we are going to put the jawline in the vise that means a piece of wood on
either side you could use plywood I've got a piece of elm that I've taken from
an old unit that I had so it's upcycle recycled again and what
I want to do is add a piece of wood one inch either side of the vise like this
and then my vise jaw is going to actually be extended beyond the side of
the vise just to give it an extra width so instead of it being nine inches wide
it's going to be 11 inches wide in my case I'm going to cut these two lengths
I'm just going to go to the bottom of my vise cut two of those feels a little
bit awkward working with a vise again and a bench but very nice and I'm going
to show you how to put some leather on one of the jaws and i will explain that when I do it
new vise always feels a little bit awkward until you get
used to them until they break in they do need breaking in a little bit
but I need two of these a mark in this bench because it's so brand new and
I'm going to put a hole right through the midsection of this piece her e just
one 3/16 hole
countersink it I want these I don't any screw sitting above the top because or
the surface because we're going to put the vise jaw over there just a couple of
screws now you can glue this if you want to it's entirely up to you I'm not sure
that you need to because you may want to take it off for some reason sometime in
the future so I would just go ahead and flush this with the top of your bench at
the very top here up against the side of the jaw drive your screw
little bit high nice on the inside of the jaw I'm gonna cut this jaw liner to
length this one here so just get this and make your mark I've got a couple of
things to do to this to make this work one is we've got the protruding heads
inside from the screws that hold the vise to the apron front I probably
wouldn't cut the second jaw to length yet so this one's in and fixed and you
know it's exactly where it is because we're going to line the next one up with it
caught the screw head then
just clean it up drop it in here and what we're gonna do is gonna be above
the bench I've made this just slightly above the bench and I'm gonna rest it on
the twin bars inside here just to start with I'm gonna rest it on the twin bars
and then afterwards I'm going to nudge it up just so it's off the bars because
if it rests on those bars it's going to bind the jaws and then I'm going to
plane it flush with the bench when I've done these are the two offending bolt
heads there so line this up with the end here and then cinch this make your
impression so I've got my impression there and I have to make a recess for
the bolt head and the washer part
so this is the same size bit i used when i did my eighth from pieces which
is 5/8 in my case and then it's a little stiff here that fits nicely just off the
two bars hold this without pinching your fingers yes and then we can tap it flush
if it needs tapping I'm gonna put two screws right here I'm gonna go above I'm
gonna go all the way through these two pieces because this is so narrow that if
I don't the chances are it will just split anyway
countersink I would countersink we're good and deep you don't the heads to
come through some long screws so these are really independent of the vise we're
just going around it, seems like my drill is going a little down and that should be it so that's this now I can plane this down
on the front one we're gonna cut this one to length just plane this end up
square
I'm taking care not to go all the way through here this goes on here get the
exact length like this this is the one we're going to be lining so we're gonna
put the leather a pad of leather and piece of leather on the front edge from
face not the back one I found that the leather on the front vise your holds
everything just about perfectly and stops it from slipping when I'm using
the vise
good for the leather now keep it clean
I'm just using double-sided tape to put the leather onto this and I'll show you
what I've worked out works best over the years I've tried every different way but
what I found was that let me clean this up first what I found was if I have the
leather wrapped around the wood and held between the vise and the wood it holds
forever almost this goes in here next I'm going to take a strip of a double-sided tape this is a
3/4 inch strip down here
off there and I want the furry side on the outside the suede on the outside
so I'm going to line this up along this edge here just like that and it's going
to come down the top and down on the inside this way so this is my next drop
this in here this can sit on top of the bars because because it's not too much
I'm going to pull this back in a minute here I'm gonna plane this down I'm gonna
put two screws in that back edge next
the pre-drill the hole and I want to make sure I don't go through the inside face
of my wood this is just a pilot hole now so I'm checking my land to make sure
and secure this now pull this back and I'm going to plane this top-down flush
this is going to go with the bench top here like i have a lot to take down
there it's going against the grain on one and with the drain on the other
whichever way I go I might leave it
it's catching the end grain of the side pieces there that's gonna work
