How to Make a Workbench Episode 1 | Paul Sellers

we are about to embark on one of the most exciting points in your life I think because building the ultimate workbench is the beginning of a new era in your life you've got your workbench materials why is it the ultimate workbench it's because it's the one you made it's according to your energy your materials everything you go you do from here on is going to be your effort and that's what's wonderful about it I've got my materials here I've got my legs picked out it's all secondhand wood I'm using wood that's come from the recycled place laminated Tops legs well board I've got my apron pieces bearers and things like that these are all of components that will now be formulated reconstituted built into our wonderful workbench that will last you for a lifetime when it comes to building the bench we've just about got a handful of tools really this little cluster of tools back here are the tools we're going to use a couple of saws rulers we've got drill bits we've got planes we've got marking gauges things like that these are the kind of tools that you'll find in any workshop that works with wood so cabinet makers workshop Jonah's workshop these are ordinary everyday tools nothing fancy about them the neat thing is it's your energy that goes into them and it's very safe very practical and that's the best way to make your first workbench when it comes to the hardware for the bench we've kept it very simple a few nuts and bolts and some screws things like that most of the bench will rely totally on joinery when it comes to the additional big piece of hardware that's the bench vise I've picked out a quick release bench vise that I've used for the last 50 years and the reason I've done that is because it's very effective it's very solid and it does last a lifetime when it comes to the size of this bench this side of this bench is customizable you can make it longer you can make it shorter you can make it deeper and you can make it higher or lower entirely up to you it's totally scalable the extra equipment you're going to need are going to be some clumps I've not this is a lot of clumps you don't need all those I've got a couple of rustic trestles that I made just put them together they don't have to be fancy I've got a collapsible workmen it's not essential that piece you can do without it probably so we've got the wood we've got the equipment we've got the tools we're ready to start we're about to start planing the laminated sections for the bench top and the reason we do that now is so that we can glue it up get it set and then we can work on that for our work surface between the two trestles so we've got this is typical building grade lumber it's got rounded corners but we're going to focus on the two main phases we don't need to plane the edges and I've got my plane here is just a number 4 it'll work perfectly for this and what we do is we're basically taking out because this has been this is second hand wood any wood will be the same what you want is a plain smooth surface not a machine smooth surface it gives you a better surface so when I'm planing here you can see it's hitting here it's hitting here it's taking off the high spots those are the spots that would stop the laminations from coming together so the first thing here we take off those high spots and get this super smooth so that when we laminate we're in good shape for the glue to glue up the whole surface and not be held off by a protruding knot so we work down each of the faces of all the pieces now we've got a nice super smooth surface you don't have to take every single ounce of undulation out of this just the majority of it so don't obsess about it like this for instance here this I don't need to take this midsection out this I probably wouldn't worry about just be practical about here's a knot so it's hitting the knot first so it's taken off the high spot for the knot so we do this on both sides and then we are good to go because the trestles this garage floor is not very even you just have to work with it I'm afraid but soon you're gonna have a bench that will fit perfectly so we don't want his arise in the middle and we're not even worried too much about twisted on these pieces because when all the other laminations come together they will counter the pressure so that's it I've got both phases planed I've got the rest to do before I can glue up with the faces planed up we're ready to glue up but the first thing we have to do is we've got to make sure these two trestles are dead in a line they can't be twisted they don't have to be level but they have to be out of twist and to do that I site this side in with that side just like you would with a winding stick so here there is no twist in this if there was twist I'd take a wedge simple wedge slide it under one side until it's level with the opposite side that way when we glue up the top we'll be guaranteed to be out of twist so these are my laminations and I'm going to pick the pieces for a decent surface that I'm looking into the wood making sure that when I plane this down I'm going to have a decent surface like here I've got the center of a tree this will never make a decent surface flip it over I've got what I want things like this where there's a small knot in there we can just fill that with wood filler when we're done and it will be fine here's one I would probably put this