Lots and lots of wood dust.

I have a couple of bottles I put the glue in from a big one gallon container. After a while there gets to be little glue boogers, and it bothers me, so I pull the bottles apart and rinse them out really well. Probably not strictly necessary, but hey, it's what I do.

What an exciting moment! I took all the boards I had been gluing together outside and arranged them as they would be once they were glued together. I wanted to see how it looked, and I think it looks really good! I spent a couple hours cutting them to the same length. This proved to be a lot trickier than I had been expecting since the boards now weighed a pretty decent amount. Oh well, I figured it out.

If you look closely, you can see the boards aren't perfectly even. The closer to even I can get them, the less planing by hand I will need to do, so through the thickness planer then go!

Now they are all cut the same length and very close to the same thickness, it looks really good!

Here I am marking out the lines for the dog holes. I use a marking knife because it allows me to make a much more precise line and will get much closer to the ruler.

Another view of the lines for the dog hole.


I used a combination of chisels and this narrow hand plane. Some of the dog holes came out pretty straight and square, some of them look like I may have been drunk when I was making them. Since I don't drink, I'm really not sure what the excuse is... oh wait, that's right, I'm a novice at this.

I briefly toyed with the idea of using the table saw, or router or something else to make the dog holes more uniform. I ultimately decided to leave them as they were. This is one of my first major projects, and while the holes may look like a toothless beaver made them, they should work just fine.

As my Business Communications teacher would say, what a serendipitous event. The board is way too heavy for me to support with my left hand while manipulating the drill press with my right. As luck would have it, the bench right next to the drill press was the perfect height to hold this monster board! The board has to weigh at least 10 lbs, possibly more.

I'm drilling the holes for the bench stop bolts to go through.


Here's one of the custom bolts I made for the bench stop. I brazed the nut onto some 1/2" all thread. Here it is ready to be brazed.

I was in a bit of a rush, so I didn't photograph the finished product.

Here I'm using some of my newly made 24" long cauls to keep the top as even as possible while the glue dries.

About half way there!

Just a little more!
The fun part about doing this is having to think outside the box. If you look at the longer cauls you'll notice some of the really short ones beneath them. I was having a problem getting the boards to line up properly and it occurred to me to put these under the longer cauls. This allowed me to focus the pressure exactly where I needed it, rather than have it dispersed over the entire width of the top, which wasn't necessary.

With the cauls off, and top all glued together, I begin the long task of using my hand plane to level it out. The top weighs approx 100 lbs (I'll have to try and weigh it later) so manipulating it isn't really easy. I started out with it clamped to the top of the bench I had been using. The bench top was less than flat and cause me some difficulty, so I came up with a different solution.

I have it placed on top of 2 saw horses and am using the bench as a stop. Ultimately I'll spend more than 10 hrs hand planing the top and the bottom and have to sharpen my plane several times. I found out that putting some bee's wax, or parafin wax on the bottom of the hand plane really decreases the friction you have to push against. Thank you internet for that useful bit of information!

Well, the top is now planed to nearly flat, there's less than 1/64" variance in it, and for now I'm pleased with it. I'll be starting on the bottom of it now! Woohoo the end is in sight!!!