Glued Up Benchtop

Last night I glued up the two 6x6" posts for the top.  First I jointed the two mating faces, they weren't too bad but needed a little straightening and squaring.  I wetted the mating faces and slathered on plenty of Gorilla Glue, then clamped up with my four clamps.  Then I flipped it up on edge, and drilled three pilot holes from the back for 10" Timerlock bolts, then drove the bolts in.  I was just gifted an awesome new Makita impact driver, so I used that to drive the bolts so I could try it out, but I've used my brace plenty of times before, so I know it works fine (and applies so much torque that I could drive these things all the way through the wood).  I put them 4" in from each edge and one in the center.  I'll just have to keep them in mind when I'm drilling my dog holes.  I also was unable to remove two giant nails from one of the posts that are indicators of their previous life as a retainer wall, so I'll have to watch out for those.

While the glue was setting up, I marked and cut the legs to length.  Next step is cutting the joints.  After watching the episode of The Woodwright's Shop where Roy talks about the rising dovetail a few times, as well as a video on youtube where a different person goes through the joint, I am starting to feel confident enough to tackle them.  I will admit that I am not looking forward to dealing with the angled mortise and tenons on the back legs.  I also find myself wishing for a 6" deep backsaw to cut the joints accurately.  Roy's top is only 3" or 4" thick, but he still cut the leg joints with a handsaw.  I may go this route.

Antique Stores

  Yesterday the weather turned nice here in sunny Connecticut, so I decided to get some shopping done.  I needed more socks, and I wanted to see what the antique stores had for tools.  Not a huge haul, but not bad.  At the Junk Shop I found a simple hand drill that was in decent shape.  I almost missed the saw vise, it was clamped to one of the shelves.  It's an interesting one, with a large ball-in-socket that allows you to swing the saw around at any angle in all of the axes, without the need to unclamp.  This will work well for small saws, but for the my new little panel saw, it was a bit of a moot point because I could only clamp half the blade at a time anyways.  There was some rust and gunk in all the corners and screws of the vise, which I figured would take some elbow grease.  I was surprised when I got it home and had it working fine after five minutes with some 3-in-1 oil.  I need to replace the wing nut that locks the ball joint, the wings broke off.  At the antique mall over in Collinsville there was mostly junk and overpriced axes, but I did find this Disston saw in halfway decent shape.  A few minutes with a ball peen hammer and a screwdriver had the plate straightened out and the handle tight.  Another 15 or 20 minutes with a file and it was cutting decently.  I think it might be overset, so maybe I'll flatten out the teeth and reset them.  The problem could also be my less-than-perfect sharpening job. 

I've started building a new bench because the one I've been using has been feeling a little small.  I'm also tired of clamping everything to it instead of using a vise.  I'll be adding a leg vise to my new bench, which will be something like Roy Underhill's Roubo style bench.  The top will be two 6x6" pressure treated pieces 6 feet long, that I already had.  Above is the picture of cutting them to length, after another couple of days I will joint them and glue them up.  I was going to build the legs from the same, but decided it wasn't worth the effort, so I bought some 4x4 and a 2x12 that that I ripped down the middle, because it was clearer and in better shape than any of the 2x6 that they had.  The 2x6 will be for the stretchers and the tool well at the back.  You can see how small my shop is compared to the lumber.  There isn't a lot of space to work in there right now, I'll be glad to make the new bench and get the old one out.  As a side note, I'm planning on taking video of all the steps and showing how I build a bench without already having a bench.