Reloading Bench Build

[JohnnyEgo]

I was at somewhat of a loss as to how I was going to cut the long through-tenons on these. I cut some test tenons with a tenon saw and a chisel and router plane. My tenon saw wasn't deep enough to cut to the full depth of the tenon, and I had to finish it with a cheap panel saw that produced a terrible cut and was slow. The chisel method worked very fast and clean to the 90% mark, but the router plane struggled to adapt to the depth and span of the longer tenon. I was left to contemplate the bandsaw or the tablesaw. Didn't really want to use the table saw, because I could not support the long length of the stretchers, and they were sticky as hell. Then a solution occurred to me.
First, I hit the saw with a heavy coat of paste wax, let it dry, and buffed the hell out of it until it was slick as an ice rink.


Then I flipped my miter gauge backwards so I'd have the full support of the saw table. Clamped the board to the gauge:


Using a fence and a miter gauge at the same time is the reason I only have 1 3/4 thumbs. So I clamped a block to the fence to use it to postion my cuts for consistency, but it ends well before the beam makes contact with the saw blade.




My Dado Stack is notorious for blowing out the back of the cut. On smaller pieces, I just use a backer board, but the beams were to long. Instead, I chiseled relief cuts at the notch lines to prevent the inevitable tear-out.






Worked great. You can see how bad the tear-out typically is on the left side of the cut. The right side has no tear-out, and just a thin sliver to pare off with a shoulder plane when it comes time to fit the joints.

[BladesNBarrels]

....
Instead, I chiseled relief cuts at the notch lines to prevent the inevitable tear-out.

....

That tip is worth the price of admission!
Thank you

[JohnnyEgo]

Time to bash some through mortises. I pre-drilled these to remove the bulk of the waste.








I borrowed a method from Paul Sellers that I quite like. Cut an extra tenon in a piece of scrap to use as a chisel guide.


Squared up the corners enough to get the big new Narex in there.




Flipped it and did the other side. This gave me some reasonably clean mortises with straight walls, cut exactly to the width of my tenons.