Logan Cabinet Shoppe

After years of [ab]use, my trusty saw bench is ready to retire. However, before I can retire the old I must make a new. So that was the project this weekend.

The saw bench is an absolute must have appliance for the hand tool shop. A pair is even better, especially if you process long stock in your shop with hand saws. In addition to supporting stock at a comfortable and convenient height for crosscutting and ripping, the saw bench serves a myriad of other uses in the shop. I use mine to sit on when boring with a brace, as a side table to hold tools and project parts when working at the shave horse, as support for case pieces when I'm planing their dovetails flush, as a bench to sit at when drawing at my workbench, as a step to reach the boards on the top tier of my lumber rack, as a place to sit and take a coffee break and as a second workbench for my kids when they are in the shop "working" with me.

I don't like to over complicate tools and appliances for the shop as I consider them disposable. They get used hard and take a lot of abuse so I don't use expensive lumber or complicated joinery. I want something that will be sturdy and will last but won't cost a lot and will be quick and easy to build. The style of saw bench pictured fits that bill nicely and can be built with cheap lumber and traditional joinery. This makes it very sturdy since it doesn't rely on the strength of mechanical fasteners like nails or screws, but it also stays very lightweight and easy to move around or store out of the way when not needed. It's relatively small at about 30" long by about 12" wide and at about 18" tall (approximately knee height for me) it is the perfect height for processing lumber with hand saws. No shop should be without one of these, or preferably a pair.

Check out the Articles page to see how it was built.

This weekend I finished up another shop appliance that has been on my list of things to make for a long time. Ever since the first time I watched John Alexander's "Make A Chair From A Tree", I've wanted to make a shave horse. I put it off for a long time as I was of the impression that I needed to make it from green riven stock and not having access to cheap green stock (or the tools to rive it), I put it on the back burner. However, after successfully building a saw bench in a similar style from common construction lumber and using it for several years, I decided to give the shave horse a go without using rived green oak. I am happy to say, that it worked out fine and I only spent $2 on it.

The bench is made from an old slavaged fir 2x8 that I held on to because it was surprisingly knot free for construction grade lumber. I ripped and planed it down to about 6" wide, which for now feels like a good width for working without discomfort to the backs of my legs. Time will tell how this width works out. The work platform is made from an offcut of the same 2x8. The legs are the only part I spent money on. They are made from a construction grade spruce 2x3. The stud had surprisingly few knots and those that it did have I could work around by putting them at the bottom or cutting them off. The studs were ripped to 1-1/2" wide, planed square, then shaved roughly octagonal with a draw knife. The tapered tenons were shaved with spokeshaves until they fit snuggly in the taper reamed mortises and then the 8-sided legs were shaved a little more with spokeshaves to clean them up and make them a little rounder. The legs are friction fit in the tapered mortises without wedges.

The remaining parts were made from some leftover kiln dried oak I had from other projects. The uprights are made from a length of 1x3 red oak. I bored holes in the top, middle and bottom for the clamp, pivot pegs and treadle respectively. The clamp bar is a piece of 2x2 (actually 1-1/2" square) red oak with a v-notch cut in it and holes bored in each end for 3/4" oak pegs cut from oak dowel stock. The pivot pegs are again 3/4" oak dowel stock inserted into holes which I bored into the sides of the bench. The pivot pegs are pegged to the bench to keep them from coming out of the bench. The treadle is a piece of 1-1/4" yellow pine closet rod. I used pegs throughout to hold everything together. I used no glue at all in the assembly.

Here you can see how everything is held together. The clamp block and treadle bar are pegged outside the uprights to keep them attached to the bench. The uprights are not pegged to the pivot pins, but the pivot pins are pegged to the bench. At the front, the pivot block for the work surface is a piece of oak through tenoned through the bench surface and held in place under the bench with another peg. I guess this is technically a variation on a tusk tenon. The work surface is notched around the pivot block and pegged through its end with one long oak dowel through the work surface and pivot block. The bottom corners of the work surface and the top face of the pivot block have been rounded to allow the work surface to pivot freely. The work surface is held at the proper height with a wedge of maple from the firewood pile and is adjustable in height by moving the wedge forward and backward.

I'm really happy that I finally stopped procrastinating and built this shave horse. It will be a very nice addition to the shop and along with my current saw bench will be able to be used as a pair of saw benches for very long stock, which until now has been difficult to handle in my small shop. The fact that it only cost me $2 isn't bad either! Making tools and appliances for the shop is a great way to use up cutoffs that may otherwise end up in the fire and add a much needed tool to the shop. Not to mention, it's a fun way to pass your shop time when you don't have an immediate project in the works.

Now to get started on those built-ins!

It must have been the weekend for late spring cleaning as it seems there was a lot of this going around late last week. At any rate, the shop is clean for the first time in a long time. I had needed a new long shelf to store my ever growing collection of wooden molding and joinery planes as they were just being stored on the bench top. This makes for convenient access but clutters up the workbench and impedes work in progress. So I completed the shelf and got the bench cleaned off. Here's the before.

This wasn't terrible, but the bench top was pretty cluttered on the right hand side preventing me from using that half of the bench very efficiently. This picture was actually taken a few weeks ago and as of last Friday, it was a lot worse than this. Now here's the after. These are recent photos taken Saturday.

What a pleasure it was to walk around the shop after cleaning it up. I can actually use the bench now. My goal now is to try to clean up after each day's use. We'll see how long I make it. Also notice the new wooden twin screw vise which has replaced the old metal quick release. I like it a lot, but that's for another post.

So if you haven't cleaned up your shop in a long time, I urge you to get to it. You may be surprised at how much more efficient you can be when you have a good clean area to work. You may even find that long lost tool you needed on your last project.

Now to get dirty!