Workbenches 4

Okay so I did a wet run and made 2 of the four workbenches I planned on making. As you can see I did not have enough room in my workshop for cutting and assembling because it is currently full of disorganized junk. I have a few notes about how this went together that I would like to do differently on the other two benches. What I really didn't like for the most part was cutting off the plywood end. I used a regular push saw to flush cut it, the one in the picture. While cutting from the bottom I got a lot of tear out on the top. I suppose I could fix that will some masking tape but I tried cutting from the top. The problem with that is that I could not see the lumber below to get an actual flush cut and I ended up cutting into it. I think that cutting from the bottom with a pull saw or using some tape would do the trick. In any case I'll have to wait to give it another go, I'm out of glue.

Workbenches 3

Ok so I got some things done on my benches. Including the frame for the top. 

Make sure your top side is square in the cross beam department or the top of your
bench will be all out of wack. FUZZY! Sorry someday I will get a better camera. 

I did not like how the ends split a little while screwing it together so I screwed an
extra 3" deck screw in  through the bottom. That should hold it in place.

You can see here I tried to line up the board as best I could. I think it turned out pretty good.

All screwed together there is the top frame.

Then I put it under my plywood because I noticed it was starting to warp a
bit from the heavy saw and the carpet. 

Once that was fixed I cut the rest of the wood for the 2 benches except for the custom ~8.5" boards that get cut during assembly. so I have boards one through thirteen cut, marked and ready to be assembled along the wall.

How to cut lumber...

 ...or rather, How I cut lumber. Everybody has there own way this is mine.

First measure your board.

Push the measuring tape so one side is flat on the board as above. 

Make a mark on the measurement line you need 

Make a second mark in a slightly different direction using the same
measurement as before and you will get the above. 

This mark now come to a point which should tell you where you need to cut.
Place you pencil on that point.

Slide your square up to you pencil making sure you don't knock the
 pencil from its place and trace the line.

Look at our beautiful square line.

Now mark the wood to be cut away because the saw takes away 1/8" or more of material.
 I use an X.

I write the measurements on the piece that will be cut out so they
 are easier to sort out later.

When you're cuting you always want to line up the edge of the teeth with your line and not the face of your blade. For every saw I have ever seen the teeth cut wider than the thickness of the body of the blade.

Boom! Look at that, right on the nose!

Workbenches 2

Ok, I finally had a little time to work on my benches. The first thing I did was set up the chop saw and box. My workshop floor is carpet over pored cement. While it is pretty level it is no so flat so I layed down one of the 3/4" plywood peices to make it flatter.

Above you can see the specially made box that is the exact same height of the chopsaws table.

Here you can see the how straight the playwood is when laying on the floor.

Then I read the directions on the EAA 1000 website and it says to build the top first and then build it upside-down so I cut the 2x4s I needed to make the frame that is the top. Those boards I cut were 1, 2, 5, 6, 10 and 11. After cutting look like this:


For those of you not farmilliar with woodwork; more on cutting exactly, keeping track of your wood and framing later.

-Ham

Workbenches 1

So, before you build your plane you need something to build it on. It needs to be really flat and pretty smooth. Since I have a small workshop and I do not intend to live in my current house forever I needed a flexible option that fits through a regular door. I also don't like unneeded complications so I choose some plans that require only a hammer, some clamps, a drill and a chop saw. So I am doing the EAA chapter 1000 bench. Below I have a picture of all the needed lumber to build 4 of these smaller benches. 

If these are built properly they can be clamped together to make 1 flat 10'* by 4' table which is big enough for many builds. I bought this at home depot but any lumber yard will do, as you can see I had the longest and hardest cut made at the store for 2 reasons; They have that oh so awesome tool made specifically for this cut and a 4' by 8' sheet of plywood does not fit in my car.

If you looked at the plans you are likely wondering why I didn't mention a saw to cut plywood to length. I am planing on using a flush cutting hand saw to trim the 2' off the end of the workbench once it is already assembled this way i can even make a special jig or tool holder out of that end but we will see how that turns out.

-Ham

*corrected, not 12'