Traditional Work Horse - 374

in a previous video I showed you how I made this matchfit Workhorse I called it a matchfit Workhorse because it utilizes the matchfit hardware system and it has the workholding options of a workbench and the form factor of a saw horse in this video I'm going to show you how I made basically the same thing but with traditional work holding options as I begin this project let me tell you a little secret you see here that I'm using a workbench to build a workbench it's kind of like what came first the chicken or the Egg the truth is if you think you need a workbench to build a workbench then you are correct if you think you do not need a workbench to build a workbench then you are correct as Henry Ford once said whether you think you can or you think you can't you're right the first step in this build is to cross cut a 2x12 Southern yellow pine board for the two pieces that will make up the top the saw I'm using here is a 37 horsepower barcat with an off-grid calorie burning power plant the one board is cut into two boards plus firewood here you can see the amount of cup that needs to be removed before I can glue these together the weapon of choice is a 6.9 lb iron paper weight that also conveniently shaves wood quite well in all seriousness this is a Tay tools 5 and 1 12 Jack smoothing plane that is arguably the best bang fear buck in the hand plane Market with an aggressive set the board is traversed in various directions to remove the high spots while probably completely unnecessary just like me I followed up with a 4 and 1/2 smoothing plane to make the surface that nobody will ever be able to touch perfectly smooth from here it's a rinse and repeat process for the other three wide faces of the top assembly except we're not rinsing anything we're just repeating and it's a good idea to use winding sticks to make sure that the boards aren't Twisted to glue the boards together I used glue and of course some clamps but that part is always obvious after a cold plunge and a night of rehab on my shoulders from the hand planing work I got to work on the edge of the glued up panel it was somewhere around here that I realized two things first I was watching way too many Drew Fisher videos and second I spent way too much time in the past 2 days trying to use nothing but hand tools so I had a little realization right here ain't nobody got time for that at this point I walked away from the project for a week or so while I had contractors working in my backyard starting on an outdoor kitchen project and when I got back to the build I I just had no interest in finishing it with hand tools so power tools to the rescue I started once again by Milling some material for the legs and gluing together the four leg blanks with three of the faces already taken care of I continued cutting down the top panel to its final size while previously building the matchfit version I screwed up the leg Doos in the top piece and had to remake the top so in an effort to not start a trend I took the time to Mark out the locations of all of the finished geometry on the top panel I needed the completed legs to side the Doos for the leg to toop connection and because they were still in clamps I started drilling the dog holes Instead This is an overdrive bit it has the speed of an augur bit but the cut quality of a forer bit and these bits produce very clean exit holes I gave the leg blanks a couple hours in clamps and then M them to their final size just like with the matchfit version I made a quick jig to cut the angled knot on the top of the legs it's just an angled piece of scrap sheet material with a stop on one end the notch cuts are then drawn onto the legs to make sure I don't cut the wrong faces and here you can see how the jig Works no toggle clamps or hold Downs necessary it's just an angled reference face that rides up against the fence after all the cuts are made in one direction The Jig Is rotated 90° and the second cut is made this is essentially creting a 90° Corner that is on a specific angle from the length of the board with the legs done I now knew the exact width needed for the top datos and in the matchfit version I used a single table saw blade to just nibble away the material uh that was that was way more work than I initially thought due to the size of the panel that I was moving across the saw so I took the time to set up the DAT stack for a 3/4 in bite per pass the fit I achieved was borderline too tight but I know that these legs will shrink over time and I'd much rather deal with a frustratingly tight fit now than a super sloppy joint sooner down the road the off cuts from the band saw are perfect to use as clamping calls to make sure that the legs are positioned tightly where they need to be then the stretchers can be set in place and traced with a pencil all of these stretchers are first cut to length at the miter saw and then a matching angled rabbit cut is made on each end the depth of the cut isn't too critical here removing anything less than about half the thickness will work to install them a little bit of glue and two screws per joint is used for the short stretchers that will be touching the bottom of the top panel I made sure to keep the glue away from the top panel just to make sure that I don't accidentally glue the legs to the top here's something that I probably should have done earlier the threaded Rod needs to be secured to each one of the handles and for that I used thick CA glue a better option would have been to use medium thread locker but my shop ate it somehow I don't know where it went uh but this got the job done while the glue dried on the leg assemblies I started on the lower shelf and this shelf is incredibly simple it's just a piece of 2x6 or 2x8 in my case cut to overhanging lower stretchers by a couple of inches one small offcut of the same board is also needed to act as a