The Heat is Gone; Back in the Shop

My workshop --a spare, second floor bedroom in a house without any air conditioning-- is usually too hot during the summer days for me. Also, I spend a lot of time gardening in my backyard, as well as various exterior projects around the house.

But the days and nights have been getting cooler, and this has allowed me to get back into the shop. I've gotten back to working on my English-style workbench. No pictures or videos, yet. I plan on making another video of the process of laying out and cutting the tenons for the leg mortises. I've also gotten to a couple of long overdue projects for my current workbench's top. Which brings me to.....

Most of the current English-style benches being built are constructed of construction lumber. This is a great application for that material. But I"m concerned me the 1 1/2" thick benchtop is just too thin. I've grown fond of my 4" thick laminated Southern Yellow Pine benchtop. And rather than re-invest in a benchtop, I'm going to reuse my 4" thick SYP benchtop for my English-style workbench. A tad unorthodox, but an acceptable novelty. Don't you think?

Thanks for being patient with the blog.

AMDG

Leg Mortise Video

Forgive the poor quality; just thought I'd mess around. This is my first video, taken with a camera that has video capability on it. If I am to do more of these, I will need to invest in a real video camera.

AMDG

English Bench Build: Part 1

My current workbench is serviceable. Many years ago, I started to build a typical European workbench, with a face vise and tail vise. You can see how far I got.

The bench was built to serve my slight interest in hand tools, and my major use of power tools. As I slowly started using hand tools more and more, I found that a tail vise was not needed; so I never finished it, even though I bought the bench screw for it. I never purchased the face vise. This bench has made me use very creative clamping and holding situations. When I finally realized that hand tools were in my heart, I turned the top around so the row of dogs was on the back, and I added a big 2 3/4" square planing stop on the new left end. 

Don't get me wrong. My bench has helped me immensely, but I know that its time to upgrade.

The English bench has caught my eye. I love the simplicity; I love the wide front apron. So today I started to build it. I had some 8' Douglas Fir 4x4's. I rough cut these to length for the legs, and laid out the mortises for the rails. Pictures below.

Cut to a rough, oversized length: 28 1/2"

Measuring from what will be the bottom of the leg (that scribed line at the right), the mortise for the lower rail is 5" up. The length of the mortise is 3". It will receive a 4x4 rail with a 1" tenon.



Measuring from the finished top line, the mortise for the top rail begins 1/4" down, and, similarly, is 3" long.

I will keep posting the progress on building this bench. Admittedly, I am quite nervous that the thinner, 2 1/4" top (compared to my current 4" top) will dissappoint me. We'll see. 

AMDG 

Shop Fixtures

The shop has received a lot of attention. It was very cramped, non-efficient, and focused on using power tools. That had to change; it had to be simplified. Here are a couple of ways I accomplished that.

AMDG

Altar Card Frames

I can't believe its been almost a year since my last post. Time flies! I've been very busy with work, housework, a new baby (Anne Catherine, 1/7/2011), etc.

Shop time has been spent on honing skills, cleaning up and organizing. For a while I had removed all power tools from my shop, but with this project, I re-setup the tablesaw to rip some narrow boards. I still have much to learn with hand tools.

This project was for a Roman Catholic priest friend of mine. He is celebrating Holy Mass for the feast of St. Joseph on March 19. He has a devotion to St. Joseph. He purchased the altar cards, but had no frames for them.

If you have any questions about what these are used for, please feel free to ask me.

AMDG