Those aren't my "special" brownies!

By matthew

May 29, 2012

Whoever said that woodworking has no place in the kitchen is crazy...

As I was perusing the Wood Talk forums; more specifically those relating the Wood Whisperer Guild and the Roubo workbench build, I stumbled across a thread discussing how to bake your steel hardware with a coating of flax oil. The result of which turns the steel an awesome bronze and gives the added benefit of seasoning/protecting it. I was intrigued by the 3 or 4 posts in the thread. It sounded extremely interesting and could provide me with that extra touch I was looking for on my build. I did a quick search of the internet for a more in-depth how to as well as looking at the blog post provided by Bench Crafted directly.

Basically what it boils down to is a few key processes.

1: Make sure each piece is absolutely clean of any oils (this includes touching it with bare skin)

2: A little goes a long way: The thinner the coat the better the results

With those key pieces running through my head I set out on my baking adventure.

Mmmm Chocolatey Bronze

After searching town for as pure a flax oil as I could find I finally found it at the local WalMart of all places and the price wasn't that bad (look for it in the nutritional supplements in the pharmacy). You won't need a lot of oil, so don't run out and buy a gallon of it. with the oil in hand it was time to get started.

1: Set your oven to 500*

2: Clean your hardware (or whatever) with a degreaser or similar product. I actually just washed everything in as hot of water as I could stand with some liquid dish washing detergent

3: Dry your hardware completely. Remember water and oil don't mix...if your piece is remotely damp the oil isn't going to adhere and will leave you with a blotch.

4: Apply the flax oil in every nook and every cranny.

5: Remove all the oil from every nook and every cranny.

6: Remove all the oil from every nook and every cranny again. You only want the thinnest of coatings. (I also wore nitrile gloves to ensure that I didn't leave finger prints)

7: Bake at 500* for an hour.

8: Turn off the oven & let everything cool to room temperature

9: Repeat

Baking Vise Hardware with Flax Oil

The more coats you put on the darker the end result. Also I found that the rougher the steel the darker the results. I opted to coat every piece of hard ware...nut blocks, screws, handles etc. My thinking for doing so is in a hope that the added anti corrosion protection will keep my maintenance requirements to a minimum as well as give that extra bit of longevity to the entire bench.

I also found that applying the oil with a tooth brush worked beautifully....especially on the rough cast iron. I highly recommend the cookie monster tooth brush pictured below...

My vise wheels are organic now

If you're not careful with the amount of oil you use or if you don't wipe it off evenly or if you happen to touch it with your bare hands prior to baking you might end up with some blotchiness and no amount of oxyclean will get rid of it. In all seriousness if you do end up with some blotches you can lightly scrub the area with a scotchbrite and re coat. I had a problem with a large area that I must have missed when wiping the hand wheels on coat #2.

Blotches...bain of every greasy teenager

By the time I got to coat 5 the blotch was mostly gone...so don't fret if you have one or two early on in the process. Also remember to make sure that you clean out all the grooves/threads in the nut blocks and screws...if the coat of oil is too thick it will form a thick vanish on the threads and impact the performance of your vice...trust me...I know from first hand experience.

Finished Hardware

Soooo Tasty

The process is extremely time consuming. Each round of coating, baking and cooling took about 3.5-4 hours....multiply that by 5 or 6 coats and you have a fair amount of time on your hands. All in all I ended up at about 22 hours in all.

Up next: "Look at Dem Gams"

Total Build Time:

- 1.5 hours (lumber selection, transport & stacking)

-4 hours (Top Slab milling)

- 1.5 hours (slab prep and glue up*)

-0.5 hours (preliminary flattening of both slabs)

-0.5 hours (Final rough slab milling)

-0.5 hours (trimming end and bringing into flat & square)

-1 hour (cutting and finishing tenon)

-0.5 hours (milling and laminating end cap)

-2.5 hours (milling screw cavity support & routing screw cavity – includes markup/layout)

-0.5 hours (routing mortise in end cap)

-0.5 hours (fine tune end cap fit)