stop the stop is glued and screwed in place on one end and a linear clamp is screwed in place on the other end now that the structure is done I can take it apart and work on some more details and as it turns out the leg to top joints were a bit too tight I had to use a pry bar to remove one of them to be a little more consistent in the front Vice Hardware locations I made a simple Story Board the board has a marked center line that is lined up with the marked center line on the top and it's cut to the exact length between centers of the vice screws a board will be glued to the bottom to build up the stationary side of the vice but first the nut mortise needs to be cut the board is set in place and the nut location is traced out one really nice thing about a square nut is that it will not rotate in a round hole as much as a hex nut in this case a 1 and 1/4 in hole captures the nut quite well and this means that a drill press can be used to drill a a hole or mortise rather than using a router and an edge guide or a set of chisels with the locations marked the holes are drilled here you can see how this will work the square nut goes into the hole and the bushing will go into another hole in the front face that hole is drilled Twice first at the drill press and Then followed up by hand with an overdrive bit and a bit extension the threaded Rod should pass through the bushing Engage The Nut and then go into the open space beyond without touching any pine this ensures smooth operation of the screw while the drill press is still set up the dog holes on the back face can be drilled the final depth here is determined by the dogs and clamps that you may use in them just make sure not to go deeper than the length of the dogs so the dogs don't accidentally get stuck in the holes finally the extra piece can be glued to the bottom of the front edge this just gives a little bit more material support to the stationary face of the Vie and it's also important to wait until after the nut mortises are drilled as it will partially cover the whole location while that glue dried I milled some Walnut for the vice and end stops and then took way too long of a lunch break after lunch and possibly a nap in a hammock I flushed the builtup front face with a smoothing C making sure to not modify the original front face as I already knew it was flat and square here's how the end stops attach first I made them slightly wider than the thickness of the top and with a top face down on the assembly table they are clamped in place and a 3/16 of an inch hole is drilled through the Walnut and into the pine then a420 bolt is driven all the way through the hole in the pine to establish threads and then a little thick CA glue is put into the holes and then some qu2 carriage bolts are installed while the CA glue sets up I took the end stops to the drill press and they get a 7/8 of an inch hole drilled offset from the first hole the goal here is to make sure that the top edge of both holes are touching with the smaller hole being completely removed with the 7/8 of an in drill bit now the heads of the carriage bolts are cut off and the end stops are installed the 7/8 of an inch hole allows for 5/8 of an in vertical travel with a 1/4 of an inch Carriage Bolt the method requires a larger Fender washer but is much easier than cutting a slot by now the glued up walnut for the front Vise has had enough time in the clamps and can be milled to its final size the same story board is used to locate the screw holes which are then drilled at the drill press here's a step that I did out of order I should have waited until after the final fit of the end stops and front Vice to add this 1/8 of an inch round over but I didn't I had to repeat this step so learn from my wasted time a matching angle is cut onto the bottom of the legs so that it sits flat on the floor and this can be done at any time notice I had to use a spacer block to elevate the legs slightly this is due to the lower stretcher being on the opposite side of the legs as the upper stretcher and it it really doesn't matter what side the lower stretchers are on but the top stretcher needs to be on the inside to avoid interfering with the dog hole to help seat the legs a little easier I used a file to ease the edges on the bottom side of the top a flush trim saw is used to flush the legs with the top here you can better see how the holes work for the end stops again I chose this route simply because it was easier than cutting slots the same thing is achieved this way to install the front Vise for the first time I put the Workhorse on its side so gravity wouldn't be a hindrance and it turns out that it's just as easy to install this in its normal orientation theice was intentionally cut taller than necessary so I could flush it up with a hand plane and I had to add a sandbag to the lower shelf to stop the Workhorse from moving and also adjust the linear clamp a little bit after this step finally a little sanding to remove all of the pencil lines and for added grip some cork rubber is added to the vice jaw do not add this stuff to both sides of your vices as doing so will allow the workpiece to wiggle in the visce as there will be too much cushion for all of the pine surfaces on the Workhorse I did not apply any finish at all and that's because I only want to apply a finish to a shop working surface like an assembly table or workbench only if I'm going to be doing a glue up on top of them because the glue just helps I'm sorry the Finish just just helps the glue from not sticking and pop off in this case I don't see myself ever using this as a glue up station so I would prefer to not have any finish on this at all and have as the the maximum amount of friction which is just raw wood to raw wood uh so no finish on the pine however One does not simply use Walnut and not put a finish on it I think that's a meme somewhere