Cutting Workbench Slabs

[John Grossbohlin]

Ken,

You are going to miss out on part of the Zen experience by using the circular saw and straight edge... You might want to use a hand rip saw and then plane the hand sawn edge straight and square and parallel to the other edge. It's certainly doable! Pick up a couple nice panel saws (e.g., taper ground and breasted crosscut saw, and taper ground rip saw) and go at it! It certainly will add to the entertainment and satisfaction factors... and to the enjoyment time!

I recently taught my 8 and 10 years old sons how to resaw boards with a hand rip saw and then hand plane the sawn surfaces flat and parallel to the other side. My 10 year old has made the comment "Wood is magic!" a number of times as I've taught them how to use hand saws, coping saws, block planes, bench planes, and various marking and layout tools to make things. I've even had them do handcut dovetails and their first attempts were very good. I've got them scribing sleepers to the concrete floor (above grade due to rock) in the family room so we can put down insulation and an oak strip floor. Their scribe work is so good I don't check it before cutting... the sleepers fit fine the first time!

What really got them fired up was spending a few hours with Roy Underhill. Prior to that they were of the opinion that you NEEDED all the big stationary tools like Norm. (In hind-sight maybe they should have met Roy before they met Norm??) I've got a good assortment of large stationary tools and good quality hand tools. I've purposely been using hand tools more lately (even on the renovation work I'm doing now) so that the boys see how tasks can be accomplished with hand tools. It keeps them engaged by letting them know that hand tools are NOT inferior tools, i.e., they understand that just because I don't let them use the 3 HP table saw and 8" jointer doesn't mean they cannot get to the same place with the hand rip saw and hand planes.

John

[leonard]

HI wayne

I live in Carroll county and both Carroll and Baltimore comm colleges have shops, the Baltimore comm is much friendlier though and is located near the state fairgrounds off of yourk road.

Len

[Lowell Holmes]

You might want to use a hand rip saw and

That's ok for you young dogs, but those of us that are long of tooth, oh well. . . . . The only place I know to get the saw's you describe is on E-bay (which I have done).

Very well said! I have a nice 10 pt Disston crosscut saw that does quite well. It is often my tool of choice when cutting a piece of rough lumber to length. I also have a 1940's vintage Crafstman taper ground saw that I converted to a 10 pt rip saw. It was my Dad's saw. It will rip or cut cross grain (shades of Tage Frid). I can't imagine a chairmaker not having such a saw when cutting seat blanks.

[Ken]

snip

Sounds like a good workbench would be helpful in planing the edges of those slabs ;)

I'll give the hand saws a try for the 2nd bench (maple). I'm near assembly on my first bench (pine) and would like to get it together to help build the maple bench.

The Veritas design has trestle legs with butt joints and truss rods. I changed all the butt joints to mortise and tenon. These I cut by hand. Doing the mortises by hand is great fun. One of my reading sources said after the initial mortise cut is started to just _wail_ away at it. Wail is what I did. Felt great and gave a nice mortise. The tenons taught me that I could use better saws and better technique. I'll need to practice my hand saw work before tackling the bench slabs but that is something I would definitely like to do. Thanks for the good advice.

Ken

[John Grossbohlin]

It would be helpful... It's kind of like the "How did they forge the first hammer?" question. ;~)

You can use saw horses with some 90 degree fixtures clamped to them. The fixture can be made of 1X stock with a diagonal brace. Clamp the board to the fixture. The weight of the board is born by the saw horse and the fixture serves to hold the board on edge. It will probably be a little low if you have 24" high saw horses so you may want to either put the horses up on blocks or make some taller saw horses.

snip

I often do skill building exercises with my boys, e.g., sawing to a line. When I taught a handcut dovetail class at my club recently there were dramatic improvements from the practice boards to the boards for the pencil boxes. The student's eyes lit up just like my boys eyes do when they develop a new skill. It's cool!

John

[Owen Lawrence]

Sometimes I'd like to do that, but don't feel I can afford to. We don't all have an endless supply of money for these things. I probably started building stuff when I was a kid because I didn't have any money to buy the things I wanted. Turns out I enjoy the design/build process so I've kept doing it.

Everyone's different. Try my glasses on for proof.

I reflected on what you said and here's what I learned about me: When life is going well I seem to get the most satisfaction out of finishing a project. Arriving and being at the destination improves my sense of well being. However when life is not going so well, finishing a project is no help at all. Yet going down to the workshop, manually sharpening my tools then hand planing a piece of scrap down to a pile of shavings does me a world of good. My situation might not have improved much, but I'm more likely to feel a lot better about it. In that case, it's the journey that counts, and it doesn't matter at all where I end up.

- Owen -

[Lew Hodgett]

Same reason cruising sailors sail.

It is the journey, not the destination.

Lew

[Lowell Holmes]

Owen,

We probably are not far apart with our wood working. I have spent a lot of time sharpening and making shavings. I have bench grinders, but only use them when I get an Ebay chisel that has to be reworked. I use Eazy Laps when I'm working on a project.

Conceiving and executing a project is where my satisfaction lies. My work has a lot of flaws, but the friends and family that get the pieces don't seem to mind. My work is probably 25-30 per cent machine work and the rest is hand work. I have a Leigh jig, but I cut dovetails by hand, I have routers, but I do most of my mortises with a chisel and mallet.

I just don't care to rip a 72" long, 2" thick bench top when I have to spend more for the wood than for a completed top. My three previous benches were all yellow pine and done by hand.

Lowell