Bob Easton

Chocolate powered woodworking

Archives for 2008

I Picked Up a New Workbench

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That stange looking thing I’ve been using as a workbench is actually the building horse for the Fiddlehead canoe. Once enough frame parts are ready, they’ll be set up on the building horse. Then, what will I use for a workbench?

Chris Schawarz’s “Workbenches…” book is a winner. As a cabinet maker and writer about woodworking, he has made a number of workbenches. The unique thing about his book is a chapter in which he analyzes almost any woodworking task imaginable and classifies all the ways a bench might handle them. This analysis ends up with plans for two benches, one built incredibly heavy and perfect for cabinet makers, the other lighter and originally used by for 19th century joiners. This lighter bench, which Chris calls the “English” bench, looks ideal for boat building work. The most appealing feature is the ability to clamp long boards to the face aprons, enabling the kinds of edge working that is prevalent in boat building.

All I need is to make it longer. One can never have a bench that’s too long. I’m planing for 12 feet. Extending the length requires some longer lumber and an extra pair of legs.

lumber on my truckChris suggests building benches from construction lumber. After all, these are workbenches, not grand pianos, we’re building. He uses southern yellow pine, very hard softwood that’s availalble where Chris lives. The examples in his book show beautiful wood that is clear and knot free. Not here. I have load of “green Douglas fir,” the next best alternative in this part of the country. As an aside, the lumber is sold green (high moisture content) because it is intended for house framing. If a framer uses it immediately, the joins become tighter as the lumber dries. Some of what I bought is still very green and very heavy. It was a good load test for the truck rack and for my knot tying.

Yeah, this puts the Fiddlehead build into limbo for a while.

Another Way to Get Out Parts

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There are two watertight bulkheads in the Fiddlehead. The plans want them laminated from thin cedar boards. Why laminated? Laminating cedar with the grain of each lamination running in different directions keeps the incredible light weight while adding strength. Yes, they could be made from half inch plywood, but would be much heavier.

Building a model exposed the details that were very helpful when buying wood. damaged cedar lumberWilliam, the very helpful guy at M.L. Condon Lumber, was a bit surprised when I said “OK” to a board that had some very obvious cracks, and really nasty edge damage, in the middle of its length. He knew I was building boat and probably assumed I wanted only good long boards. I knew that board would be just fine for getting out the bulkhead parts. William saw it as damaged goods and discounted its footage appropriately. He got rid of a “reject” board and I got bulkhead parts at a bargain price.

Getting them out of the wood requires thickness reduction, like the frame parts described earlier, but done differently this time. Instead of planing off excess wood as waste, I resawed these parts. Resawing is cutting the wood into thin layers. I don’t have a nifty frame saw for resawing like the one used by one of Dan’s friends, (need to make one of those) so I used my bandsaw.

My bandsaw can be opened up to handle 6 inch material, plenty wide enough for the bulkhead parts. Rough cut some slabs out of that cedar board. There was enought wood beyond the damaged area to get the four slabs I wanted.  Joint an edge on each so they will run though the saw. Slice them in half.

resawingresawn stock for bulkheadsI’ve used the band saw a couple of years with the original blade. A trial at resawing with that blade produced some very rough results, completely unsatisfactory. The answer was a Wood Slicer resaw blade, available from Highland Woodworking. Wow, what a differnce! The effort to push the wood through the saw is only about 1/3 of the original blade. The noise level dropped by more than half; no more squealing. The resulting cut leaves two very smooth surfaces. These need very little smoothing. They are now cut to half the original lumber thickness, a good bit thickner than needed. I’ll deal with that after laminating.