceeded to lay out and cut the tenons on the vise end of the two top sections. The sections are narrow enough that I can cut the shoulder and kerf away most of the waste on a 10" sliding miter saw.



The saw doesn't get all of it, and I break off the thin sections that remain. Here I've clamped a straight piece of Baltic Birch plywood as a guide for my router. It's just proud of the shoulder, since I don't want to route the shoulder away at all.



The large diameter pattern bit cleans the tenon. I do this from both sides so the tenon is centered on the top.



I refine the shoulder with a shoulder plane.



I used a backsaw to cut the end of the tenon away at the back edge of the top and refined the surface with the same shoulder plane.



Here are both top sections in position, with the stock for the end caps lying on top. Each section will receive a Benchcrafted Tail Vise, a standard vise for the left section, and a left-hand vise for the right section.



Here's a shot of the left hand section (it will get a standard, right-hand vise). The end cap and final front laminate are not shown. I'm ready to lay out the cavity for the vise.



Since I'm using a breadboard endcap, I can't simply fix the template to the flat endgrain of the top. So I cut the template into three pieces and glue (with 3m super 77) each piece to the shoulders and the end of the tenon on each top section. This tells me exactly what I need to route away. Here you can see the right hand vise on the left, and the left hand vise on the right.



The end of the left top section. This is a typical installation of a standard vise. You can see my template doesn't extend completely down to the bottom of the top. That's because my top is about 4-1/16" thick at this point. I like to leave a little room for flattening after the top is complete.



This is my set up for routing the cavity. I've flipped the top upside down and clamped the front laminate into position, placing a spacer in the "slot" the same width as the dog hole strip. This guarantees that the front laminate is parallel to the slot. This is important because the router fence registers off the front laminate. And the cavity, slot, and front laminate all need to be parallel.



Here I've added a filler block to the top of the breadboard tenon to support the router base past the end of the top. I've also begun routing the cavity with a 1/2" straight bit. I'm just about to the maximum depth that this bit will allow. The curved part of the cavity must be cut with small bites, adjusting the fence and depth in about 1/8" increments in order to waste away as much material as possible without leaving too many "steps" to level after routing.



After I reach final depth with the main bit, I switch over to a very long straight bit so I can reach to the bottom of the cavity--about 3". I take very small bites here (about 1/8 x 1/4) since I don't want to stress this long bit. This is a Whiteside #1073.



Here I've nibbled away most of the cavity, adjusting the router in about 1/8" increments. The finer the adjustment, the smoother the cavity will be, but it will take more passes. All that remains are the steps left from the bit. I've also removed the spacer and front laminate in the picture.



End view of the cavity. The end of the cavity where it meets the top needs to be cleaned up.



Here I've flipped the top up onto its back. I cleaned up the steps in the cavity with a #3 sweep carving gouge. I removed material until the steps were mostly gone. This surface doesn't need to be pretty or feel smooth, it just needs to be out of the way of the vise's sliding plate assembly. I've also cleaned up the end of the cavity. I titled router a couple times during the process and made some blips in the endgrain at the end of the cavity. Once the vise is installed this area won't be very visible. I'm most likely cover this entire area with leather anyway, just so it looks nice.

The next post will cover the breadboard endcap joinery and the front laminate dovetails.

Travel Bench Part 5

After gluing the two top sections I proceeded to layout and mill the pieces that would comprise the dog hole strip and final front laminate. This requires some careful layout since the position of the dog hole strip is determined by how much capacity the Benchcrafted tail vise will have. I'm installing the two tail vises on this bench for maximum capacity. The overhang at the vise end of the bench will be 17", not including the end cap.



I carefully layed out the location of the dog hole strip (at the right) and the dog block (at left). I did this directly on the top of the bench to avoid any errors. I then transferred the locations directly to the dog hole strip.



I use a notched spreader, the type used for spreading adhesive on the back of vinyl base moulding, for spreading glue. It's a cheap stamped plastic thing, but I've been using it for months and it's still going strong. I also mill my laminates to within 3/32" of final thickness (4") and use three biscuits (see the mark above, there's a biscuit in there) to keep the laminate aligned during gluing. The biscuits makes for a stress free, slide free glue-ups, and the spreader gives me the perfect amount of glue. This is the ideal amount of squeeze-out. After about an hour in the clamps I can pop these little beads off with a scraper and the surface is flat. The more accurate I build the top, the less flattening I have to do later.







The two top sections glued up, minus the front laminates and end caps. The slot for the tail vise is 17" long. The two lines at the near end of the top represent the tenon for the end cap.

