Zero Screws Given: The Unplugged Saw Bench
Lt_Skitz Aug 02, 2017
An important part of an unplugged shop is the saw bench. Having recently removed my table saw, I needed a dedicated saw bench for production. This is that build, using traditional joinery and no hardware.
The first cut, sizing the top boards. 3ft.
Gang plane the legs.
I pick a bevel angle I like, and mark them all.
Gang saw the dovetails.
Not too bad!
Pare out some of the waste when I'm trying to be a bit quiet for my sleeping wife and toddler. I usually work in the mornings.
One dove cut, and OH GEEZ look at that terrible cut!
Legs & tops dry fitted. Working well.
Prepping the feet, using my new LuBan kerfing plane.
Gang plane the feel height after cutting.
While this is technically a crosscut tenon saw as I don't have the rip version, it works well enough.
Tenons cut and ready to go.
Put on the feet, and mark where the mortises will be.
More gang sawing!
Clean up with 71 & chisel.
Make a tenon sandwich, and slowly increase the depth on the 71 to widen the mortise.
Pencil the thicker spots...
...and it'll show where you're sticking. Pare that away and try again.
Drawboring the mortise & tenons.
This Shinwa 45 is great. Taking off the corners of the feet.
Freshly cut, ready to rasp (see it hiding down there?)
Rasped & card scraped. Nice enough for me. I love the corradi gold rasps.
Gang plane the stretcher boards.
Doing half-dovetails on the stretchers. I'm reusing the 2x4s from the saw horses I took apart, hence the holes.
Half-doves cut.
Mark on the legs.
And cut those funky looking shapes.
A nice fit.
Coming along nice and square.
Avengers, assemble! Oh wait, toddler waking up RIGHT NOW. Assembly will wait.
Hide glue. Put together the legs/stretchers/feet first, the dovetails seem like they'll need a little adjusting.
Next day, the dovetails almost perfectly fit. Just a smidge of paring on one set of pins and we're good.
They're so tight, I don't even bother with clamps. I did put some glue on them.
Cleaning up the through tenons.
Adding a chamfer for funsies.
Ta-da!
Not too shabby for my experience.
A little splintering (and some plane marks that I don't care about), but overall not bad.
Here's how a crosscut would work. I may later add a removable fence along one side.
And here's how a rip works on it.
Came out great! Thanks for sharing and good luck in the contest.