A long time ago, in a basement far, far away
#31
Full phaser was the only stage I had left at that point... after 2-1/2 days of going at it I'll admit I was more then a little irritated
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#32
Great Post! Keep the progress pics coming.

John
Formerly known as John's Woodshop
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#33
Unfortunately gentle reader I'm going to dispense with the third person narrative... It was fun for a bit but getting into the build it makes it a little more cumbersome to write.

Alrighty then... Once I got the stretchers for the legs laid out I moved on to the first of the two vices that I had to install. I purchased both the glide and "slide" from BenchCrafted and since I was just in the build stage I decided to do as much as I could while I had legs free. The following will deal with how I laid out and cut the "glide".

After coming to terms with the size of my chop (1-3/4 x8xheight) and dealing with the placement of my parallel guide I chopped out the through mortices in both the leg and chop and cut the tenon for the guide. I originally had a fantastic free handed design on the bottom of the chop but realized that because of the bottom roller the parallel guide needs to be flush with the bottom of the chop (was in the BenchCrafted instructions I just missed it)... This in turn caused me to go from a wedged tenon to a pegged tenon which was a big change but was still recoverable.

After I dry fit the parallel guide into the chop I then put the chop through the hole in the leg using a 1/8" spacer.



After ensuring that everything was lined up on center I then clamped the leg and the chop together and removed the parallel guide by pulling it through the mortice in the leg. These were then taken to the drill press where I drilled for the screw clearance holes.



The initial Benchcrafted plans called for a 1-1/2 inch recess to house a washer (I think Jameel has updated it since), unfortunately I didn't measure my washer and it wasn't 1-1/2 inches. Mine was 1-5/8 so I'd suggest measuring your's before you proceed. So, what ended up happening is I drilled the recess, then drilled the clearance hole for the screw but didn't drill all the way through the back, unclamped the two and drilled the rest of the leg from the back.

In order to fix my washer size issue I used a rabbeting bit in a tailed router... and a word to the wise... make sure the F%^K@#G whirling demon is turned off before you plug it in... I'm sure I read that somewhere.

After I drilled and fixed the holes for the vice screw, I lined up the front flange with a center line drawn earlier and marked the locations of the two screws that hold the flange inplace.

After the holes were drilled and tapped the screw and parallel guide (with the spacer in place) were put through the leg in order to line up the nut plate. I pretty much followed the BenchCrafted instructions for this point and they are very, very good. I didn't however flush mount my nut plate.



As an aside, if you've never tapped a hole in wood, get out there and give it a go. Fun, and alot stronger then I would've anticipated. I picked up a tap and die set from Canadian Tire a couple of months ago, for those Canadians out there these sets seem to go on sale every two months or so and are like 80% off...

After mounting the nut plate, the "build the roller holder" fun began.
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#34
Oh, where were we... ah, yes... the roller holder... as an aside, nut-plate is a funny word/phrase...

I dimensioned a piece of wood that I was planning to cut in half to make both holders. Surprisingly, and not intentionally, the dimensions ended up very close to those listed on the BenchCrafted templates. They were however a little deeper then the templates but I felt this was a good thing as I had an issue with my bolt placement and would have to recess my bolts. As you can see from this semi-finished image the placement of the front stretcher screw made the slot in the roller holder unnecessary.


The bolt recess was drilled with a 1inch bit then the final holes were cut with a 1/2 inch bit to allow for some movement and adjustment. All the holes for the holders were cut before any other chiseling or shaping occurred.

The following image shows that I didn't cut all the way through the holder as I was concerned about the amount of material left around the top bolt. As a result I used a handsaw and chisels to hollow out the section for the roller. You can see a line extending down the side on an angle, that is approximately the angle that was used to cut the ramp to the second level below the roller (I have absolutely no idea if that made any sense whatsoever)...



I lined the top of the roller up with the top of the shim that was used earlier to position the chop. The 1/2 inch bit was then used to mark the bolt holes on the centerline. Those holes were then drilled and tapped and the bottom roller was attached. The chop was then reattached to the leg and the assembly was stood up in oder to layout the back roller.



once the parallel guide was square on the front and the back the back roller assembly was lined up on the parallel guide and centered on the leg.



The holders were then drilled on the drill press and then tapped. Tapping is fun and yes, I used a power utensil.



Now for one of those, I'm the smartest person I know and don't need no stinkin instructions... I initially thought that the enlarged roller depth would help resist any type of rotation and would offer more stability. In theory this is correct but because the apex of the roller was to the front side of the chop and no longer touching the vice when it was closed more then 3/4 of an inch the following happened.



