Building A Workbench
Tom Meeker organizes a how-to class.
Building A Workbench
|
|
|
June, 2004 This past spring, the club was given an old woodworker's workbench. The all-wood bench included a face vise and a tail vise, also made entirely of wood. The donation provoked Tom Meeker to want to build his own bench and to gather together a group of other members interested in doing the same. Although he organized the class, Tom declines to call himself the class teacher, which would imply that he had special knowledge of the subject (he says he doesn't). After some brainstorming, we came up with the title 'facilitator'. He hopes this class will become a pattern for other class activities organized by the club. Eight homecrafters attended the first meeting of Tom's class. The objective: Each member will design and build his own workbench. The group met on Sunday, June 6th at the Rockler store in Castleton. Members checked out vise options and sifted through a stack of research material, gleaning design ideas for their own benches. To join, drop a note to Tom - president@homecraftsmenforum.com |
||||||
The second meeting explored bench dogs and mortice and tenons. Tom brought out a selection of Rockler's hold-downs for the class to handle. Bench holes can be round or square, and the decision effects which products you can use. He also had on hand some practice mortice and tenon joints from Marc Adams' school. Using the store's tools, the class practiced cutting tenons and chopping out mortices. The third class met at Leonard Birk's shop. Leonard has offered the use of his shop-made laminating press and industrial planer to assemble the table tops.
|
||||||
Laminating Tops For A Workbench
|
|
|
|
|
Leonard had a pile of wood he
couldn't use for his products. Too cracked or discolored or too many loose
knots. That isn't a problem for the bench tops we were going to make. We got
hardwood tops at a substantial savings and Leonard got rid of some lumber that
would otherwise be stacked in his pile till his grandchildren inherited it.
|
 |
|
|
homecraftsmenforum.com
and the Home Craftsmen Forum patch |