-2 hours (drilling and installing end cap – includes markup/layout)

-1 hour (milling rough stock for dog hole strip and laminate cap)

-2 hours (production of dog hole template & routing of dog holes)

-0.5 hours (glue up of dog hole strip and laminate cap)*

- 0.5 hour (glue up and alignment of dog hole strip to front slab)*

-0.5 hour (milling of front slab dovetail strip)

-1 hour (set up and layout of End Cap Dovetail)

-1.5 hours (milling and fine tuning of End Cap Dovetail)

-0.5 hour (front strip/dovetail glue up)

-3 hours (routing front slab & installing tail vise)

-22 hours (cleaning, coating, baking and cooling of Vise hardware)**

-48.5 hours total

*I haven’t included my clamp time in these figures if you want to add those figures in, each glue up sat for 24 hours

** I'm including the baking of my vise hardware into my build. If you don't want to include this reduce the total by 22 hours

Tags: Roubo, Split Top Roubo, Split Top, Bench, Bench Crafted, wagon vise, glide vise, leg vise, vise, Flax, Flax Oil, Oil
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Pizzazz for All! or Pizzazz for None!

By matthew

May 28, 2012

With the dog hole strip laminated to the front of the front slab the only piece to my puzzle is the front strip. This piece is the key to my dreams...it's the piece that closes in the tail vise and makes the front slab a whole. It's also the key to getting to the installation of the tail vise and that thought has me as giddy as a dentist whiffing his own nitrous...

After I milled up the strip it came time to face one of the design elements I've been mulling over in my head. With the extra thickness in the slabs my hope was that I could get a little creative in the dove tailing in the end cap. As I was mulling this over I happened to be watching one of my favoriteFuturama episodes (Watch the Clip Now! Do It! Do It!) and I knew I had my design. That's right...my dovetail design is a space invader...or remotely a space invader inspired by the Futurama space invaders...you heard me...

After laying out the design I roughly followed the process outlined by Marc in his guild build by cutting my tails on the band saw first and then using a router to cut the pins. The process was pretty good and for the size of the work piece it was actually easier than I had expected and far more friendly than trying to cut such a large dovetail by hand.

Roughed out end cap dove tail

Pew pew....pew pew...waaccaa wacca waccaaaa...pew pew...I mean...Finished End Cap Dovetail

While the glue dried on the front strip I spent the remainder of my weekend baking all of my vise hardware in flax oil...but that's another post.

With the front strip dry, it was time to install the tail vise. One of the added benefits of extra depth in the slabs was the ability to bury the entire tail vise hardware into the slab, hiding it completely from view. After positioning the vise rails I was able to give things a test run. As I got to the end of the vise's travel I ran into a slight problem...a clearance issue with the slab and the vise nut block.

There's Your Problem

Because of the extra depth in the slab I found that the sliding nut block didn't have enough clearance to travel the full length of the vice. As a result I had to route out a 2"x3" section.

End of the tail vise cavity after clearancing

Tail vise nut block

With the vise cavity cleared out enough to allow the nut block to travel the full length of the cavity I was able to finish the installation and after a bit of wax in the rails and on the nut block I had things moving like butta.

Installed tail vise

Total Build Time:

- 1.5 hours (lumber selection, transport & stacking)

-4 hours (Top Slab milling)

- 1.5 hours (slab prep and glue up*)

-0.5 hours (preliminary flattening of both slabs)

-0.5 hours (Final rough slab milling)

-0.5 hours (trimming end and bringing into flat & square)

-1 hour (cutting and finishing tenon)

-0.5 hours (milling and laminating end cap)

-2.5 hours (milling screw cavity support & routing screw cavity – includes markup/layout)

-0.5 hours (routing mortise in end cap)

-0.5 hours (fine tune end cap fit)

-2 hours (drilling and installing end cap – includes markup/layout)

-1 hour (milling rough stock for dog hole strip and laminate cap)

-2 hours (production of dog hole template & routing of dog holes)

