Another Bite of Elephant.

To help keep the boards from winding (fanning out like a pinwheel) I decided to use dowel pins.

Here's some of the boards after they've been drilled. If you notice the little arrows, that's to help me keep track of which edge I measured from. Since the boards aren't all exactly the same width this is important if I want them to line up at all.

I decided rather than having to find the center of each board and mark it, I'd find the center of one board and set up a jig. Really helped to speed things along and has proven very useful.

Fine dust is always a problem in a wood shop. The older I become the more I think things through, and that much dust in my lungs just doesn't seem beneficial. Since I don't have $200 I wanted to spend on a commercial air cleaner, I decided to try and make one out of some stuff I had lying around. This is some air filter mesh from the paint booth I built for painting my motorcycle. The red stuff is actually air filter oil. It's different from say motor oil as it is far stickier, I figured this would increase the amount of dust caught.

Very crude system, but by having the fan blow up, sucking the air from below it, I protect the fans motor and hopefully catch dust in the process. I've used it a few times when I couldn't open the garage door while running the tools, due to it being super windy outside. It is better than nothing, but having never used one of the commercial ones, I can't really make a comparison. I may try and make a better one in the future.

I glued together the first 7 boards I had drilled, and found out that using a 3/8" bit and 3/8" diameter dowels, it was just too tight and the dowels snapped before going through all 7 boards. This unfortunately resulted in the boards not being as straight as I'd hoped, however they weren't completely unusable, so not a big deal.

For the next set I decided to get a slightly bigger bit, and a 10mm is .5mm bigger than 3/8", I also picked up some more dowels as I had run out. I like the little plastic case the bit is in, it helps to keep it from getting damaged and allows me to hang it on a peg when I'm not using it.

I'm getting ready to cut some more boards up for the top. The tops thickness has been changed several times due to cost and mistakes I've made. At the time I took this picture I as cutting the boards to 3.25" hoping to make the final thickness 3".

Here's one of my home made dowel pins. You can buy them from the store, but they come in only one length and diameter and I wanted mine longer and wider, so here we go. I rounded the edge so as I'm pounding it through the holes it will be easier to align.

I went to the lumber supply store again and unfortunately they didn't have the nice quality Beech I had been using. At first I was a bit annoyed about that fact, however they did have some "Custom Shop" grade boards which were a lot cheaper than what I had been getting. This allowed me to afford to embellish the top a bit, so I bought some beautiful Black Walnut (board on the right). I also bought some Hard Maple (board on the left) to use for the board that goes between the legs to keep them apart, and have also decided to use it for the ends of the bench. Here they are when I brought them home.

Here's a pic showing the "Custom Shop" grade Beech. I had to go through a pallet of boards just to find enough that would work for what I wanted. The boards were spit, warped, bowed, twisted, and just about any other defect you can think of. But at $1.70 BF versus the $2.50 BF I was paying for the nicer stuff, I was able to afford the Walnut and Maple you've already seen. Since I was able to find enough boards to finish the bench, all's well that ends well, right. It will however mean more work on my part to ensure I get the boards I need out of the lot and a lot more waste.

Here's my cut list, if it just looks like a bunch of illegible writing, well you're right ;) I made this up so I could determine how many BF of what wood I'd need, and it came in handy as I chopped up the new boards to ensure I was able to get all the pieces I needed.

I only chopped up the Beech since I did know the exact dimensions I needed for it, however I left he Maple and Walnut long until I was sure what dimension the top would finally end up. In retrospect, it's a good thing I did.

The Beech all cut to rough length and stickered until I can get to cutting it to final dimensions and glued together.

Here's what is hopefully the last of the Beech I'll be cutting for the top, and the Black Walnut which has been cut for framing the two long edges. In case anyone is curious, the only reason I'm using Black Walnut for the outer two sides of the top is for vanity purposes. I think it will make my bench look nice :)

I'm getting ready to glue the Black Walnut to the first of the Beech. There is a lot of dust due to the planing process, and since dust would cause the glue to not stick to the board, I take the time to wipe the boards down. There's nothing special about the cloth, it's just a clean, lint free, cotton cloth. If you look closely, you'll notice there are no holes drilled in these boards, I decided to align them a different way using cauls, which I'll show you in just a bit.

I've also started marking which way the grain is going so when I glue the boards together the grain is all facing in the same direction. I didn't do this on a few earlier boards and it caused so really nasty tear out and would make it difficult, if not impossible, to make a nice smooth finish. I'd love to say that I've learned how to read the grain by just looking at it, but I haven't mastered that trick quite yet, though I'm improving.

I think the Black Walnut makes a very nice contrast with the much lighter Beech :)

Introducing the caul! It's the boards on the end that have the black duct tape on it. As you can see I sandwich the boards being glued together between a top and bottom caul, and this helps to keep them nearly flat. I will still have to plane the boards once the glue is dry to get them perfectly flat with each other, but this gets them super close. It was definitely worth the couple days I spent cutting and gluing the cauls together. I made several different lengths of cauls so as the top starts getting wider I can keep them level.

Originally they were designed to be used with carriage bolts and wing nuts, but I was a goof and bought bolts that were too short, but didn't realize it till the glue was already on the boards, so a quick fix was to use a pipe clamp.

I really didn't want to keep using clamps on the cauls, and I couldn't find bolts the size I wanted, so I made my own using threaded rod.

The rod goes through the bottom of the lower caul and has a nut and washer on it. By putting another nut and washer above it and snugging them down the threaded rod will not spin when I put the wing nut on. This is very important as you snug the wing nut down, as the rod will want to spin if it isn't held securely.

The cauls don't work perfectly, there is still some small mis-alignment of the boards as they are glued up, but the cauls have helped to seriously minimize this deviation. I use the duct tape to keep the glue from adhering to the cauls, and it works quite well for this.