Reloading Bench Build

[BladesNBarrels]

Where is the pesky LIKE button.
Thank you for the details!

[JohnnyEgo]

Set up the Dado Stack to cut up some tenons. This was easy and went quick.










Cleaned them up with a Router Plane to final thickness.

[JohnnyEgo]

Interestingly enough, the hand-cut mortises proved to fit much better and squarer than the drilled and chiselled mortises, even though the mortise walls were incredibly ugly.


Also made me realize that if I was going to do through-tenons, I'd want a cleaner cut. So I found an inexpensive set of 1.25, 1.5, and 2" Narex Chisels at Lee Valley and gave them my money.
While waiting for the chisels, I worked on cleaning up the mortise fits for the legs.





I mocked up the bench again with clamps:


And realized I hated the idea of using 2x stretchers. So back to Home Depot and shelled out another $70 for four more 4x posts. Had to go with 12 footers to get posts without the pith, so I essentially paid $20 more than I wanted to. But I will find something to do with the cut-offs.






Somehow, these were even wetter than the first batch, and were absolutely attrocious to run through the planer. One bound up so tight it shook the bed and cracked a tooth on the elevation gear, which will be a joy to replace.

[BladesNBarrels]

Furniture Grade Reloading Bench!

Thanks again for posting your progress and the set-backs you are overcoming.
As my shop mentor always said
That is why it is called wood working.

[Mercula]

You’re not only building a bench for yourself , that will be your children’s and grandchildren’s reloading bench.

[JohnnyEgo]

There are moments when I feel like it will be my grandchildren's bench because they will be of age by the time I get done...

I got in a rush to try and accomplish some things in a limited amount of time, and managed to do the same thing wrong, four different times. Will take me two hours to fix 15 minutes of screw-up, which is the peril of certain tools; they not only let you do more in a limited period of time, they let you mess things up a lot faster. That will probably be a fun future post on how to correct poor choices!

[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.

[buffalobo]

"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."

Many of us have learned that lesson the hard way.

Look forward to the rest of the project.

[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]

On the shorter tenons, the router plane worked pretty well to trim the tenon to exact width. It couldn't quite span the gap of the 6" tenons on the stretcher, though. I mounted it to a board and could get the bit just low enough if I disengaged the depth control.






It worked ok for fit:


But I lost easy depth control with this approach, and the tenons were really prone to tear-out. They weren't very clean to begin with, because my Dado blade leaves tracks. Fortunately, I had the exact right tool for the job - A 60 1/2 Rabbet block plane.


This is the first block plane I personally purchased, and for a long time, I considered the 60 1/2 the dumbest purchase I'd made in a long time. I thought I could use it as a general block plane, with the added benefit of being able to cut right up to the line. I bought it as an upgrade to the $14 Stanley 220 Craftsman block plane my father gave me for Christmas in the 90s. And every bit of the 60 1/2 was miserable. It has a very close, non adjustable mouth that takes very shallow cuts, making it slow and tedious. The blade had to be razor sharp and perfectly aligned to be effective. I tried using it as a general block plane several times, but gave up in frustration and put it back on the shelf where the Stanley had been. In the intervening years, I learned to effectively sharpen, and bought a much nicer Veritas DX series block plane that was and is amazing and a joy to use. The 60 1/2 stayed idle for years. Then one day I had to shave some broad tenon cheeks, as I do here, and I realized all the things that made the 60 1/2 suck as a general plane made it ideal for the purpose it was actually designed for!

When shaving tenons, you work perpendicular to the grain. Instead of shavings, you end up with a bundle of tiny straws. That close non-adjustable mouth means you get excellent support for even gnarly grain, and you can make very precise adjustments right to the edge of the tenon.






Once I am clear to the shoulder, I level the broader area with my DX60 block plane.


The 60 1/2 Rabbet is not a plane I would buy again. But it had it's use case here, and performed it quite admirably.