As a result some bandsaw surgery had to happen on the front roller which caused some deep breaths and a little nervous crying in the corner before it was completed.

You can see that the front roller is now significantly thinner then the front one

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#35
Although you can see it in a couple of the pictures I never really mentioned the creation of the parallel guide so I'll deal with that as well as the shaping of some of the components once I changed Bandsaw Blades.

Once I had cut my parallel guide, it's tenon and the mortice in the chop I set up the holes that hold the steel pin. I started off using the BenchCrafted template for the initial couple of holes. The template didn't match my guide width exactly so I simply lined it up with what would be the top right of my guide and using a drill bit (I don't own an awl, at least not yet ) marked the guide.



I then used a square to extend the marks created earlier down the guide. The BenchCrafted instructions give you a good guide as to how far you should extend your holes. Once I had determined that I marked off the bottom line every 15/16 of an inch. Just line up your ruler at the end, first mark will be at 15/16, second at 1-14/16, third at 2-13/16, etc.



After the bottom line was marked at the appropriate distances I set my bevel gauge at 30 degrees and marked the other two lines.



The holes were then drilled out on the drill press and the edges were chamfered using a handheld drill.
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#36
In order to drill the holes for the draw boring of the parallel guide I cut off one side of the chop to it's final depth as I don't have an excessively long drill bit.



After drilling those holes and cutting the sides I changed the blade in my bandsaw and shaped the chop, parallel guide and roller holders. You can see my little ode'du Canada at the end of the parallel guide. I'd never used a bandsaw to cut curves or designs before so I'm happy with how they turned out. I do need a round bottom shave as the flat bottom one I own wouldn't handle some of those curves.



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#37
Once all the holes were drilled and tapped it was time to get rid of the green. At one point I was tempted to leave the poplar in it's natural state. After all trees are green so it wouldn't be the worst thing. However, after some consideration I decided to stain the poplar a merlot colour as I felt it would go well with the hard maple top. As you can see the legs were initially very green.



and here is a leg next to one of the stretchers that is already the colour I was going for. A big shout out to the wife who did most of the conditioning and staining while I was occupied with other aspects... thanks dear xoxoxoxxo

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#38
I had purchased some dowel from Lee Valley in order to do the draw boring on my base legs. However it was smaller then the holes that I had drilled. After considering the Lee Valley dowel maker better sense reined (that price is a little steep) and I made a order from Lie-Nielsen, picking up some of their molding plane DVDs, chip breaker screw driver, and a dowel plate (I used the fact that they aren't coming to the Ottawa woodworking show as an additional excuse ). It was a fun day when that package arrived and I ended up staying up to 1:30am watching the Larry Williams "Making Traditional Side Excapement Planes" DVD.



Now that I had the ability to create accurate dowels the waiting began for the stain and Tried and True original wood finish to cure before I put the base together.

A question about using a dowel plate. How do you guys/girls go about getting straight dowels. I used hard maple that was 3 inches long and it was bent all over the place on occasion... I'm assuming it was a result of how I roughed them out before I used them but I'm not certain.
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#39
After a couple of days out of the shop and some insane hours and overtime at work I put the base together tonight.

You can see the top has been pinned (they haven't been cut flush in this picture) and I also attached the vice and rollers to see how it moves... Sweeeeetttt...



I also slapped the front apron up there to see what it will look like. I'm still not certain about using this piece on the top. It's got alot of figure and grain reversal which could be problematic although it looks cool...



So after all that the progress and images have finally caught up to today... hopefully I'll get some good work in tomorrow and get the mortices cut in the back slab and possibly the front one as well.

Comments or critique welcome.
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#40
shavingCanuck said:


A question about using a dowel plate. How do you guys/girls go about getting straight dowels. I used hard maple that was 3 inches long and it was bent all over the place on occasion... I'm assuming it was a result of how I roughed them out before I used them but I'm not certain.






I recently made 6 inch long dowels from white oak using the LN dowel plate and it was what I'd call "work". I started by riving the dowel blank to a size not too much bigger than what I was trying to end up with. I think the riving makes a difference as it ensures you get straight grain running the length of of the dowel. You don't want the grain to run out at an angle as it will significantly weaken the dowel.



John.
"When I nod my head, hit it." - M. Howard.


"I think you should learn how to use hand tools before you even touch a power tool." - Sam Maloof
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