I needed a break from all of the dovetailing I’ve been doing and practicing. I thought I would start on the Baby Bench I talked about a little while ago.
Over the past couple of weekends I started to work on the bench. I’m using whatever wood I had in my woodpile. The top is Douglas Fir. The legs of the base are Hard Maple. The cross piece along the back is Oak and the vise is Mahogany. It is a very diverse bench ☺.
I didn’t take step-by-step pictures this time. I just want to be in the shop without any distractions. The bench is almost done, but I thought I would show how the vise will come together.
In the first picture you will see a threaded rod and a couple of nuts, sitting on the bench. I ordered these from McMaster-Carr. The threaded rod is 3/4”-6 ACME threads. I order square nuts, so they would be easy to recess into the vise.
I also ordered 2 hand wheels for the vise, but they haven’t come in yet. I plan to go over to my brother’s this next weekend, to work on the screws and attaching the hand wheels. My brother has the metal working tools I don’t have. I need him to cut the threaded rod to size. We then need to mill threads off the ends, so the hand wheels can be attached. We will also need a couple garters (large washers) to attach to the chop. I will document this process, once I have had a chance to visit my brother.
The joinery for this little project gave me a few issues. I used mortise and tenons for the legs. Cutting the mortise and tenons in the Hard Maple was a real challenge. They don’t call it “hard” maple for the fun it ☺. Trying to chop the mortises by hand was beyond my skill level at this time. It was like chopping into granite! So it did the bulk of the work with my router and table saw. I did cleaned up the cuts with hand tools.
I was planning to use a through tenon for the back stretcher, but seeing how much trouble I had cutting the ones on the legs, I decided to rethink that joint.
I settled on a large half-lap dovetail on the ends. These I did cut my hand. The Hard Maple still caused me some issues. The Maple and the Oak won’t give at all. The joints weren’t as tight as I would have liked.
Even though they aren’t the neatest and tightest joints, these guys aren’t going anywhere!
I think I will leave the bench unfinished. I don’t plan to do any gluing or finishing on it, so I don’t need any protection from that. Once I get the screws cut and the hand wheels attached, I’ll give the bench a test run.
