The Benchmaker's Apprentice: Cutting Mortises and Chopping Legs(Wooden Ones)

Preparing to cut mortises for our legs on this big mortising machine. Nothing real complicated (that's usually how cheating works).



After all that horribly difficult work, I cleaned up the mortiser's work with a Lie-Nielsen 1/2" chisel.

Now that those mortises are done, I moved on to chop down all the rails to width.


The rails are all the correct width now, but they still need some length adjustment, specifically so that they are shorter.

Had to get rid of some nasty snipe the planer left behind. Not too shabby.

All rails cut to length.

Now we need to plane the boards so they are smooth and, of course, square.

I had a little problem with this board. As you may be able to see in the picture, I drew with my pencil where the board was not square and needed planing, back right corner and the front left corner.

To fix this problem, I took my plane and pinched the front, using my index finger on the bottom as a fence and took a shaving from the back right edge started the cut from the middle of the board and let the plane take a shaving about 1/4" in and slowly moved towards the center using the finger fence until I had slowly planed about 3/4" in.

I repeated this process on the back left corner stopping my cut half way down the board, similar to before. Finally, I took a full pass and sure enough, the board was darn near perfect square. Not bad, for an apprentice.

You asked for it!

The last One-of-a-Kind Mag-Bloks of the year will go up on the site tomorrow morning at 7am CST. Don't miss out, you never know when we'll have more.

Perfect Xmas gift. Good luck!

Tail Vise vs. Planing Stop

This morning I was prepping some base moulding for a commission I'm working one.

Basswood is easy to plane, but it has grain direction just like any wood. And you can get tearout. Your iron has to be sharp too, even though the wood is soft. It's like trying to cut a marshmallow with a dull knife.

So when you get tearout in some reversing grain on a long board, what do you do? You turn the board around and plane from the other direction in that area. But gosh, I'm lazier than that. Moving that long board, even without it clamped in a tail vise is a pain. So I just put the plane in my left hand and pull the plane Japanese-style. With a tail vise you in effect have resistance at each end of the board. Try that with a planing stop.

Megan's Favorite Tool

Popular Woodworking Magazine Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick has written a short piece on the Glide Leg Vise at the magazine's blog.

It's her favorite tool of 2010! Thank you, Megan. We couldn't be more proud.

If you'd like to order a Glide, with our all-new Satin Iron wheels at the introductory price of $325, you still have a few hours left. Prices on both vices go up tomorrow, December 1st.

The Project As Bench--Follow-up

A few weeks ago I posted about holding large work, and how very large workpieces became, in effect, their own bench.

In the meantime I've finished the table and had the chance to take a few pictures. We got a lot of emails requesting pics of the finished table. So here they are.

The table is 10' long, and 44" wide, and just about 1-1/4" thick. It's based almost directly on a Shaker trestle table from Hancock, Mass. I took some dimensions from Chris Becksvoort's article in Fine Woodworking #193. I made the trestle bases wider and thickened the turned columns. I also added a third trestle in the middle without an upper brace. I also didn't recess the bed bolt heads into the column. I like the looks of them, and this leaves the column more intact. The bed bolts are excellent quality and are from Horton Brasses.

One small detail that was a lot of fun to make: the small dovetailed drawer to hold the bed-bolt wrench. I knew over the seasons that the bolts would probably loosen a bit, and having the wrench at hand would be a big plus. I hung the drawer with rabbeted runners and ran grooves in the top of the drawer sides so when the drawer is in place, the runners are invisible.

The entire table is finished with Kemvar conversion varnish.

The Benchmaker's Apprentice: Square Legs and Flat Rails

Welcome back to The Benchmaker's Apprentice! Today I started out with squaring up the ends of the bench legs, after all, there's nothing worse than a wobbly bench... besides a shortage of pizza.















After some miter-sawing, these legs are as square on all sides as something that is REALLY square on all sides.

Now we need to joint and plane all the rails for the bench.

And we have some nice square rails for our bench. The short boards will be ripped in half for the two top rails and the two bottom rails. The long boards will be ripped also but just so that they are the correct width for the two long rails.

Iron Wheels--They're Here

I know many of you are patiently waiting for an announcement concerning our new iron wheels for the Glide Leg Vise and Benchcrafted Tail Vise.

This is the announcement you've been waiting for!

We sold our last chrome-plated vises today, and are happy to announce that if you place an order for vises as of this blog posting (Friday, November 12th), you will receive the beautiful, satiny iron wheels pictured above.

I want to to take this opportunity to say a few things about how we produce these wonderful tools. As you may know, our vises are made by hand. We don't mass-produce parts on CNC equipment and "hope" they end up working together once they reach the customer. Each component is tested by a human being before they are allowed to be shipped to the customer. We don't offer seconds. If there is an issue with a vise, it doesn't get shipped.















