Rough Cutting Pieces
2009.05.03
Today I used the miter saw to cut one end of the boards I’m using for the top. After lining those clean ends up, I was then able to get a more definite idea of the length of the top, based on the shortest board in the collection. Ideally the bench would be eight feet long but it looks like it’s going to be 7′-10″. Ah well, what’s a couple inches?
I also started working with the 2x6’s, after checking them for metal. These four boards are over thirteen feet long so they are quite unwieldy. They all have a pretty noticeable camber along their length. In the terminology of wood shrinkage distortion, this is known as spring. If I were to run the boards through a jointer, I would lose a considerable amount of the width before getting a totally flat edge. Therefore, a better approach is to cut out the pieces I will need and then joint and plane each shorter board. This will minimize the amount of distortion in each piece, and allow me to retain more of the original width of the 2x6.
So I rough cut pieces for the legs, making each piece about an inch oversized to allow for final trimming later. Each leg will be four pieces glued together. By taking four pieces out of one board, the grain will nearly match on the sides. At a glance they will probably appear to be solid posts. Not that this aesthetic trick is really important for a workbench, but since I have long enough boards to do it, I might as well.
Some parts for the sliding leg vise will also come out of the 2x6’s, but I didn’t have the dimensions with me in the shop today.
2009.05.31
Today I finished roughing out the parts for the workbench. That’s a lotta wood.
Bench Height