-0.5 hours (glue up of dog hole strip and laminate cap)*

- 0.5 hour (glue up and alignment of dog hole strip to front slab)*

-0.5 hour (milling of front slab dovetail strip)

-1 hour (set up and layout of End Cap Dovetail)

-1.5 hours (milling and fine tuning of End Cap Dovetail)

-0.5 hour (front strip/dovetail glue up)

-3 hours (routing front slab & installing tail vise)

-26.5 hours total

*I haven’t included my clamp time in these figures if you want to add those figures in, each glue up sat for 24 hours

Up next..."Those aren't my special brownies"

Tags: Wood, Woodworking, Dovetail, Maple, Split Top Roubo, Split Top, Work Bench, Bench, Bench Crafted, wagon vise, glide vise, leg vise, vise
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Who Let the Dogs Out! or Stupid Song Makes it Big as Blog Title!

By matthew

May 13, 2012

Alright...I apologize for the lame, and I DO mean LAME title. I don't know what came over me and I will properly give myself a royal flogging later for even remotely referring to such a stupid song, let alone actually use it in my blog...my bad...sorry!

Anyway...

With the end cap and tail vise cavity out of the way things are going to really start looking like a work bench.

The first order of business now is to get the dog strip put together...

I've been thinking this over for the past few weeks and have opted to run with the traditional square pegs. Round pegs definitely have their advantages mind you, but for me they seem like more hassle than the square. True I will have to cut every hole and produce more than few square dogs when it would be easier at this point to simply drill some holes and drop in a peg...or would it? To me the round dog hole is fraught with drawbacks. The biggest to me is that while clamping a work piece is it really registering square or is it skewed and ultimately going to allow the work piece to slip. The next would be having to dink with that dog and cobble together some sort of spring to keep it located in the dog hole. True you have to fab springs etc for the square version, but the piece is already square, which naturally lends itself to easy attachment of said spring. That aside, the design of the square peg also keeps the peg from ultimately dropping out of the top if the spring were to ever fail...the same can't be said about the round dog holes I have seen. True I could purchase a number of commercially available round dogs...but why? This project to me is about the labor of love and that I am producing every piece possible in house. So whatever...if you want to use round dogs no worries...I won't judge you....much...

With that decision made I then took another long hard look at adding an accent strip into the top by making the dog hole strip out of a different species of wood. If you remember back to an earlier post I indicated that I had every intention of running in this direction, but when I got to the lumber yard I just couldn't do it. I'm sure there's some subconscious reason behind this decision, but for now, all I can say is that this was the same direction that many of the other guild members were heading and I really didn't feel like going with the crowd. I also had some concerns about the overall longevity of this strip and felt it best to give it as much of a fighting chance at surviving the long run, so I kept it hard maple.

The first step was digging out the piece of rough stock that would soon become the dog strip. In my case I had purchased a few extra lengths of hard maple simply because the stock from my local supplier was a tad questionable after I pulled the first 5-6 really good boards. What this resulted in was my using all my best stock for the initial slab glue up, so my options were once again fairly limited with what remained in my pile. I pulled the clearest and straightest board I had and hoped that I was going to be able to re-saw it down to the two pieces I ultimately needed. However after a few passes over the jointer this quickly became a no go. I finished jointing down my two surfaces and sat it aside to await final dimensioning with the 2nd piece I was now going to need to mill up. One of the boards I brought home was far worse than I had initially believed at the lumber yard...It had a wicked twist to it. So bad was the twist that it wasn't useful for much so I figured it would make a good candidate for the 3/8" cap strip. I was right that it wasn't good for much because by the time I got one face flat on the jointer I was down to just over 1" in thickness. There was no way this piece was going to be good for much simply because of the amount of material I had to remove just to get one edge flat. After a trip through the planer to bring the pieces down to just over 4-5/8" thick (to allow for the inevitable slippage during glue up), I then passed them through on their faces to bring them to final thickness.

