A Dedicated Sharpening Bench - part 6

Cutting the Top and building the Under Carriage






















With the frame assembly dry fit and the bench surface placed into the leg joinery, I carefully place the granite insert on top to establish its permanent location. My initial thoughts were to install it off to one side but after laying it on the work surface and imagining how it would function in daily use, I decided to center it. This decision was based on the under carriage bracing system and the drawer hanger locations. I also felt that it would be more comfortable centered while in use and may keep the bench a little more balanced. So now that I know where I want to place it I carefully lay out and scribe around the perimeter.

















Once I have the lay out complete it's time to start thinking about just how I'm going to make this cut-out! My first thought is to use my frame saw and after drilling a pilot hole through the oak, dis-assemble the saw and thread the blade through the opening as you would on a scroll saw. I proceeded to do this and made the first long rip cut down the front of the piece but hit a wall when faced with the cross cuts. The frame saw only has a 6" throat so it wouldn't work for the cross cutting. 1" oak is a challenge at the best of times and the light blade of the frame saw was really pushing it. I decide to use my Japanese ryoba saw, this is the one without a back and has both a rip and cross cut tooth configuration. I use a brace and bit and bore a series of holes along the cut line to fit the ryoba and get things underway. In the next shot you can see the first rip cut at the rear and the holes drilled to allow the blade of the ryoba to pass through.















In a power tool shop this procedure wouldn't be a big deal, maybe a jig saw would suffice or even a table saw with the piece placed over the blade and then carefully raising it up through the work. In my shop however, a little trial and error and I'll have the cut out complete. The ryoba works its way through the oak. Some people have a hard time with pull saws binding and teeth breaking but if you don't force the cut and let the saw do the sawing, even on this hard white oak it's a relatively easy task.

















It's not pretty but it worked! I'll clean up the inside edges next.






















Again with a nice wide chisel I carefully work my way around the area taking small bites. I begin from the underside and chop down a little more than half way. I flip the piece over and finish the job from the top where its seen. I have a corner chisel and this is a perfect application for it. These are a kind of specialty item that you could indeed live without but they do come in handy from time to time.
















I dry fit the granite and note any tight spots along the edges. I mark them and remove the slab to slowly and carefully pare away the 'fat' to achieve a perfect fit.















Now that I have the surface cut-out complete I turn my attention back down to the frame and dimension the final rear stretcher. This 2" oak is placed at the rear top and the back of the work surface will sit on it when complete. So again with the mortise chisel I chop out the cavity.
















The tenons in the oak are off set to allow for the dado I'll plough out next. This groove will hold the under carriage cross pieces, both the granite insert supports as well as some drawer hangers.
















My plough plane is the perfect tool for the job.















With the frame joinery finally complete, I'll start to lay out the components for the granite supports. These are made from some hardwood offcuts I had, in this case some birch and walnut and I dimension them so that when installed the granite will sit slightly proud of the surface. When I say slightly proud, I mean no more than the thickness of a standard sheet of writing paper. The back of the supports will sit in the dado we just cut into the top, rear stretcher and the front will be screwed and joined into two recesses on the underside of the front apron.
I begin as usual by laying these out.

















I approach this like I would with chopping a half blind dovetail, clearly scribing the edges and the depth of the cavity. The main difference between this and a dovetail is the dovetail is usually chopped into the end grain of a board while this is running along the grain. Care must be taken to insure I don't chop too deep and split the piece. I begin my making some saw cuts to establish the outer edges and then with a chisel begin removing the waste.
















In a power tool shop this procedure could be easily accomplished with a router and a jig so with that in mind I'll get mine to complete the cut-out.






















Gotcha! Did you really think my router would have a 'plug' attached? Taking shallow passes, I work my way down with the router plane until I reach my desired depth.
















Then with a chisel I clean up the corners and dry fit the supports. I'm looking for a nice tight fit- how tight? With the apron clamped in my face vise I'm able to press the supports down into the openings and with out any support they're able to sit proud without sagging or falling out.
















I'll re-assemble the bench top pieces and dry fit the granite supports.
















When I'm happy with the fit and the depth of the components are well established, I'll take my awl and mark for some screw holes. I need to make all of these pieces removable for times when I want to re-surface the bench top. This is also why the front cross member on the tool tray is also removable. My vintage hand drill with a modern counter sink bit enables me to drill and countersink in one pass.






















From here I begin laying out and measuring for the drawer hangers. They will also sit in the rear apron dado and are cut for a snug fit. The two inner hangers will need to be shaped to fit around the profile of the granite. I approach this as I did when removing the waste on the underside of the feet. I make a series of saw cuts to establish the depth and then chisel out the waste.

















In the next shot you can see the shaped drawer hanger in the fore ground and the side example in the rear. These will also recieve a dado for the drawers to hang in.
















To add some added insurance that all of these pieces do what I'm hoping they'll do (and that's holding a heavy granite slab and two drawers tightly to the bottom of my workbench) I'll add some pocket hole screws that will secure it up into the bench top. A pocket hole jig is a useful tool in the hand tool woodshop but is usually associated with power tools.

