Proudly, since we began producing vises over two years ago we have yet to have a single vise returned. We take pride in our work. Our head machinist has decades of tool and die making experience, and he doesn't let anything out the door that doesn't meet his high standards. He is an old-school machinist of the highest order.















We are also extremely proud to be manufacturing these vises in the United States. Benchcrafted is a family business, and we are proud to be Americans. Our paternal grandfather worked in a local meat-packing plant for decades, was the proprietor of a small grocery and served his city and church throughout his life. He was often called upon to sing patriotic songs at local civic events (he was gifted with an excellent singing voice). Our maternal grandfather served in World War II and spent many months in a German P.O.W. camp. He weighed less than 100 pounds when he was liberated by Allied forces. Both were avid hobbyist woodworkers, patriotic Americans, and would be extremely proud of what we're doing here at Benchcrafted.

It was recently brought to our attention that the chrome-plated wheels that we had previously sourced we're not of American manufacture, even though they were cast with the name of the American company that manufactured them. We were somewhat dismayed by this. In light of this fact, we are especially pleased to announce that our new wheels are cast in a Midwest foundry, and machined to our specs just a few miles from the foundry by a company that has been doing this since 1945.

Being made in America, one would assume a grossly higher cost for these parts. Not so. The new wheels are just a few dollars more than the chrome-plated wheels, and the quality is higher. For a short time, we're offering both vises, with the new handwheels, at the same price we have since we started. The price for both vises will go up slightly after December 1st.

Please bear with us during this time of transition. Although we don't anticipate any delays, demand may push our 2-3 week lead time closer to 5-6 weeks initially. If you are thinking of vises for Christmas, you should order now to increase your chances of getting some new iron under the tree this year (but by no means a guarantee, as we have no idea what initial demand may be).

NOTE: A few customers have asked if the new wheels include the rosewood handle. They do. The handles pictured above are not yet machined to receive the handle.

The Benchmaker's Apprentice:Rails and Bench-Top

Here is the board that will be used for the top and bottom short rails and the two long rails.




















After a lot of sawing, we have some rails. The short boards will be ripped down the middle to be used for the top and bottom short rails.



It took a bit of effort but I got this large piece of ash chopped in half for the bench-top. The piece was just long enough for a six foot bench. Not too shabby.


































After only about four hours, I've got some jointed, planed, and square legs, pieces for the split-top, and pieces for the six rails. I'd say that's progress!

The Benchmaker's Apprentice

The Benchmaker's Apprentice--A project to build the Benchcrafted Split-Top Roubo Bench. The Benchmaker, Jameel Abraham, of course, and the Apprentice, me, John(Hunna) Abraham. I will embark on this mission with the assistance of the Benchmaker himself.

My woodworking experience does not begin here, though. Since I was six years old (I am now 16), I have been helping my uncle, Jameel, out in the shop. I also work part-time for Benchcrafted and have attended three Woodworking in America conferences and one Lie Nielsen event as an exhibitor.

But, enough about me. Over the next few weeks/months/years/centuries, however long it takes me to complete the bench, I will work almost every weekend to finish, and my trusty camera will be there the whole time to update everybody[cricket noise] on the status of the project.















After contemplating about what the bench should be made of, I decided to go with a mix of poplar and ash. The ash will be used for the bench top, leg vise leg, sliding deadman, and the deadman track. Poplar will be used for the rest of the bench and will be painted. We had some large pieces of ash laying around so the bench top material was covered, but for the poplar, I drove down to my local wood supplier and picked up these fine pieces.






























Since most people work from the bottom up, at least I think that's how they built the Empire State Building, we will begin with the legs of the bench. The piece of poplar you see above is what I will be using to build the legs.















I used this old hand saw to chop this board down into 4 pieces for the legs. The saw, sharpened by Mark Harrell over at Bad Axe Tool Works, cut great and went through the wood like butter.

















This picture marks the beginning of a bench project, there is no turning back now.















The first rule of joining: be square, or be square... cheesy, I know.















Now that we have a couple jointed sides, lets do some planing.

















After a little work, we have some dang near perfect square legs.

A Fine Bench From England

Last week we received an email from customer David Barron who recently completed a joiner's bench in primed unsteamed beech, featuring the Glide Leg Vise, which he says "...is very nicely made and performs superbly." The bench is 56" long x 28" deep x 37" tall and weighs 280 pounds.

David builds exquisite modern English furniture with well-designed and delicately executed joinery. He trained at the Edward Barnsley Workshop.

Notice the lack of any tail vise. David prefers to work with stops, and judging by the placement of holes in his top, the bench is well-suited to this type of workholding. David admits though, "I prefer this to using a tail vice, although if I did fit one it would be one of yours!"

There are a lot of folks who are impressed with well-crafted dovetails. We're no different. It takes some high skill to cut large dovetails with a flawless fit.

For more info on David's work, take a look at his website.