Ok, I get what you're trying to convey. But your delivery is rather unsupportive, no matter how you try to justify it. This guy is looking for guidance, asking questions (the right ones, in my opinion), and paying attention to the answers.

Can he be expected to be perfect? I don't see any major flaws in his work so far, and if he keeps going he'll have a fine bench. Don't scold a man for using the wrong bait; praise him for fishing.

I consider myself amateur at best. I make mistakes. I know what a good joint looks like, but I don't always make my joints perfect. Does that mean my projects are "unacceptable"? No. It just means I need to keep honing my skills. My finished projects look good, flaws and all. I can fix an imperfect dovetail with a shaving of wood to fill the gaps. No one will ever know; it'll be my secret.

First off, thank you for taking my critique as intended. Im sincerely NOT trying to be rude or beat you up or anything silly like that.

In the picture, the one on the far right side seems perfectly fine (from that face at least). The two middle ones are "ok" the one on the left I wouldn't use.

I apologize for being pedantic here, but this is whats going on. Structurally, PVA glue forms a bond with itself, not the wood. The glue will penetrate the wood fibers and bond to itself, which is where its strength comes from. A proper glue joint will rip apart the wood before the glue fails. When you have gaps that large, the glue is unable to polymerize with itself properly and creates an extremely weak structure. Furthermore, PVA glue is EXTREMELY susceptible to moisture as well as temperature gradients, creating another failure point. Even titebond 3 will fail under moisture given enough of it and enough time. Over time, those gaps will develop into large cracks, and it will eventually just fall apart.

So whats going on? I have a few theories.

1) Despite being a "hardwood" poplar is incredibly soft, and is inherently prone to warping. Sucks to hear it, but you MUST let your wood acclimate to your shop before chopping it up. What happens is the wood at the store will have a different humidity and temperature than what your workshop has. When you then cut it, it'll expand or contract, causing bowing and cupping, which is why its so difficult to get wood straight and keep it that way right off the bat. Also a lot of woods have internal tensions, and when you cut them, they will dramatically expand or contract. This is more an issue with figured woods though.
2) Im only seeing a couple clamps here... adequate clamping pressure is also required (see my post above about buying a bunch of harbor freight f clamps). Since it IS a workbench, what I would do is cut the legs about 2 inches longer than they need to be, and screw the ends down. This gives 2 advantages. 1) The boards wont "slip" under glue up, and 2) gives you a mechanical advantage for clamping the rest of the board. When the glue is cured, then simply cut off the ends to desired length.
3) Your hand planing technique is likely off. Flat =/= parallel. See my attached picture to see what I mean.

Your improvement over the few boards youve done have been enormous though, I admittedly didnt see the updated pictures from the first couple, so I apologize for missing that part. I am more encouraging you to develop skills NOW, as it will only help you on future endeavors. While I may seem abrasive, I do wish someone was a little "harder" on me when I first started, as I had to struggle with a lot of growing pains when I first started out. The big thing is the game changes when you start using hardwoods that cost you 8$ a boardfoot and screw them up because you didnt learn techniques properly. You seem to be super receptive and eager to learn, and Im sure your bench will be a great start to your new hobby.

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Right, I see how my tact wasnt quite there for my original comment. Got a lot of distracting personal stuff, so im just trying to keep my mind occupied at the moment and Im kind of strung out emotionally. I really didnt mean to be so "abrasive" for sure.

As far as the "Tricks" go, superglue and sawdust has hidden more secrets in my shop than the CIA lol

I’ve gotta disagree with those that are disparaging drawbored M&T joints. Make the joints fit correctly, and the drawbore pins will do their job. Such joints have been made for millennia, as have those with some type of adhesive that were mentioned in another post.

I drawbored my workbench legs without glue, figuring that if I ever needed to relocate it, I could drill the pins & remove the top. It is now a few years old and rock solid. No movement whatsoever. The legs are 5” x 5”, and the top is 4” thick. Two 3/8” pins per joint.

I’ve drawbored less massive projects with good results, too. I say go for it.


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I picked up more wood today. What a disaster that was. I rented a U-Haul, which ended up being more expensive than I thought, and then I managed to ding someone's car in the Home Depot parking lot. So in an attempt to save money on shipping the wood, I actually ended up spending an extra hundred bucks. Doh.

