Wood Planning

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Andy_Duframe]Andy Duframe
Unfortunately, theres no single answer to what makes the best height for a workbench. It all depends on your particular body height and the particular kind of work you plan to do there. Later Ill cover some of the specifics on just how to find that perfect distance between the workbench top and the floor, but first lets take a look at why the height of your bench is so important to begin with.
Make it Easy on your Back
Moving around in your shop is a great way stay healthy. Lifting, stretching, and reaching around for tools keeps our bodies flexible and well toned. The bad news is that when we stand at a workbench for hours on end, our muscles tend to stay in one place. Not so much of a problem really, if we keep a relatively good posture while we work. However, if our bench top is a little low (or a little high), our good posture goes straight out the window. The consequence is almost always a case of lower back pain. Heres how to find the ideal height for your workbench - before you starting building.
Workbench Height to Body Height
As general rule, the height of a bench should be parallel with the bottom of your shirt cuff. This provides very manageable surface height for most of the jobs youll probably do there.
Adjust Height for the Job
The shirt cuff rule-of-thumb works great for jobs youll take to a bench, but if theres a particular kind of work you do more often than others - youre probably best to tweak that height one way or the other. Here are a couple of examples:
Wood Carving / Sanding
With some jobs, I like to use the weight of my upper body to help do the work. Carving and sanding wood are good examples, where Id prefer to have the height of my bench be somewhat lower than my shirt cuff. Even as little as 6 inches lower can make a big difference with this type of work.
Repairs / Assembly
With some jobs, Id prefer to have my bench top a little higher. Im thinking mostly about jobs like fixing a weed eater in the garage, or putting together a gas grill. Work like this means I need to have things at least a little closer to eye level - even if were only talking about 6 inches above my cuff line. This prevents me from unknowingly crouching over my work, and putting that little extra bit of stress on my lower back (which is bad).
What About the Workbench I Already Have?
Of course, the best time to think about workbench height is before you start building one. But what about the bench that is already sitting in the garage or basement? Here are a few solutions for making an existing workbench better fit both for both your body height and the type of work you want to do there.
For Benches that are Too Low
If it turns out my existing work bench is too low (the most common problem), sometimes Ill just piggy-back another work surface to the top - which simply brings my work a little higher on the bench. Ive used everything from wood boxes, scrap boards, and plywood to do this. Keep in mind that sometimes it only takes a few inches to bring your work to a more comfortable level. You might also think about bumping up the height by simply raising the entire bench off the floor a few inches. Youll need something fairly sturdy to shove under the legs, though - like solid wood scraps (that wont slide around), or even concrete patio blocks.
For Benches that are Too High
In the unlikely case that my bench is too high, the quickest solution is to just find something (sturdy) to stand on. You might be surprised how much difference even a simple floor mat can make in changing your stance at the bench. For a more permanent solution, I you might think about trimming a few inches off each leg, bringing the entire bench down to where you want it.
Andy Duframe discusses in more detail the benefits of setting the correct workbench height at [http://www.workbenchplans.org/workbench-design/workbench-height]www.workbenchplans.org, a website that explores the basics of building a workbench.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Workbench-Height---Whats-the-Ideal-Height-for-a-Bench?&id=6753456] Workbench Height - Whats the Ideal Height for a Bench?

38 Garden Design Ideas Turning Your Home Into a Peaceful Refuge ...
38 Garden Design Ideas Turning Your Home Into a Peaceful Refuge

38 Garden Design Ideas Turning Your Home Into a Peaceful Refuge ...
backyard garden design 38 Garden Design Ideas Turning Your Home Into a

My family and I are looking at the end of a very long journey with some real excitement. At the end of this month we close on our new home in LaCrosse. We have basically been "homeless" for several months as we have been searching for the right place at the right price. My parents have been generous and patient and let us live with them while we worked this problem out. Its been a long few months.

We found a nice, three bedroom house on a double lot in an older part of town. Enough room for our family of five to all fit and thrive. As far as Im concerned the best thing of all . . . the two and a half car garage in the back yard.

Im moving shop again. You would think Im getting exceedingly good at it by now.

Ive been hitting the graph paper hard in the last few days. Figuring out different configurations of tools, deciding where I want my wood storage to go, and wondering why my wife is insisting that she be able to park her car in "her" half of it. The truth is this is all dreaming and playing around and until I start pushing my workbench through the doors, I wont know for sure where everything will go.