so uh I did put a little bit of finish on the uh just the Walnut pieces it was a oil wax mix just one coat just to make it pop because of course it's Walnut you have to do that so with that said let me bring you in closer we'll talk about all the different work holding options with some accessories as well as with some that are built into the bench the first and most obvious clamping solution is this twins screw Vise twins screw Vis are great you can use pipe clamps you can use an inexpensive Hardware kit like this you can use a fancy fancy really nice one like a benchcrafted hardware kit regardless you're going to get the same two benefits number one it gives you a lot of wide it gives you a wide clamping area in between the screws to get nice even clamping pressure along the entire width of your panel number two you're not limited by the uh screw location you're not limited by the the depth at which you can put the material into the Vie so in a single screw Vise like a leg Vise on my workbench uh for example there is 8 in of travel or 8 in between the top of the screw to the top of the workbench surface on my leg Vice and that means if I have anything that's longer than 8 in I can't put it on top of the screw and get even clamping pressure along the top of the leg Vie chop instead I have to put it to one side and if I'm putting it to one side then the exposed area is not clamped and can sometimes wobble and then of course you're going to rack the vice as clamping pressure is put down over here this side's going to come in so you may have to put a shim over here so with a twins screw Vice you're not limited by the vertical distance you can put something long in place and still get good even clamp pressure along the top where you need it uh and also you're not limited by wide stock with this setup like so like you can put in this particular Vice I have it set so you can put um something that is 24 in in between the screws I think I have like 24 and a/4 of an inch in between the screws so for example if you're making a blanket chest and you want to have an an exposed joinery all the way along the entire corner of that blanket chest well so long as the panels are not 24 in in height you can put the front back left and right in between the screws on here and get even clamping pressure along the entire entire width of that panel that's pretty darn cool you're not limited to really wide stuff though you can work from one side with narrow stock something that I see a lot of people do is they'll have a nice twin screw Vie set up like like this and they'll put the material right in the middle and then they have to or then they uh manipulate both screws every time that they need to clamp it or open it up and that's unnecessary uh you basically have a primary screw and a secondary screw so in this case I have this one set a little bit tighter than what is needed to clamp this down so that I can work from one side only and that's all I need basically what you do is you put your material in here you tighten this down so you have good contact on this side and then from there once that's set you can work from one Screw As you insert and remove all of your material assuming it's the same thickness you will only have to adjust one screw at a time you can work from one side even with pretty narrow stock so something like like this board right here I'll open this side up set this in place so I know where the tight tight setting is I'll back it off a little bit go a little bit further and now I can work from one side only and I don't have to worry about that screw over there cuz it's already set regarding this exact Hardware kit uh this is an inexpensive option that works pretty darn good so it's just regular threaded Rod inside the workbench top is a bushing and then a square steel nut and that's where the majority of the um the guiding is is happening you're not really using the threads touching the threads aren't necessarily touching the pine inside the workbench at all and assuming you drill your holes properly uh you don't have any bit wander or you're not not off on an angle uh you should have some pretty smooth travel with this um this you can use with one finger if I'm coordinated enough to do it there we go uh but also because of the balls on the end of the handles you can pinch your fingers finger and thumb together and twist it like so so it's an inexpensive but very functional and easy to use Vice setup each end of the Workhorse has one of these planing stops and it's easy to operate with these two knobs one-handed so you don't have to uh it's not a two-handed operation uh but with this up you can stop your material in one direction for planing against and if you're starting to wander in this direction as well well you can use the bench dogs on the back side in conjunction with the planing stop so you have a stop in the bench dog direction as well as the stop Direction so for tasks where you're batching out a bunch of pieces where maybe you're just surfacing all of your all of your boards or just just taking away planer marks or something to where you don't necessarily need a clamp in place but you need to have some fast stops you can use a setup like this to stop your pieces from wandering while you get the job done and of course if needed you can use these uh inline screws bench dog screws in conjunction with the planing stop as well to clamp as necessary to the planing stop and of course you don't need to use the end stops you can clamp anywhere on the workbench in between the dogs with a bench dog and one of these clamps like so you get some pretty darn good clamping pressure here I think I can lift the entire Workhorse I don't have that sandbag on the bottom but you can lift the whole Workhorse before it lets go of those clamps last up is the top down work holding options and this is a uh hold fast a tried and true design