Travel Bench Part 4

I milled the stock for the two top sections in a couple hours this weekend and proceeded to prep the joints with a jointer plane. My planer snipes a bit, and the Shelix cutterhead doesn't leave a good enough finish for a glue joint, at least in my view. It only takes a little time to tweak each joint for a perfect glue line. And for a bench that sees pounding and racking, I think its a good idea to make the joinery as stout and sound as my abilities allow. The soft maple planes easily, but it's still hard work to prep the edges of the top laminates. Using my 8' Roubo bench is a joy for tasks like this. Especially since the top boards are 74" long.



I aim for dead tight joints in the top that close with hand pressure only. I don't like to glue stress into a top, but a little concave bow, especially on the outer laminates doesn't bother me if I can close it tight with hand pressure.



This is one half of the top, minus dog hole strip and front laminate, ready for assembly. It's about 10" wide.



The two end sections of the base will be drawbored together, and will form the base via knockdown joints with the long rails.



The tenons here are 1" long. I routed the slot and access for the nut. It's large enough to accomodate a box wrench. The ideal fastener here would be a large square nut, which would eliminate the need for a washer or wrench for assembly. I'm a bit pressed for time on this bench, so I didn't have time to source any.





The short rails join the front and rear legs with drawbored tenons.



Here the offset can be seen. I offset them by 3/32" or so. For some reason these look a bit too offset in the pics. I guess I'll have to whittle the tapered ends of the peg a bit more.



I dusted off my brace and bits for boring some holdfast holes. I don't have a power tool capable of drilling these holes. I guess a spade bit and electric drill would work, but I can be more precise with a brace and bit.

Travel Bench Part 3

After cutting the mortises in the legs I cut the tenons on the ends of the rails and fit them all. I like to use a tenoning jig on the table saw for milling large tenons. But I always cut them a tad thick then fit them by hand with a shoulder plane. This gives me the exact fit I want without having to fuss with precise settings on power equipment. It takes about the same amount of time, but I'd much rather spend that time working at the bench than feeding workpieces through a machine. This bench is 24" shorter than my Roubo. The final length will be 72". The base is also trimmed down a bit to save on weight. The legs are 3" x 5-1/8". The legs on my Roubo are 5-3/8" square.

Travel Bench Part 2

Mortising the legs on my Jet benchtop mortiser requires some slight modifications to get the 5-1/8" wide legs under the chisel. The maximum capacity with the head raised to it's limit is somewhere around 4-3/4" with a 1/2" chisel installed. The first thing I did was remove the mdf table that's screwed to the mortiser's base. I've already removed it in this picture--the bench leg is resting directly on the casting.



I also removed the roll pin at the top of the column. This allows the head to raise up enough to get the workpiece under the chisel. I also disengaged the hydraulic shock which keeps the head in a raised position. It was also limiting the upward movement of the head. I did have to be aware of the weight of the head while doing this operation, since the head would not stay in the raised position after finishing a mortise, but rather bottom out at the depth rod setting.



Finally, the leg was too thick to allow the hold-down to engage its rod. Flipping the hold down over solved the problem.

Travel Bench Part 1

It doesn't take a bench to build a bench, but building a bench on a nice bench is nice.

My Roubo bench is coming in quite handy for building Benchcrafted's travel bench. Having a massive, flat surface with huge clamping capabilities and lots of real estate makes for almost effortless work.

This bench will be made from soft maple. I wouldn't necessarily choose this wood for a longish Roubo top, where the stiffness of the top is of great importance (due to the lack of upper rails). But for smaller Roubo-style tops which don't need to bridge such a large span, this wood is ideal. It's plenty stiff enough actually for most benches. According to Chris Schwarz's book on workbenches, it's stiffer than European Beech, a common bench wood. It's a creamy white color if you select out some of the browner boards (I didn't bother), and it's about as hard as cherry. It also works very easily, a bit easier than mild-grained cherry. It's nothing like it's rock-hard cousin Hard Maple. It's an excellent wood for bench building. And the price (I paid less than $2 a board foot for skip-planed and straight-lined 8/4 s&b) in my area is right.

Sneak Preview! and Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Events

No, we're not building miniature woodworking vises.

That's actually our Tail Vise on the left. And on the right? Well, you'll just have to check back in a few weeks to find out!

You can also stop by Jeff Miller Handcrafted Furniture in Chicago on May 1 and 2 if you're in the area. We'll be participating in a Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event at Miller's shop that weekend.

For more info, bookmark this page: Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Events

We'll post more specific info as the date gets closer.

One more thing. We'll have a brand new bench on site outfitted with our vises.