This will be the fifth different studio space Ive worked in since I started writing this blog. First was the basement shop in Northern Maine. (1) Then we moved back home to Wisconsin and I basically ended up in a 5x9 closet at the bottom of our duplex stairs. (2) From there my father offered a significant section of the steel shed in his back yard (3). A space Im still working out of right now. In between, I moved a small amount of the shop into the dining room of our old apartment for a winter. (4)

This will be the more permanent shop home Ive been looking for for a long time and that is an exciting prospect indeed. Something Ive been looking for since we left Maine in our rearview to come back home. Almost feels like Im getting ready to stand on two feet again.

Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf

I started a new project this weekend.  My sister asked me to make her a bench so I did some searching and decided to make a modified version of a 5 board bench.  Here are a couple pictures of it held together with clamps.  Look for a full build post coming soon!

I needed shelf standards for an existing cabinet, but wanted wooden rather than metal. I decided to make four standards with evenly spaced holes, using the In-line Drilling jig I used to drill the holes for the Christmas Star I made for a friend. The standards only needed to be 27" long, so I decided to use the Mortise & Tenon jig that I am currently developing to hold the work pieces.



The M&T jig allows me to clamp work pieces vertically or horizontally for routing with the EZ Smart Router Kit (SRK). The work piece can be registered for repeatability. It can handle work pieces up to 32" long. I will be doing a post on the M&T jig once I have finished developing it or at least gotten it to a point where it will be readily usable without having to make or modify something. Briefly, the work piece is clamped between the top of the jig and a height adjustable table. At this time I am using pieces of scrap and clamps to hold the work Piece tight against the body of the jig. I will probably be using cam clamps to hold the work piece in place once I work out how I want to attach them so that their location will be adjustable.



The In-line Indexer fastens to the rail of the M&T jig, and is locked in place once I set the SRK to align with the first hole marked on the work piece. To do this, I use a setup bit in the router and align the point with the the center of the first hole location. Making sure that the index pin is in a hole, I tighten the clamps on the indexer. I replace the setup bit with a 1/4" spiral (up cut) bit and start drilling.

This short video shows how EZ it is to drill the holes for a standard. Note the hesitations in raising the index pin when I start trying to move the router before raising the pin. I need to get the process down a little better.

Well, I shouldnt have been so overly optimistic about how much I would get done in Part II. I did make some progress, but Im no where near finished. What else is new?

I started on the stretcher: cutting the curve with my remaining turning saw (the one that was supposed to replace the prototype, but which I dont enjoy that much), truing the curve with a round sole spokeshave, removing the old finish with a jack plane, and beveling the edges with both round and flat sole spokeshaves. Here are a few shots of the results:






I didnt finish the arms of the frame, which Salaman refers to as "cheeks", but I did get them roughed out with the saw:



The inside curve was awkward, but I found a way to get at it. And sawing while kneeling on the floor was kinda fun...


And finally, heres a shot of the saw so far:


Its still a little chunky, and a bit on the heavy side, but I think the final shaping will take care of both of those problems.

Dimensioning Frame Stock

I mentioned in the first post that Im using some off the shelf hardwood for the bench frame; this was great for my budget but not ideal for my hand tools. Because it was dimensioned at the mill (and I use that term very loosely) I have to re-dimension it all again before I can start laying out my joinery. Theyre definition of square must be a little different than mine!
The Ipe is an extremely dense South American hardwood and is very unforgiving to hand tools- perfect irony isnt it? Here I am making a new sharpening bench and the wood species Im using is ripping the edges off of my plane irons so fast that Im going back and forth to my old sharpening area being reminded with each pass how much Im looking forward to having this new one! Some strange motivation I suppose?
With that I begin planing and dimensioning, sharpening and planing some more. The reverse grain is very unusual in this species, its tones and weight are similar to teak but the dust coming off of it is Kermit the frog green...If youre ever using Ipe with power tools make sure you wear a mask! Im finding the small amount of dust coming off while hand planing a little irritating to my nose and throat. When I have all of the frame components cross cut to length (including joinery) and all surfaced, I can begin my layout.

Whenever possible I like to lay out my joinery in groupings ie: the legs get clamped together and the mortises for the cross stretchers are laid out together. This will help keep things consistent and insure continuity between the pieces. I use a pencil to mark off the thickness of each component and then a deep scribe line with my knife for the joinery.