Here, with a special bit chucked into my brace I can easily drill the holes and am ready for a final dry fit. You may notice at this point I only had two of the four drawer hangers installed; truth be told I wanted to see if this system would work and when it did I went back and made the two for the left hand drawer.
















I was planning on showing the frame glue up in this post but looking at its length I think I'll save it for the next one-
cheers!

A Dedicated Sharpening Bench - part 5

Shaping the Feet and Finishing the Frame

In my last post I finished the leg to bench surface joinery and can now get into the rest of the mortise and tenon joinery to complete the frame work. As mentioned, the stock is 1 1/2" square so I'm making 1/2" tenons and mortises. It's a work out chopping through the Ipe but my mortise chisel is up for the task. Remember I usually bore out the waste with my brace and bit but this wood wreaked havoc on my vintage augers and they only went in about 1/8". So lots of hammering and sawing and fitting the tenons. One nice thing about the 1 1/2" stock is the tenons are relatively small so after a few hours of banging around the basement I'll have the frame complete.

Chopping a Mortise

First thing is to establish the perimeter and I do this with some crisp knife lines. In this first shot you can see where I've marked the overall size of the stretcher and then in the middle you can see my scribe lines...notice I marked off the center? This would have given me somewhere to register my auger bit but as mentioned, it didn't quite work out that way.
















To begin, I place my mortise chisel at the far end of the mortise area, about 3/16 " away from the scribe line. I hammer down, taking small 'bites' as I go. I'm holding the chisel so the bevel side is facing my body and work my way down the mortise section. I'm careful to stay inside the lines and not to hammer the chisel in too deep...yet!






















Once I get to the end of the mortise section I stop just shy of the scribe line, again somewhere in the 1/8" range. I then go back and carefully pry out the small chips and get ready for a second, deeper pass. This time I'm a little harder on the hammer and begin working my way down through the hardwood.

I continue on with this routine until I get close to my finished depth, checking after each pass. Once the mortise is at it's finished depth I'll square up the ends. Place your body in front of the work so you can eye the chisel straight down, square into the opening. If you have trouble chopping square then place a square on your bench top, behind the work for reference. Another mortising trick you can try is marking the finished mortise depth on the back side of your chisel with a felt marker before you begin; that way you can make sure you're not chopping down too deep.






















This process is repeated fifteen more times and when complete I'll begin to saw out the tenons. Refer back to my last post to see my set up for that.

When everything is looking good I go back and re-visit the foot components and shape them.
This being a workbench I could have easily left them square- not like anyone will be looking at them ~ ;) but I've always liked the look of rounded feet on workbenches. I find it gives the bench a traditional look and there will be much less chance of me tripping on them while I stumble around the shop. My own workbench has square feet but I think that taking the extra 30 minutes or so to round them over adds a nice touch.









Shaping the Feet















To begin shaping the feet I draw out the arch and scribe the lines to determine the recess in the top of each foot. On my bench hook I'll make the first cross cut to establish the small fillet down and then I'll put the stock upright and rip down to remove the shoulder.















Next, I make an angled cut to remove most of the waste and with some rasps and files I fair out the curve.






















As you know, my work shop is in my basement and the floor down there is far from flat! With that in mind I decide to remove the middle, underside of the feet to create four contact points where they meet the floor instead of the bench sitting on the entire length of the foot stock. This will make for a more stable bench.
To remove the material I make a series of cross cuts down to my desired depth which in this case is 1/4".















Then I grab my biggest, meanest Japanese chisel and start chopping the waste out between the saw kerfs. I take my time doing this part so I don't blow out any of the wood grain. Working from the inside of the foot I chop down a little over half way and then flip the board over and now working from the outside, show-side of each foot to complete the cut.















A quick going over with a sharp card scraper and it's done. When I have the first foot shaped I'll use it as a pattern and trace the rest of the feet off of it. This will insure they're all the same without having to measure every time. A bit of sanding and they're good to go!















With the feet shaped and the joinery cut I'll do another dry fit and we'll call it a day. I begin by laying out the left front and back legs and insert the cross stretcher and foot. I'll mirror this assembly on my bench top with the right hand side as well.

















Leaving the frames flat on the bench top I'll insert the cross stretchers.
















Finally, I'll peg the right hand frame onto the end of the stretchers and stand the whole unit upright. I'm happy with the results and my joints are looking pretty descent. In this final shot you can see how the work surface will slide down into the front slip joints and sit on the rear stub tenons. When I glue up the frame I'll drill and peg all of these joints for a bench that'll probably be around a lot longer than I will...My mortising is done for today but I'll add another cross stretcher at the top, rear of the frame that will serve dual pupose- it'll have a dado running along it's length to peg the drawer holders into as well as another pick-up point for the surface to sit on. This final cross stretcher will be made of oak because I want it to be at least 2" wide and as you know, the Ipe came pre-dimensioned at 1 1/2".
















In the next post I'll cut the giant hole in the work surface top for the granite insert (the horror-the horror!) as well as make the final stretcher and some last minute details before I glue up the frame assembly and build the under carriage that will hold the granite in place...stay tuned.