Dog Hole Strips sans Dog holes

With the milling out of the way it was time to dig through my scrap piles and put together the router jig for the dog holes. I was lucky enough to have a piece of 1/2" Baltic Birch that mostly survived the flood without too much damage. The piece was just big enough for me to slice off a section that had bubbled/de-laminated slightly and still work perfectly for the jig. After applying the template with some rubber cement and running it through the table saw I had my jig...I did have to make sure that the template was longer than what was called for in the plans in order to accommodate for my extra slab thickness.

Dig it maaaan...it's a dog hole

With the template done I turned my attention to how the dog hole strips would be oriented. I opted to place the edges of both the strip and the laminate cap with the straightest and cleanest grain at the top of the bench. In doing so I'm hoping that if I ever flatten the bench by hand that this little bit of extra attention will aid in less possible tear out.

I did however run into a bit of a snag at this point. I had thought that I had a 1/2' shank, 1/2" template bit, but noooooo it was actually a flush trim bit....what's the big deal you may ask...well not much, other than the guide bearing is at the wrong end of the cutter. So I had a few options at this point. 1- head to the big box store where all they were going to have is a 1/4" bit at best, 2- try the local hardware store that honestly would be a crap shoot if they even had router bits or 3- order one online and wait a few days to finish this portion of the build. I opted for option 2 and lucky me they actually did carry router bits and they had a template bit...albeit a 1/4" shank, but it would still keep me in production. All that was left to do at this point was to put in a pair of ear buds, turn on the ipod and get to routing. If I had a 1/2" shank template bit I would have just gone to town all in one stroke, but because it was a 1/4" bit I wasn't too thrilled with that idea. Thankfully I have multiple routers at my disposal which allowed me to do the majority of the stock removal with my 1/2" spiral cut bit and collar, which I then followed up with the template bit. It actually went much smoother and much faster than I had expected. Don't get me wrong, it still took a chunk of time to complete. I would say at least 5 minutes per hole when you factored in setting the template and routing.

Let's get reaaaady to Rrrrrrroooooute!

Close Call

The only piece of advice I have for anyone using this template....Don't rout through the fence; I came dang close! Thankfully I used a fence that was wider than my bit was deep, so the two pieces of the template wouldn't have come apart but they wouldn't have remained as firm and could have resulted in some flex/misalignment of the template in the long run...so just be careful.

Look at dem dogs yo!

With the dog holes routed it was time to laminate the cap to it, effectively closing in the dog holes. I opted to use some 1" brads to help align the cap strip and then with some cauls to aid in even clamping pressure I let it sit over night to let the glue dry. Once the strip was complete it was time to laminate the assembly to the front of the front slab. I used several #20 biscuits to help with the alignment and to help keep it from slipping too much during the glue up.

Dog Hole Strip in Glue

Nearly There...

Now that the dog hole strip is laminated to the face of the front slab I'm one step closer to a complete top. I thought the addition of the end cap really made the slab look like a bench...well the addition of the dog hole strip only cements that look. Once the clamps come off it's time for the front laminate and end cap dove tail. I've got a couple of ideas on the dovetail and will have to see just what I'm able to do when I get to that point. I have a hunch that the extra slab thickness is going to work in my favor here and that I'm going to be able to add in a little extra pizzazz.

So up next is, Pizzazz for all or none!

Total Build Time:

- 1.5 hours (lumber selection, transport & stacking)

-4 hours (Top Slab milling)

- 1.5 hours (slab prep and glue up*)

-0.5 hours (preliminary flattening of both slabs)

-0.5 hours (Final rough slab milling)

-0.5 hours (trimming end and bringing into flat & square)

-1 hour (cutting and finishing tenon)

-0.5 hours (milling and laminating end cap)

-2.5 hours (milling screw cavity support & routing screw cavity – includes markup/layout)

-0.5 hours (routing mortise in end cap)

-0.5 hours (fine tune end cap fit)

-2 hours (drilling and installing end cap – includes markup/layout)

-1 hour (milling rough stock for dog hole strip and laminate cap)

-2 hours (production of dog hole template & routing of dog holes)