Mortise and Tenons

All of the joinery for the bench frame is mortise and tenon except the front legs into the top apron by way of the slip joint.(refer back to part 3) The Ipe is close to 1 1/2" square so Ill follow the rule of thirds and lay out 1/2" mortises. I begin at the top of the back legs where they meet the bench top. I saw a tenon into the rear leg tops and chop out the mating mortises. Over in my shoulder vise I get out my favourite back saw and make some dust. You may notice in the pictures my set up for sawing the tenons- I hold them in the tail vise and have my bench hook next to it on my bench top. This is an efficient set up when you have a lot of tenons to cut. I start by ripping down the two cheeks and then turn the workpiece and rip the other two shoulder cuts. Then its a simple matter of unclamping and sawing at the bench hook without ever having to take a step. Ill get both tenons cut and then back into the tail vise to pare down to the scribe lines.






















Ive heard some woodworkers say you should saw right to your scribe lines and I suppose in a perfect world this is true. I unfortunately live a few blocks East of a perfect world so I try to leave a bit of material to pare away to. This is especially true on the cross cuts where I want a crisp shoulder line.

















With the tenons cut Ill forget that measuring tapes were ever invented and use the actual work piece to lay out my mortises. Again, I begin with a pencil and mark out my perimeter and follow with a knife line to determine the actual mortise size.




























I begin with a brace and bit and bore out the bulk of the material. These are relatively shallow, stub tenons so I trust my eye and bore down into the oak. For deeper tenons Ill wrap a piece of tape around the bit to show me the finished depth and for really special work pieces Ill actually make up a wooden collar that slips over the bit creating a built in depth stop. But as mentioned, today Im using my eyes.

From there Ill use my mortising chisel to chop off the little wings left between auger bit holes and square up the ends. Ill clean out the bottom and get ready for a dry fit. The brace and bit method of cutting mortises is a fast and accurate method but I should also mention when you first lay out the mortise its a good idea to scribe in a center line. This will give a point of reference for the bit to find center when drilling. The first dry fit shows me that I need to remove a little meat off of the tenon. This is another one of those wood working myths- tenons dont have to look pretty! I know we see them in our favourite woodworking magazines, all crispy and shining like a new dime but really-?
They do need to be straight and they really should be square but besides that they can be as rough as you make em. Keeping that in mind I use a rasp to trim the tenons.






















Its fast and easy and all of those scratch marks left behind will actually make for a better glue joint. Another dry fit and its on to the next one.


The bench now has four legs standing proudly, although still inverted on my bench top- I decide to address the bottoms of the legs and the feet. Its a natural progression, but I dont give the sequence too much thought. I suppose you could cut all of the legs first and then move onto all of the stretchers... I enjoy watching a work piece come together and at the end of my work day I like to see what Ive accomplished. So I started with the legs and then onto the feet; at least Ill be able to stand the bench upright and get a sense of where things are going for tomorrow!

The process of cutting the mortise and tenons throughout the frame is pretty much the same system as described above. Pencil to scribe lines and then bore out the waste and.....whats that? The wood? Too hard?
Oh yeah, I almost forgot- the crazy-dense exotic wood from South America proved to be a little too hard for my auger bit so I wasnt able to remove the waste like I did in the Oak. Imagine, the quarter sawn white oak in the bench top is actually the friendlier softer wood! Thats saying a lot.
So instead of removing the waste with my brace and bit I resort to the crashing and bashing of the mortise chisel. It actually went pretty quickly. As hard as this wood is, it works pretty well and while chopping across the grain for the mortises, I exploited the brittle under tones of the Ipe. The tenons were done as described and before I knew it the legs and the feet are complete...at least for tonight. Next time Ill shape the feet and finish the frame. Stay tuned.

"

Dorset Custom Furniture from Junction 133 on Vimeo >.

">A Video Tour of Dorset Custom Furniture

Heres a very brief visual and oral history of Dorset Custom Furniture. Weve been working on it for a while now and it was harder than I thought. What to include? What to cut? .. a whole new process ... Duncan Lake of Junction 133 Productions got it all together for us. Hes been a friend of Sam and Wills for a long time and did a great job ... Hes back at his day job for the season now, videoing snowboarders out west ... Looks like fun ...

ps ... this video shows best if you click it to full screen