I received my jointer plane from Ebay and sharpened it up. I'm hoping to use it tonight to joint some of the boards for the top. I also got a passel of pipe clamps and some more parallel jaw clamps. I should have enough now to, along with the bar clamps, laminate the benchtop.

I spent an hour and a half doing some minor tuning work on the jointer. It didn't come in bad shape:



The blade shows signs of having been hand-sharpened for a long time.



I had to take off quite a bit of material to get the main bevel to 25 degrees. Then I put a 30 deg microbevel on it.



I was able to take some shavings with it. I'm pretty stoked!




I ordered some wet-dry paper that I'll use to flatten the sole, because my straight edge shows it has a bit of a frown.

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Well, I'm sad. This new mortise gauge I got doesn't seem to be capable of addressing my needs. The maximum extension from the stop block of the inner pin is only about 15/16". I'm going to cut a 1in mortise, and my stock is 3 1/2" wide, so I need the pin to extend 1 1/4" from the stop block on the mortise gauge. D:



I'm kind of shocked by the poverty of the design of this thing, but I guess that is what I get for ordering something for $15 on Amazon. So I'm stuck on assembling the base until after the thanksgiving holidays, unless I can get something higher quality before we go out of town on Sunday. Even then, I'm set back several days. (Edit: I despaired too soon! Apparently there is a high quality woodworking tools shop just a few stops from where I live on the R. I'm going to go down there and pick up one of their marking gauges tomorrow.)

My additional pipe clamps are coming tomorrow and Wednesday. I returned my parallel clamps, since I figured it would be easier to have just one type. So I'm blocked until Wednesday evening. It does not feel good!

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It looks like your hitting a good groove on your project. Don’t despair about that gauge, you can do what you need to do more accurately without it or if you just use the scribe on the near side. The way to do it is to mark the near face, and without changing the setting, flip the workpiece around and Mark the opposite face with that same setting — that’s the right way to get both faces perfectly balanced under the tenon/tongue.

This brings up an important point: generally, the method is to cut your tenons first, then hold that tenon in place and using a sharp knife, mark/layout your mortises directly off the actual tenon for that exact location, no gauging or measuring needed. If you’re nervous, chop your mortise a bit undersized and then “sneak up” on your finished size for a snug fit.

The tenons and mortises are not required to be exact proportions, so don’t get hung up on that gauge or too much numeric precision for the tenons, but being cut straight, plumb, and close fitting is. The mortises benefit by being about 1/4” deeper than the tenons.

Your project is a great running thread, thank you for sharing it with us!

— Bradley

@Scurvy, thanks for the kind words.

Tonight I went to Tools for Working Wood and bought a mortising gauge. It works much better than the old one. That's quality hand workmanship vs. cheap mass manufacturing for you. Honestly, the old gauge seems like it is designed by someone who has only seen a mortising gauge and never actually used one.



Mortising gauge in hand, I marked things out and started cutting. I'm following Paul Sellers' method . . . well, trying to anyawy. Here are a few pics of the work in progress.




And the mortise, after about two hours of work:



If I can be frank, I'm not 100% happy. Who doesn't dream of their first mortise looking just like Paul's? What happened is, when I was cutting the side we're facing, the chisel wandered a little toward the side that's dug out. That's why it's not like that across that entire face.

My plan right now is to first check the dimensions of the two sides and see if they are square and straight on each end. Then I will check the high points and see if there is any part that needs to be pared down. After that, I'll cut the tenon and see how the fit feels. I'll leave it large so maybe the mortise can be expanded a little to accept it if there are concavities inside the mortise.

Worst to worst, I can cut the mortise off and make this piece one of the four horizontal stretchers. They are shorter than the legs, so we can definitely still use most of the wood. Or, I could just go and get some drawbore pins and double-drawbore this thing shut. I've read that drawbore joints are very tolerant of imperfect mortising, especially when combined with glue. Things to think about.

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Of course we all want our first whacks at anything to be outstanding and look sexy and so on, but that’s why we get to crawl before we walk, and walk before we run. Don’t worry, all is not lost on this effort, and you’ll be able to salvage your work and wood.

A) Your mortise looks very coarse and I think that’s because it appears you are trying to get your first cuts to go right to your lines. Please don’t try that; the idea is Indeed to make those first cuts, and in fact most of your cuts, as rather coarse bulk removal cuts that leave a good 1/8”-1/16” of stock before you cut to the layout lines.

