beginnersworkshop

I think I was still in school in woodwork classes last time I made anything out of wood. I have certainly never made anything as sizeable or complicated as a workbench.

So I didn’t know where to start and as such found a fantastic series of videos from Paul Sellers on YouTube which I’ve tried to work through. The videos are a great for walking beginners like me through the process step by step and I highly recommend you view them.

The series can be found here: How to Make a Workbench Introduction | Paul Sellers

So the following is not a how-to, the videos from Paul Sellers can explain things much better than I could. This is more my journal of the build process, along with a good few mistakes along the way and my attempts to resolve them. Hopefully it may help you avoid similar mishaps.

I started with some lengths of pine from B&Q, cut them to size, and proceeded to glue them up. I’ve never attempted such a large glue up previously but before applying the glue I put the lengths alongside each other and tightened the clamps a little to make sure they would sit together without any obvious gaps.

I then separated and applied glue to each length before tightening the clamps firmly.

Benchtop glued and clamped together to dry

I had obviously applied too much glue as a lot was squeezed out as the clamps bit. I wiped up as much as I could and propped it up on a couple of wooded offcuts to let it dry. Which was a mistake…..

After letting the glue dry for 24 hours I removed the clamps. It didn’t fall apart which was a good start, however I then realised my mistake. I had left the work surface to dry sat on a couple of pieces of wood. Of course, as I had used too much glue, it had seeped out and glued the work surface to the supports which hadn’t been the intention.

I should probably have put a few sheets of newspaper or similar in-between to prevent this from happening. The paper would have glued itself to the work surface of course, but it would have sanded off easily enough.

Instead, it looked like I had made a rather rudimentary headboard and the extra wood did not want to come off. I ended up using a blunt/cheap chisel in the end to sever the glue and remove unwanted pieces.

Using a chisel to break the glue and remove the unwanted wood

I also found I had large droplets of glue on the underside where it had set as it seeped out. I used the chisel again and scraped off the worst – I was planning on this being the underside anyhow so it didn’t matter too much.

So with the glue up complete, I took my plane which I had recently restored and put it to use on it’s first project to flatten up the surface. Not bad for a first attempt.

Bench plane in original condition from the rear — Plane in original condition

My aim is get started on a workbench shortly so I decided to invest in a plane. Having never owned one previously I just looked for a name I recognised on eBay (in this case Stanley) and started there.

It set me back £10 plus a couple of pounds for p&p which I think is a pretty reasonable price. The description on eBay suggested it would need some work when it arrived, but to my mind, it looked like it was in pretty good condition. There is a little bit of rust on the iron itself, and the handles need sorting but the sole looked flat and otherwise it was just a bit dirty.

The bench plane sole before cleaning — Dirty but fairly flat sole

I started by removing the blade and frog from the plane but left the handles on for the time being so I had something to hold when cleaning the sole. I then gave each of the pieces them a going over with a stiff brush to remove the loose dirt etc. For the more stubborn grime/corrosion I would need sandpaper to really remove the grime that had built up over the years…

The disassembled bench plane — The plane disassembled

Cleaning

I started on the sole of the plane but needed a really flat surface on which to work along with various grades of sandpaper so I grabbed the following new bits of equipment:

Veritas Glass Lapping Plate: https://www.axminster.co.uk/veritas-glass-lapping-plate-476783 (£13.99)
250 grit sandpaper: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Faithfull-115mm-Aluminium-Oxide-Paper/dp/B003Y3XGRO (£7.06)
800 grit self-adhesive sandpaper: https://www.axminster.co.uk/hermes-self-adhesive-abrasive-film-800-grit-951276 (£8.50)
1200 grit self-adhesive sandpaper: https://www.axminster.co.uk/hermes-self-adhesive-abrasive-film-1-200-grit-502727 (£7.99)

All in all, a bit more than I had originally intended to spend but I know I am going to need to do some regular sharpening and this should keep me going for a little while. Given a little patience it could be done a lot cheaper as well… any piece of glass should do the trick I would have thought (though I guess toughened glass would be the sensible option) and in retrospect I didn’t require the self adhesive sandpaper.

In fact, on that note, I made the mistake of sticking the sandpaper to the glass at first. Whilst this worked well for the sharpening process, once removed, it left a sticky residue on the glass and in fact left bumps that could be felt under the next piece of sandpaper – so it was no longer flat!

120 grit sandpaper clamped to table and glass ready to clean the sole of the plane — Sandpaper clamped to table and glass

In the end I used some small clamps to hold the sandpaper to the glass and began to flatten and clean the sole of the plain on the 120 grit paper. It didn’t take long to see some improvements and so I did the same to the sides of the plane as well. It’s worth noting, this process produces quite a bit of mess. Gloves are recommended.

Once done on the 120 grit I repeated the process with the 800 grit and finally the 1200. The same process was then done on the frog but I didn’t touch the ‘Stanley’ branded holder as that appeared to be chrome plated and although it had a couple of chips I thought better to leave it alone.

Bench plane in pieces with cleaned parts — Cleaned plane parts

I then cleaned the iron by holding it flat on the paper and running through the same motions.

Sharpening

To sharpen the blade bought a honing guide to help maintain the proper angle on the iron.

Honing Guide: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-12400-3-67-Honing-Guide/dp/B0001K9OMY (£6.54)

As you might have guessed by now, sharpening of the blade was exactly the same process, 3 grades of paper, but with the addition of an added final step of honing compound and leather strop. I happened to have these two in my collection already (after dabbling with whittling a few years prior – without much success).

Sharpened plane iron held in honing guide — The sharpened plane iron

To hone on the strop, I rubbed the honing compound into the leather and ran the sharpened blade down the leather a couple of dozen times, leaving a much sharper and polished blade.

Handles

The rear handle was a little loose even with the screw firmly tightened. I started by removing both handles and used a hacksaw to remove a couple of millimetres off the end of the shaft to shorten the length. Now when tightened, the handle held much firmer.

I used the edge of a cheap (and very blunt chisel) to scrape off the old lacquer and gave the handles a sand with the 120 paper. I had some wood stain in the cupboard which I should probably should have thinned down a little before using but it looked ok after applying and re-attaching to the plane. I didn’t want to scratch the brass screws holding the handles any more than they already were so I just rubbed them clean with a cloth, reattached the handles and left it at that.

All in all, it’s not a staggering transformation, but it’s gone from a dirty and very blunt plane to something useable in a short space of time.

Author: beginnersworkshop

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