Making my bench lighter

Yes I know we always strive to make workbenches as heavy as we can but just have a think about this:
Everytime we flatten our benches we remove stock to do so. Stock in the form of shavings has mass. Hence we make the bench have less mass!
Anyway in my email inbox today was one from Megan Fitzpatrick from Popular Woodworking. Apparently they were having problems with the electronic distribution of Oct 2013 edition so she sent me the url of where I could download it.
In the magazine was an interesting letter from a reader and a reply from Megan asking how to flatten a workbench. This set me thinking:

• How long have I had my commercially bought workbench? - 5 years or so
• When did you last flatten it? - Er never!

I looked at it and the front and rear aprons had warped slightly making the bench concave from edge to edge. End to end was still relatively straight and there wasn't any twist (using my winding sticks to make sure). The storing of it outside in the yard last autumn (in a tent) while my shop was being rebuilt had soaked up humidity from the air and it hadn't been too kind to the bench.

As I'm nearing completion of the baritone guitar and it has now left the shop to go inside to my studio for tweaking I thought I would spend 10 to 20 minutes flattening my bench with the Veritas bevel up jointer.
Sure enough it did only take 20 minutes with a final light cleaning pass followed by a very light pass of my #4.

The bench being flattened
with a Veritas BU Jointer

A big pile of shavings.
This probably weighs about
1 pound

Flattened benchtop awaiting Danish Oil

I was rewarded with a flat bench. The question now is - why didn't I do it before? It really was quick to do the jointer making light work of the beech top. Two coats of an exterior Danish oil and I'll be all set to go for the next project. But that's another story.

Baritone Guitar Build Part 8 - Nut making and fitting the hardware

I used a 5/8" Forstner bit to bore the counter-bores for the neck bushings. Then I transferred the pilot holes through to the open mortise.
Then fitting the neck in position carefully transferred the pilot holes into the neck. I then took the neck out of the body and drilled to full size 1/8" diameter x 3/4" deep the holes for the screws. Then I drilled clearance holes in the body.
The screws are actually around #8 or 4mm in diameter and needed some wax to screw into the neck but went in without stripping or breaking.

I drilled some counter-bores with a 6mm drill bit for the magnets to hold the cover plates on. Into these I used some CA glue to fix some rare earth magnets (6mm dia x 1mm thick) in place. There are also corresponding holes drilled into each of the covers. They fix in place with a satisfying "plop" noise and are very secure. No screws showing on this build. To open the covers I have a finger nail grove and slot cut in the cover and body.

Making a nut

The nut is made from a bone blank and was first thicknessed on some sandpaper so it fitted in the dado (slot) I had cut in the fretboard in an earlier post.

Then using a pencil that was cut down the middle with its lead sharpened to a chisel point I scribed the profile of the 1st fret onto the bone

Here you can see the pencil sliced down the middle

Table Saw Blade Storage

I'd had enough of hanging blades on nails driven into the walls of the shop. I got a pdf as part of Popular Woodworking subscription called Workshop Storage Solutions. In there is an article by Steve Shanesy on making an open fronted box to store your table saw blades.

As I had just bought a few more blades I decided to make the box. It comprises 4 sides of 3/4" ply and I made the back from 1/2" ply. The shelves are just 1/4" thick ply and the box is intended for 10" diameter blades.

The finished size is 8" high x 11 3/4" wide x 11 1/4" deep.
The box is very simple rabbeted construction just glued with some yellow glue (no brads ;) .
The shelves are around 11/16" apart in dados cut in the sides. They have shaped front edges with a cut-out so you can grasp the desired blade.
The front is cut at an angle at 70 degrees and there is an internal partition of 1/4" ply also at 70 degrees.
I can't publish the plans as they are probably copyrighted but I can show you some photos of the results.

Do you think I put enough clamps on?

Baritone Guitar Build Part 7 - Buffing and Polishing

It's been a couple of weeks or so since I applied the last coat of finish to the Baritone guitar. In that time I've been on holiday to London and done some modifications to the theatre groups scenery. This last weekend I have spent some time building a storage box for table saw blades (see next post) and started to complete the finish on the guitar.
It had some time to harden off and I had one or two blemishes to sort out. Those have now been rubbed out using 1200 grit wet and dry and then burnished with a polishing compound.
My regular buffer is tied up as a grinder at the moment so I found my automotive buffer and using some mild abrasive polished all the wooden parts of the guitar.
You can now see your face in it.
The sides of the body had to be finished by hand as I had a little overspray resulting in some orange peel effect. Careful rubbing with 1200 grit and polishing with burnishing compound on a soft cloth corrected that.

Suitably polished