that's centuries old basically this shaft goes into a dog hole in the workbench and this is at a less than 90° angle so that when you hit this from the top with a mallet not your hand but a mallet it wedges this shaft further down in the hole and kind of binds in there on an angle and when in doing so the downward pressure you have here is springing this joint open a little bit putting downward pressure on your material so with a good hit with a mallet it'll lock this in place I'm surprised that worked with just my hand but it'll lock your material in place so it's not going to wiggle around this is very handy for like a drawer side or something that you're doveet tailing and want to Chisel out the waist uh but you can stack multiple pieces on here and do all of your drawer sides all at once so it's not limited to just one thickness you can stack your material so long as you have enough length in this hold fast to release it you hit the back side these are really really good uh work holding options top down work holding options if you have a solid wood workbench top like this this is about 2 in well it's a little bit more than 2 in thick these work around 2 to 3 in in material thickness they don't work on something like a 3/4 in sheet good material top like an assembly table or a secondary work surface so for that I like these because they they fit the job in in all surfaces they're just a little bit more convenient they work work for um solid wood surfaces as well as 3/4 in plywood these work on my assembly table so it's just basically an f- style clamp that has a very specific base to wedge itself into that hole so as you're put as it goes down on the material give it a little pull back away from the arm and tighten down and there you go you're just you're just clamping to the clamping to the work surface with a modern-day hold Fest I guess you could say and again if you're clamping multiple pieces at once well you can stack them up and do your clamps as well these come in like 6 in as well as 12in length it's just like a hold fast but just way more convenient because you can use it in multiple surfaces not specifically to workbench tops the back side also has a roll of dogs so you can use both of these accessories in those holes if needed as well a couple things to note as I wrap up this video whether it is the matchfit version or the traditional version they're both built the exact same way so they have the exact same pros and cons number one um you're combining a workbench and a saw horse so one of the pros is you get the for the form factor and portability of a saw horse the legs are knocked out the uh shelf comes off all four of these components to make this assembly can stack easily on the back seat of a car you can take it somewhere you can also keep it stored in the corner of a shop space if you're limited for space it doesn't take up that much space the form factor of a saw horse the disadvantage the biggest disadvantage is you don't have the large mass of a workbench you have all the workholding options but you don't have the big large mass of a workbench and therefore these can walk around on you during heavy planing operations that's the only time I've seen them uh move is when you're really planing hard and for that I do recommend getting some sandbags sandbags are $3 for 50 lbs where I live 1 2 three four however many sandbags it takes for it to stop walking around is a very easy and convenient fix to throw on the bottom uh or addition to throw on the bottom shelf and stop these from walking around if you're using it kind of like a a sawing station so if you're typically using it for joinery you probably won't have to add anything at all especially if most all of your forces are going from the front to the back of the saw horse or the of the Workhorse because the legs are triangular in shape and it is extremely solid in that direction you are going to have to adjust the linear clamp on the bottom of the Shelf uh to keep it solid when you put forces along the length of it because over time these legs will shrink and the the fit of the leg to the tabletop will eventually develop some slop so to counteract that that's the reason why there is that linear clamp on the bottom of the shelves so you push the bottom of the legs out even further racking everything in place and making it solid once again uh I think that's it I do have plans available a full set of plans available for the matchfit version and this the traditional version is built the exact same way so rather than redoing the entire plans for this I'm going to make an addendum to the plans for the dog holes and the vice and the end stops because everything else is the exact same and I'll include the addendum for this one with the matchfit version if you've already purchased the matchfit version and you would like to have the information for the traditional version uh just reply to the sales re seat and I'll get get those sent out to you uh I'll have links to all the hardware where you can uh pick up these real nice I really like these these modern day hold fasts what I'm calling them um and the hardware kit for the rest of this stuff I think that's it you guys take care oh that's not it uh we're going to be giving away two of these matchfit workhorses so I have both of them there's no need for me to have both of them but now that I have the traditional one I just prefer it better I just prefer the traditional work holding options versus the matchfit version so I'm going to be doing a giveaway for mine pickup only and then my friend from Taylor toolworks is going to be giving away his matchfit version uh shipping to the United States so uh I'll have a I guess I'll have a pinned comment if you're watching this on YouTube of of how you can enter uh to to win those but that's it you guys take care have a great day and I'll talk to you in the next video