leather over the top next
I'm at the brass already so stretch it nice and tight I'll get some wider tape
here just to take it down the inside face and that will hold the tape the
tape really works just fine it's enough it's not ever really under any pressure
this way but it's always being compressed
if you pull this just drop it over and then press it for down from the middle
and stretch it towards the outside like that take your knife and run it along
that bottom edge and that's it it's just trimming that down here and you've got a
working vise now I think will last you forever I don't know very nice
this really finishes off the vise and you feel like you have total control
of the vise and just break that corner back from there there and that's the
vise done so we're well underway -
beautiful finish very nice my vise is ready to go the one thing I've got left
to do now I've got to put some braces on the underside of the bench to hold the
wedges in place I'll show you how I do that
the last thing before finishing I want to put the there's a couple of drop-down
pieces of wood that I screw on the underside over the wedges that hold the
legs square against the end and I want to put those in next and then all of the
construction work I think will just about be done so what I've done is I've
measured down here this is five inches and this is five inches and I've just
made an angle it can be just about any angle you want on there thirty degrees
will be fine I'm going to cut through these two at once
and then I'm going to drill through them you can drill through about an inch from
the end or something like that I've got my screws ready I'm going to have to go
underneath the bench sure I would do I would take the lighter end of the bench
the vises with you over there lift up here and then your retainers
and they just drop on so put the angle not sure if you can see I'm gonna put
the angle on the face like this and then just slide it up somewhere anywhere
along the length of that and then just drop that screw in, that's it so we do the others just
the same so that you can always flip that up if you need to knock your wedge
out now you can flip that up out of the way pull your wedge for dismantling same
up here one more that was my head
and that's it so we're ready now to start applying some finish that's the
next stage when it comes to putting a finish on your workbench that's what I'm
just about to do the reason I put a finish on is because it keeps the bench
clean later when you're using the bench over and over you've got oils different
things that you're working with sometimes it helps keep the vents clean
so I'm putting a coat of outdoor furniture oil on this will work just
fine you could use Danish oil you could use any finish you could use
polyurethane if you like I don't want to finish that is slick I want something
that has a little bit of friction to it this one is easy to repair and it's just
a wipe honest this is a natural oil a natural finish so it does have a little
bit of pigment to it so but I think one or two coats of this will work fine and
it goes on very easily with a rag wipe on wipe off and you can go with a second
or a third coat if you feel you want to I usually go with two coats and there's
not much more to this type of finish then you see me doing now so I'm going
to keep going until I've got the legs done and the top done
it's very very easy as you can see it's just like wiping it down with a cleaner
or something
this is so exciting we are getting ready to be using our own bench we just made
it we've done every bit of it we've used our hounds we've used our minds we're in
the zone now this is really equipping you to start building your furniture
building your woodworking projects and you're so excited for you I've made this
bench so many times but this one is an update of the one I've been making I've
developed a lot of the ideas for it the laminated aprons the retainers the
wedging to the legs things like that the dismantle ability of it is very quick
and very easy love it love it love it and it works it works as well as any
bench I've ever worked at that's the neat thing about it it's not fancy it's
very functional so you are on your way
I'll catch the ends later put it on here
I'm probably a painter's nightmare here this works just fine and it's
water-based this that's what I like about it is low VOCs how simple could
that be my workbench is ready to go almost nice so now I'm gonna catch the
under side do this apron here things like that
this is definitely a celebration moment for me I feel like I've been working
towards this point for 50 years to come up with the ultimate workbench the one
that you build that's what makes it the ultimate workbench I've just
finished this you've watched me work through it I've taken my wood from in
the corner there plain dollar surfaces glued it together made the laminations
made the joinery using simple hand tools just ordinary everyday woodworking hand
tools I'm hoping you feel inspired to go out buy the tools get your wood together
and start building this is your way into doing it yourself you can build your
workbench and have a workbench that will last you for a lifetime
No comments:
Post a Comment