-0.5 hours (glue up of dog hole strip and laminate cap)*

- 0.5 hour (glue up and alignment of dog hole strip to front slab)*

-19.5 hours total

*I haven’t included my clamp time in these figures if you want to add those figures in, each glue up sat for 24 hours

Tags: Wood, Woodworking, Maple, Roubo, Split Top Roubo, Split Top, Work Bench, Bench, Bench Crafted, wagon vise, glide vise, leg vise, vise, Bench Dog, Dog, Dogs
Posted in Split-Top Roubo | 0 Responses to "Who Let the Dogs Out! or Stupid Song Makes it Big as Blog Title!"

Work Work Work...All Day Long!

By matthew

May 07, 2012

And now...something completely different!

Ok, not really...

With the front slab tenon done, it's all about the end cap. Unfortunately for me my local lumber supplier doesn't carry anything over 8/4...why? I think its to spite me because I must be their only customer that ever asks for it because I always get the same exasperated answer of nooooo 8/4 is all we have unless you're going to place a custom order of over 500bf...Trust me, I considered it...but then what would I do with 500+bf of 12/4 hard maple? Ok that's what my wife said...my answer was something more along the lines of what wouldn't I do with 500+bf of 12/4 hard maple? I mean really...the options at that point are limitless.

So the end cap began life as 2 pieces of 8/4 hard maple...I simply rummaged through my cutoffs from the pieces I used to mill up the slabs and pulled out two pieces with the clearest and straightest grain. My thought process was that the end cap potentially could see the most force of anything on the bench as it houses the tail vice. I didn't want to risk a wavy piece here, especially where I was having to laminate it from two pieces. I must admit that I nearly committed a "Mr. Cock-up" here. As I was milling the pieces in prep of getting them laminated together I nearly milled them to final dimensions....yeah that could have been exciting as anyone that has ever laminated two pieces of wood together can attest that their likelihood of slipping past one another and creating a lip on one edge is invariably guaranteed when you absolutely can't afford for it to happen. Thankfully I realized this as I was about to pass the pieces through the planer for a last pass or so and was able keep enough stock in place to negate any possible slippage.

While the end cap cooked happily away under as many clamps as I could squeeze onto it I turned my attention to the screw cavity. As I was laying out the cavity I kept having this sneaky little voice pop up in my head and whisper that something was wrong...what the hell am I missing? I kept stepping away from the slab and my markings only to return to them to check and recheck each one was correct. I did this for probably 30 minutes before I realized that what was wrong wasn't with the slab or the end cap...it was simply a matter of not having enough tool length...I know...I had to say it...in reality I'm still 12 years old...

I couldn't believe what I was seeing...had I really overlooked something as simple as making sure that down cut spiral bit I had planned on using was long enough to reach the bottom of the screw cavity, especially with that extra 5/8" added in for good measure? I had...after chucking the bit into my router at the absolute threshold that I comfortably would accept a chunk of high speed steel sharpened to a razors edge spinning at 25K RPM at, I found it to be short...nearly 3/4" short. Ahhhh Hell!!!

The joy of living where I do is that I can't simply hop into the truck and head down to the local tool supply store and pick up a new bit...nooooo that would be convenient and I seem to thrive in living in a location where everything is absolutely inconvenient. So off to the internets I go in search of my next tool purchase. After all...everyone wishes they could get an extra inch...yeah...there's that 12 yr old again...sorry...

Triple = Better...riiiight?

Fast forward 96 hours and this is what I have: A shiny new Eagle America, triple flute, 1/2" x 4" down cut spiral bit. Why 96 hours and not something like 48 or 24? Well I will admit that this is actually the 2nd bit that I ordered. The first was my preference...a Whiteside bit that I picked up off of Amazon...but the company I bought it through didn't understand my desire to get the bit and get my butt back to work...as such their shipping time was like 10 days...yeah...thanks guys...Anyway the Eagle America bit performed beautifully. It sliced through the hard maple like butta baby and was actually a very stable and chatter free bit...but more on that in a few.