THEN use very careful, controlled (no mallet) “paring” cuts to more slowly and precisely come to the lines. Actually you can use the mallet, but this step is all about GENTLE, so only tap, tap, tap.

B) So to salvage what you’ve done so far, just make your mortise 1/8” bigger on each side. Remember, you’ve already done the gross removal step, so do the expansion very gently and not so fast.

This is an excellent learning moment for you: That mortise and tenon will be mostly hidden from view, and you are getting to deviate very slightly from your initial design in order to save your work and material. A no-cost deal!

C) Trace those layout lines to the back side of your through mortises, and work those from the back side. Go half way from the front, then the other half way from the rear side.

D) Gross removal for mortises is often accomplished to the greatest extent possible by drilling the bulk out with an auger bit or spade bit, and then finishing things off with the chisels.

A good general rule in woodworking is to leave everything with a bit of waste to be removed later once you’re comfy with how the process is going — leave some fat on the bone, and sneak up on your dimensions. Often this means to use a coarse tool for those initial gross cuts, but then follow up with a finer (and slower) and more controllable tool to arrive at the final lines.

@Scurvy: Good point r.e. just widening the mortise a little. I made a 1" wide mortise, because that's how big of a chisel I have, but I believe this face of the leg is actually 3 1/2" wide. Looking at it this morning, it seems like I went about 1/16" wide of the line on the busted side of my mortise. So I should be able to get away with re-marking the mortise, establishing a knife wall, and chiseling down that side.

R.e. not going directly into the line: in general I agree, but that's exactly what the method I'm trying to follow suggests. The width of the chisel is meant to establish the width of the mortise.

It's pretty much a rule for any joint that, when paring to a line, you should have some depth already chopped out. So for your mortise, you will have rough chopped at least 1/4". Then you can pare to your line. The 1/4" depth gives some strength to the wood to prevent your chisel from pushing past the wall. After that you can chop away using your wall as a guide.

First mortise and tenon are nearly done. I just need to clean up the cheeks a little to get them to sit flush. It's not quite as tight as I'd like it to be. Actually, I got it 90% of the way in, but it was too tight. Then I took it out, took the slightest shaving, and then it was a little loose! Damnation! But it's probably close enough. It's still a mighty struggle to get it apart.

At this rate, it will be another fourteen nights of work to get the remaining mortises and tenons for the base done. However, I suspect it will not take that long, for a few reasons. First, I'm getting better with that there chisel.

Second, maybe more important: I'm only going to hide the tenon on the top joints, because I want the benchtop to sit on the legs and the rails. The rest will be full height tenons. I tell you, I need to watch a few more videos about how to mark tenons when they aren't full height. I couldn't get the knack of it on this first one. If you cut off the top and bottom of the tenon, you no longer know where your line is. If you don't, you can't test the fit! I think the correct play is probably to get the tenon sized and flat so that the corners can slide in, and only then to cut the top and bottom off. That way you have your line available the entire time.

I'm really glad I remembered seeing that you can split the tenon waste off. That made the work so much easier. I had started to do it by sawing, but that was taking forever. I'm also not very good yet at staying outside the line when I saw. So I was about to go under the line, and moreover it was taking ages. But it was the work of five or ten minutes with the chisel to get the vast majority of the waste off.

I am so happy that I saw Paul Sellers' advice to make a high bench. My back is killing me right now from working over these workmates. Admittedly they are only like 28 inches tall but even a 32 or 34" bench seems like it would require a lot of bending over. I'm going to make this thing as tall as my remaining leg pieces will let me.

Pics:

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Ah. I just watched a video that explains it. So I can keep using Paul's method, I just need to modify one thing. I need to cut the top and bottom of my tenon before I start cutting the mortise. So the width of my mortise and tenon can still be governed by the chisel. But the height will be governed by ~whatever~ I cut it to. Nice!

Good job on that last mortise! I'm 6'2" and my bench is 35". It is 1/4" lower than my table saw and no back aches.

As I noted, cut the tenon and let it govern the hole (mortise). Don’t worry too much about blind tenon length, as the end grain is worthless for gluing.

