hello guys ryan here for the london craftsman thanks again for coming back and today's video
is all about my ultimate workbench so stay tuned watch to the end and i hope you enjoy
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so we've been working hard or shall i say sean has been working hard i've been dossing in the
background doing some painting and measuring up while shawn's been in here pinning and gluing 100
and how many 150 150 pieces of all these strips glued up basically we're at the point where we're
gluing up we've got eight frames ready to go ready to clamp up um into their frames two uprights top
and a bottom two have got a central division as well which are going to be dominoed in rather than
ten and in or like an open tenon and we decided to go down the birch ply route because we can make
the bench look nice for starters um birch ply is a lovely material you can
stain it any colors yeah i like the edges scene it's got a lovely grain it's tough
obviously anything laminated is probably as strong as it can be
absolutely solid and we've laminated it in a way where we can make ourselves an open mortise
and an open tenon so there is no machining we just created something really simple a little piece of
birch um two pieces put together a little corner we laid it on the bench made sure it was nice and
level on the bench clamped it down and we used that as our guide to put our strips up against
glue the strips when we glued the strips we put it on with a bottle and then we used a gloss roller
to spread that glue out nice and fine and then we just continue to pin a couple of pins pins pins
pins pins just making sure we weren't going to get any pins where our dominoes were going to be
or where our tenons are going to be etc and what you see here is all the eight frames complete so
really tough the way they come come out they're straight as an arrow absolute straight as an arrow
really tough strong components and um they have to be because you know they're partly intact they're
the integral strength of this of the actual bench so the way it was going to be is going
to be three frames one two three and then we've got sort of like a tunnel carcass running through
the center of them so the the frames give the bench rigidity and the tunnel squares it all up
and turns it into like a cube in a way um or a box so i thought that was going to be the easiest
easiest way for me to make the bench and this was all down to plans as well i wanted it as simple as
possible for people to be able to make their own bench in the future and i think this is
the the best way so you don't need a mortar so you don't need a tenon machine all you really
need if anything you don't need to pin them you can just glue and clamp them up just try to make
it as simple as possible so we're at the stage where we're just gluing like i said and if we
just give you like a little mock-up so okay let's put that on here just because we've got a stable
well let's just put it here because it's a stable workbench what's that that's the top
uh yep okay well sanded faces up sean's gone over all the scene
faces or edges whatever you want to call them what grades do you use sean i use 60p 120 240.
okay and what machines did you use just built sounder and so show the belt sander we just used
the 80 well you used the 80 on that didn't you yeah 80 and then you you were just very careful
i explained that if you're too harsh when you're coming up to the tenons when it comes to squaring
the frame up and putting the frame together if you're going too harshly on the tenons you're just
going to curve them over and you're not going to get square edges or square frames are you
so we're really careful on that and then we just worked on our the rest on the orbital yeah
yeah is that what you did yeah 120 240. um just in case you want to know this makita sander is the bo
6030 okay five inch is it five no it's a six inch 150 mil we've went up a uh number didn't
we because we used to use five inch now it's so much better using a bigger sander
so they're ready ready to glue up um one thing that we do need to be careful is as
we're gluing because i want to possibly stain these i'm not 100 sure what i really want to do
it's mostly likely going to be an osmo i don't want to get glue everywhere no matter how much
you clean that glue up after it's in the grain i see people clamping up their work possibly
they're just painting at the end of the day so if you're painting afterwards it doesn't matter
but because he's being oiled any glue that goes into the grain whether you wipe it off or not
it ultimately sealed the grain which means you're gonna have patches when you come to oil
so that being said let's flip it around you can see the pin pin holes two two two two two yeah
sean's gone for one two one two so even pressure and we didn't just we we didn't clamp these at the
end we've seen people laminating before i've seen youtube videos of people laminate and
then they clamp it afterwards but i just didn't feel the need the joints are absolutely tight
there's no gaps in between any of these joints so i didn't feel the need of clamping so okay just so
we have a good the good face forward pins at the back because that's going to be inside the bench
two uprights which is this one again pins to the back one and this is the beauty of this
technique is just simplicity everything slots together like a glove look at those joints
and if you get your jig right and you pin it right and it's square and again look at that
it just blends in look how tight that joint is and we've done nothing other than pinning
it in the right place with our jig just being as accurate as you can okay so top's going in
there we go i'm gonna go around that sean and just show show people nice chunky frame
four in thickness one two three four i've actually put this around the wrong way
this is the unsanded side anyway it just gives you the a taster of what it's going to be looking like
because there's going to be three there's going to be one two three and then the carcass the tunnel
carcass runs through and they all get connected you get me now and then we've got another carcass
of the bench again another bench is here one two three and a tunnel carcass runs through
and these will just get joined with bolts once the tunnel crosses in your bench is nearly there
you literally just put a top on the top so that is my technique um today we are we're going to
be gluing aren't we gluing we're going to just make ourselves a nice flat surface to glue these
on because we don't want it to be twisted and we might just pull out this little bench here
to the center put a nice slab i find a nice slab of 18mm or 25mm mdf make sure it's level
and just work on that some sash clamps um guessing one two one two two so four clamps
um our roofing square as we're doing it and just let the glue do its work then if we
really wanted to we can go around the other side and pin through the mortise and tenon
i'm not going to do that in the front we could if we we don't mind waxing but again we don't know
what color this is going so we're most likely not going so we're just going to let the glue do its
its work we're getting nice resistance on the mortise and tenons so i know that once
that glue goes in it's going to be solid and then the glue is going to be touching all the surfaces
okay so that's our progress today hopefully in videos to come i'll be able to give you
some more progress and before you know it we'll have these carcasses made up
so i hope you enjoyed guys take it easy and i'll see you in the next one ciao for now