I know that my recent blog entries have been lightweight at best – thanks to Jeff Burks for picking up my slack. I’m determined to finish writing this “Campaign Furniture” book by Dec. 31, and so all my energy is going into the laptop.
And the benchtop.
Today I’m finishing up the collapsible bookcase – the last (I hope) project for the book – and none of the boards were behaving when I planed them. That usually means something is out of kilter – the plane’s sole or the benchtop. It was, of course, the benchtop. This bench is the one I built during the French Oak Roubo Projects in Georgia this summer. Until recently, the benchtop was settling in gently.
During the last two weeks, things got ugly. The benchtop itself has shrunk more than 1/16” in thickness – and shrunk even more near the dog holes and planing stop. This is, of course, totally expected because the holes expose more end grain to the atmosphere.
My benchtop after two passes with a jointer plane.
That doesn’t bother me. What’s distressing is the glue joint has opened up a 1/32” at the surface of the benchtop for almost 24”. The opening isn’t deep – less than 1/4” – but it looks like a gaping maw when I think about everything I did to get that seam airtight while gluing the benchtop.
It is what it is. Chances are it won’t fall to pieces.
But I have to get the top flat tonight so I can finish up this bookcase before the snow arrives. (It’s no fun to spray shellac in a snowstorm.)
When I appear in public (always against my will), one of the nice things that people have to say is this: Boy you have an interesting job.
Not really. For the most part, my life is a lot of dead ends and “rabbet holes” (thank you Geo. Walker and Jim Tolpin). Here is a look at what a single blog entry looks like, from start to finish. Warning: This is messy, boring stuff.
And so Chris repaired to his workshop to make a notchy stick.
I have a bench it tilts a bit. I’m making a stick to whack a wench. Oh, hey diddle day….
— Suzanne “Saucy Indexer” Ellison
“When I first saw the Durer stick tonight, I thought – brilliant, they bored a hanging-hole at each end. I have 3’ steel ruler that hangs on the wall. More than half the time I go to hang it up, it’s the wrong way up. If there was a hole at each end, it would always be right. But maybe you’re right, and there’s some actual use, rather than just stupidity-prevention. The Rivius stick has only one hole – which shoots your nailing-it-as-a-fence theory. IF we can put all this stock in these engravings/woodcuts, etc. I think for arguments’ sake we accept what we see there. So one hole in the first, 2 in Durer. Hmm.”
— Peter Follansbee
“Check out the photo on page 29 of ‘The Workbench Book’ by Scott Landis. It shows Rob Tarule at his Roubo bench using a batten & holfast to stabilize a board when planed against the stop. It is the same thing as the Maguire video, without the notch. I’m not sure why the Internet reacted to much to the Maguire video. I suspect many of them have not read the Landis book, or forgotten that photo exists. I agree that the technique is cool, and would love to find supporting evidence that the technique is as old as a holdfast, but not so sure those Melencolia sticks are the “smoking gun.
“I’ve always tried to play it safe with the mystery stick in the images you have referenced, and just consider them straight edges. Most of the wooden drafting tools from those old images have a hang hole & one or more decorative cuts. Perhaps the fancy cuts are just to help identify the tool in the pile of junk, and prevent it from being used as kindling to heat the glew…”
— Jeff Burks
reglet, n.
Etymology: Middle French, French †reglet, †riglet small ruler (1370), carpenter’s rule (1530), (in printing) strip of wood used to create blank spaces between blocks of text (1635), (in architecture) narrow strip of moulding used to cover joins.
†b. A thin, flat piece or strip of wood used in carpentry or frame-making. Obs. rare.
1678 J. Moxon Mech. Exercises I. vi. Explan. Terms 112
Riglet, is a thin square peece of Wood: Thus the peeces that are intended to make the Frames for small Pictures, &c. before they are Molded are called Riglets.
1683 J. Moxon Mech. Exercises II. 25
On the..Fore-Rail..is nailed a small Riglet about half an Inch high, and a quarter and half quarter of an Inch thick.
1754 W. Emerson Princ. Mech. 307
Riglets, little flat thin, square pieces of wood.
1860 H. E. P. Spofford Sir Rohan’s Ghost xi. 223
It is not a small canvas, being about four feet in height,..and is set in a quaint frame of black, carved wood, with an inner reglet gilt to relieve the want of that color in the painting.
One of the cool things about the Wortheffort school of woodworking is the workbenches. Shawn Graham, the brains and back behind the school, built enough for 13 students and the instructor. Almost all of the benches are very basic Roubo designs made from construction timber.
No tail vises.
Workholding is all done with leg vises (no garters!), small Moxon-style vises for the benchtops and holdfasts.
All the vises, including the leg vises, use wooden-thread screws, which I think Shawn made himself.
I feel right at home in this shop environment, and it’s fun to show students how versatile these simple benches are.
The only downside is the leg vises are all so new that they screech when you use them. When all the students started to clamp their work up simultaneously, it sounded like someone was clubbing the Vienna Baby Seal Choir.
— Christopher Schwarz
Today we will work like heck to get these chests done. This is a three-day class crammed into two days.
Whenever I build a workbench, I try to work with stock that is as dry as possible. But I’ve never shied away from wood at 15 percent moisture content (MC). Thick timbers can be tough to dry, and all of the benches I’ve built with slightly damp wood have turned out fine.
Turns out, I think I might be a little too conservative on moisture in workbenches.
When we built the French oak workbenches in Barnesville, Ga., this summer, we were shocked at the moisture content of the timbers. Despite the fact that the trees had been felled for more than 13 years, the numbers on the moisture meters were alarming.
My benchtop was 30 percent MC. Other benchtops were 60 percent MC, which was off the charts for our moisture meters.
But we had only one week to build these benches, and we couldn’t wait another 10 years.
My workbench is still wet by furniture standards. Most areas of the top and legs register about 15 percent MC, and my meter reads only 3/4” deep. My suspicion is the center of my 6”-thick top is much wetter. I suspect this because my holdfasts rust immediately when left overnight in a hole in the benchtop.
Despite all this, the top has not moved significantly enough to warrant a reflattening. Today I planed a bunch of 1/2”- and 5/8”-thick panels and it was clear the top was still in spec for this high-tolerance work.
The only evidence of shrinkage or movement in the top is at one of the four joints where the legs pierce the benchtop. While three of these joints are as perfect as the day I finished the bench, the top has shrunk about 1/32” compared to the dovetail and tenon in the front right corner.
Oh, and there hasn’t been any additional checking, and the single existing check in the top hasn’t increased in length or width.
To be honest, I had experienced more wood movement on Douglas fir and cherry workbenches of the same design.
We will see how the bench fares as it makes the transition to equilibrium MC. But my suspicion is that the thick nature of the timbers and the joinery will help to make a bench that settles in gently.
The two-hour video show you how to build a sturdy workbench using home-center materials and a benchtop made using solid-wood kitchen countertop from IKEA. It really can be built in two days – I built it in real time in the studio.
I’m not sure when the DVD will be released, but you can pre-order it here.