Bench height: (I have my architect’s hat on now): The correct height is derived by having a helper measure from the underside of your bent elbow when you are standing erect and relaxed. Your upper arms should be at your sides and your forearms should be parallel to the ground, take the measurement, and then SUBTRACT 6” from that measurement to determine the most ergonomically correct height for the bench top.

I managed to shape a decent tenon and make it most of the way through corresponding mortise in two and a half hours today. Speed still leaves much to be desired, but it's almost twice as fast as the last one, and for a much better product.

One thing I'm not thrilled with is my sawing. I'm either too far from the line or wandering over it. And it takes forever because the workmates aren't very rigid. (This last is also impacting my ability to pare the tenons -- the flex in the workmate absorbs a lot of the energy I'm putting into paring.) I can't wait to have a workbench.

Also, I am never doing this from scratch again. If I ever move and can't bring my workbench with me, I'm definitely going with the plan of buying a pre-built one from HD or similar and then building a nice one with that in hand. Or at a minimum using hardware rather than traditional joinery. But, in for a penny, in for a pound.

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Looking good. Better in fact!

Saw? What are you using, Western or Japanese? Saw to the inside (waste side) of the lines and then pare things back with your chisels. Btw, there are all sorts of ways to hold the chisels for different tasks and different ways to move in order to get the cut that you need. For example, doing the paring you’re up to now, I often hold the chisel by the shaft right at the work surface, not up on the “handle.”

Workmates: If you haven’t done this yet, get yourself a piece of 3/4” minimum thickness plywood, 1.25” is better, to make a quick top for them. The idea is to span from one Workmate to the other and grab the top in the Workmates’ clamping jaws. I personally like using a 3’ X 6’ top because it isn’t ridiculously too large in tight quarters, yet will easy take a 4 X 8 sheet of anything with 12” overhang, which is dandy for power tool use, and it will give you a decent amount of horizontal surface. The way to hold that top in place is to screw a 30” 2x4 parallel to and in about 18” from each end of the plywood; then position each Workmate appropriately to grab and clamp one of the 2x4’s. Voila, your Workmates will be much more stable and you’ll have a much more useful work surface. Now, you’ll need to clamp your workpieces to the new top.

For planing and some chiseling, you’ll need to fashion a planing stop by using 2 clamps to clamp a strip of wood or aluminum that’s <the thickness of your workpiece to the worktop and push your work piece against that strip as you plane. This is where screw clamps (hand screws) are the right call. For example, for working your legs or the edges of boards, one can clamp a hand screw or two to the workpiece, then clamp the hand screw down to the top at edge of the top. This is equivalent to a moxon vise or face vise.

Keep going!

Bench height: I'm 6'3. I'm not home right now, but I believe my bench is 33" high. I'm not uncomfortable using it, but it could probably be another couple inches high. You also don't want your bench to be so high that it's cumbersome to work on assembled projects.

Mortising: Have you considered drilling (brace and bit) out most of the mortise material, then chopping/paring the remaining? This can be a big time saver for large mortises.

Honestly the mortise is probably the easier and less stressful of the two. The tenon is what has me sweating right now. And I feel like I'm getting even faster with the pure chisel technique as I practice it. The other thing is I'd worry about staying inside the lines if I were drilling, whereas if I chisel, and properly establish a knife wall first, I can hardly go outside the lines. Look at how clean that mortise wall is! :P

The thing I learned about tenons last night is this: Split the waste off as much as you can, then pare from the end until you get down to <1/8" of waste. Ideally <1/16". Once the tenon is relatively flat and has only a little waste left, it's possible to do the cross-grain chisel paring to get it all the way down to the line. Also, I honed my chisel once the paring was done and that really helped out.

R.e. putting a top on the workmates: Honestly having a flat top would probably be a hindrance in some ways. I've been using the workmates themselves to clamp the workpieces. One thing I have considered is to pause the joinery and do the benchtop, including maybe even installing the vise. Then I could continue work on the frame at least with the benchtop and face vise in hand. Something to ponder. The frame won't be much use without the benchtop in any case, but the benchtop may be some use without the frame.

And this article?
https://paulsellers.com/2019/04/mort...-at-the-ready/


To keep the walls of the mortise vertical, use a squared block as a guide for the back of your mortise chisel. This will insure that you don't "undercut" the walls making and opening large than the tenon:
https://paulsellers.com/2017/12/devl...alignment-jig/