While I waited for the man in brown to grace me with my salvation I turned my attention back to the end cap. Fresh out of the clamps I finished milling it to size and got to work on laying out the mortise. I'm not sure why...but I stopped at laying out the mortise. Call it gun shy about the router bit or whatever but for some reason I couldn't pull the trigger until I was ready to rout the screw cavity.

With my shiny new bit in had I finally got down to the nitty gritty of clearing out the screw cavity.

Screw cavity routing set up

I milled up a 2"x6" piece of fir, running it through the jointer and planer to give me 2 flat edges to register off of. With this in place I got to work hogging out that chunk of material. After my first 2 passes I felt something strange with my plunge base...it was as if the plunge setting lost all of its plunge and was just floating around even with the lock lever in place. In this momentary lapse of concentration I must have tipped the router just a hair into my fir support and in doing so experienced what I call router kick back causing the router to jump a bit. I'm not sure how all of this happened but as the router jumped the plunge base sort of disintegrated/blew up...ultimately sending the base half way across the shop while I hung onto the router for dear life. Thankfully I instinctively spun the router bit away from my body and into the air as I simultaneously flipped the power switch...I know this sounds like a lot is happening but in looking back at it, it lasted all of a second or two.

KaBOOOOM!!!

There's Your Problem!

You can see in the picture above the moment that the router disintegrated in my hands. The better piece of this is that the fir support actually acted like a fence of sorts and probably kept the router from coming out of the piece towards my body. After the dust settled and I was able to begin to piece things together all I can figure is that the tension pin that holds the plunge base onto the plunge mechanism of Hitachi routers fell out (I found it in the sawdust just to the left of the chewed up wood in the pic above) causing the base to become unstable and must have resulted in an off camber situation that led to the kickback.

After I calmed down and changed my underwear I got back to it...this time with a borrowed older Porter Cable that honestly worked like a dream...well that is other than its deafening roar.

Nearly There

Ta Dow!

With the cavity cleared out all that was left was to clean up the end of it and get to fitting the end cap. I took a few chops at the end of the cavity to clean it up and square off the rounded inside corner and all was hunky dory.

End Cap Mortise

Dry Fit of the end cap

After dry fitting the end cap and being happy with the overall fit I marked it up for the vise and started drilling holes.

Screw Hole

The end cap actually took far less time than I had expected. After the holes were drilled in the end cap I was able to lay out the bolt holes in the slab and got them drilled and squared off to accept the nuts and actually installed the end cap and vise screw for the first time. I swear it was like Christmas...things were actually looking and feeling like a bench now....

Finished end cap

I did throw the nut block onto the screw just to give me that extra bit of....ohhh look, it's a vise....and noticed that with the extra thickness in the slab I was going to have to remove a bit of material from the bottom in order to allow the nut block plate clearance to travel the full depth of the cavity. Rather than spend too much time on this now I opted to wait for the dog strip and front strip to get glued into place to aid in determining exactly what would need to come out.

Up next...Who Let the DOGS OUT!!!

Total Build Time:

- 1.5 hours (lumber selection, transport & stacking)

-4 hours (Top Slab milling)

- 1.5 hours (slab prep and glue up*)

-0.5 hours (preliminary flattening of both slabs)

-0.5 hours (Final rough slab milling)

-0.5 hours (trimming end and bringing into flat & square)

-1 hour (cutting and finishing tenon)

-0.5 hours (milling and laminating end cap)

-2.5 hours (milling screw cavity support & routing screw cavity - includes markup/layout)

-0.5 hours (routing mortise in end cap)

-0.5 hours (fine tune end cap fit)

-2 hours (drilling and installing end cap - includes markup/layout)

-15.5 hours total

*I haven’t included my clamp time in these figures if you want to add those figures in, each slab sat for 24 hours each

Tags: Wood, Woodworking, Maple, Roubo, Split Top Roubo, Split Top, Work Bench, Bench, Bench Crafted, wagon vise, glide vise, leg vise, vise, Slab, Tenon
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