After yesterday’s tour of the inside of a cloud, today started with mild drizzle but dried out to good working weather around noon and since I’m on holiday at the moment, some progress got made…
Hooray! It stands up and it’s level in both directions! Rather pleased with that 🙂
There then followed a period of confusion with what step came next and some checking of notes, and then some testing to see if the aprons still fitted…
Well, poop, the front apron’s bowed out away from the bench by up to 5mm in the middle of the bench. Yeesh. Out came sid, and a half-hour of hogging off wood later, the 5mm was down to just over 1mm. I didn’t push it any further because I’m worried about the leg tenons pushing the apron out until I get the stretchers and frames drawbored.
Also, when I went to cut the aprons to length, I figured I’d use the bench to see what it was like in terms of height (and it’s pretty sweet), but that meant I needed a way to hold the board in place, so…
And it grips nicely 🙂 Though holy carp, the noise when you belt the holdfast with a metal hammer is painful and that’s out in the open – I think the rubber mallet’s going to have to be the holdfast hammer especially in the shed or I’ll go deaf.
And I marked out the dados for the back board as well…
…and then I cursed a bit and re-marked for the dados on the correct face of the board. Sheesh.
And then some fettling and fitting for the vice.
There’ll have to be a 15mm-ish spacer between the bottom of the bench and the vice, and a mortice needs to come out of the apron as well (that face is going behind the apron), and I still have to go find those lag bolts.
But still.
It stands up! Without tilt!
Tags: bench, Woodworking
