Advice on bench building please

[AAvK]

Calling all bench builders,

I have been cutting and planing all the legs, braces and stretchers for a very basic trestle made of douglas fir 4x4 & 4x6, I have most of the maple for the top, still need a bit more.

There will be top side braces that support the maple top, and lower side braces of 4x4, above the lower braces will be front and rear stretchers of 4x6 going side to side. All tenons will be haunched. _____________ | | | |____________ | | | tenon side view | | | _________________________|

I thought and thought and thought about how to join them to the legs and had decided for double wedged tenons, then discovered the DF is too chippy and weak as a 1" wide tenon, so I decided to go with blind M&T sunk into 50% the thickness of the leg using bench bolts instead.

I like the idea but, would it be worse or merely not as good, if I went with straight-in hex-head lag bolts instead of the bench bolts? Does one have a serious advantage over the other or would it be an equal call? I really want the better of the two ideas, please. TIA!

[charlie b]

snip

would work better. Or you could use barrel nuts and a bolt, but you have to be able to drill the hole for the bolt and the one for the screw very accurately.

b

[Fourleaves]

I would stay away from sinking lag bolts into end grain and expecting great long term durability, though it would probably work for a while, perhaps even a long while.

Here is how I worked things out:

how I got there:

was going for solid, simple, cheap (hex head bolts are much less expensive than the bench bolts I looked at) and relatively quick. I hit the marks I was looking for. I hope this helps. . . Jeff.

[alexy]

Screws (lag bolts) into end grain tend not to be as strong. If you use them, I'd suggest a hybrid: drill a 3/4" hole through your stretcher in the path of the lag bolt and fill it with a 3/4" dowel, so that the lag bolt goes through the dowel, and the dowel acts like the captured nut of a bench bolt. I'd go with the bench bolts if I wanted to disassemble more often than every 20 years; otherwise, I'd go with the lag bolt and dowel. But that is intuition based on limited experience (my SYP bench base is still very tight 10 years after assembling with this method).

[TeamCasa]

A nut and bolt is significantly better than any lag screw. However, a pinned tennon will also outlast your desire to own the bench.

Dave

[DCH]

alexy wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I did the same thing with my bench, it seems to be holding up well, after about 3 years use...and I can take the bench apart if need be to move it... I took some pictures while the bench was being made and put them on my site, for those interested the link is:

on one line, what the word wrap...also I think the lags will hold better if the dowel is turned so the face grain catches the threads...

hope this helps...

DCH

[AAvK]

I was thinking of having my own barrel nuts made actually, I got this friendly local machinist that would do it at a low cost. I was considering 1-1/2" diameter brass stock or copper alloy 360, two on each end = four per 4x6 stretcher, then it got too expensive but so are the LV sets imo, those oughta be $12.95. Grade 8 nuts.

[AAvK]

long while. Here is how I worked things out:

how I got there:

I was going for solid, simple, cheap (hex head bolts are much less expensive than the bench bolts I looked at) and relatively

because I had seen that on another website after seeing that other high price... "ah-hah!" went the light bulb.

[AAvK]

Very interesting, thanks. I suppose if it is a hard enough wood for the dowel it would work.

[AAvK]

That is a beautiful piece of work and a great website, definitely bookmarked for further study. Looks like you have got to have at least one of everything great in tools. Too poor for that myself, but I would if I could.

In your program you should be able to reset your word wrap so it doesn't cut off the end of your long links, I have mine set at 132 characters and they never get cut off.