one facedown and there I've got a decent edge mostly its aesthetics and that's me on the outside faces like this one is going to be maybe the inside where the well meets that needs to be decent to this face I'm going to have an apron board clamped against it and not worried about this face so I'm ready to glue up so I've got my clamps ready I've got two four six I may need eight I've planned on using eight see this one with a hump in it when we come to glue up we'll simply press this down on the laminations will hold it together I'm going to switch it and put it in the middle put this one here little decisions that you make this one's got a huge bow in it so I'm switching this one and I'm going to put this one somewhere in the middle so the counter pressure from these straight ones and these straight ones will counter this one so small things like that will make all the difference to your laminations great so that's it I don't need to temporary clamp it but you can if you feel you want to just slip another clamp on here and cinch everything tight just one clamp will give you an idea of how this is going to clamp up and this is clamped up fine I might even leave this hump in the middle not pound it down I might just leave it there and plane in it because if it has a hollow on the underside it makes no difference to anything so that's going to clump up perfectly all being well so we're ready to put the glue on and clamp this I've left my uneven end down here just a habit rather than having to stagger downs so here we go we're ready to glue up I've got my glue bottle loaded somewhere here and I'm ready zig zags all the way down is plenty that's all you need and you only need the zig zags on one piece you don't need it on both pieces that's plenty of glue but then I'm going to go along here with a long spread just along the edges here and here this will be the next face like this and I'm going to leave them lying down just like that for now you can glue each one to it but if there's a gap it'll start to drizzle out this is just to make sure we've got glue right up to the edge it will spread very evenly this zigzag works so well for this type of lamination work as well on the foot stroke I'll go with it pull just like icing cakes this and that's basically glue up ready to go so we stand these up face the adjacent one apply the clamps evenly that's our lamination ready to dry okay so here we go squeeze them slide them a little bit there's the clamps will even out that nicely we'll use a hammer when we need to if we need to that's the gold one that one is quite a lot of bow in it but it's fine it won't make any difference this will be just fine so you're going to be cutting the ends off anyway I've left enough length on my pieces three inches I think or something like that overall so when I come to the end of this after it's set I can go in with the saw cross cut the square ends in line and then get my second length to cut the other end that's it so I'm gonna put a clamp right over here because I know these are all a level with the underside being on the bench top so this now you probably will get some slide when you start clumping this that means one will slide up or down but we can check that as we go so all the glue starting to ooze up to the top so these pieces are now floating against one another with a quick tap with the hammer this makes your they're down equally spaced we're going to put one under here and then one on top here is the one that's protruding up so I'm going to press that down as I tighten I can hear the glue letting the air out between another one here and just even them out these are really not too bad that's that one more clamp on the end here and that will do this side we need to counter the pressure because all the clumps are on one side it tends to open up the other side so we're going to flip over and add additional clamps in here I'm going to put one in the middle here but I'm also going to put one right on the end next to this one and then interspersed clamps in between just to make sure we do get fairly even pressure across the whole this goes in here we'll need to come back in and add a little bit of extra pressure so we can go in here this one and then keep your eye on the glue lines because you keep just keep adding extra pressure just adding extra pressure I'm going to go nearer to this and these are fairly close together this clamp evens out this one where there's no pressure on this side and that will do for my laminations I'm really happy with this you can leave the glue or you can wipe it off with the shavings now we just go back periodically over the next three or four minutes just to make sure that we're sensing these because the glue releases through the gaps and that takes the pressure off so we just work along it like this and that's it that's our lamination as we leave that usually half a day or a day overnight is best and we're ready to surface planing it so we've got the laminations together take the clamps off I'm going to surface plane this get get the big hump sound get the surface level make sure there's no twists in it that kind of thing because that's the next stage and I want to use this for a platform to put my joinery pieces on when I start joinery when I start planing the aprons things like that I can use this for that purpose and it'll work perfectly get these out of the way and you can actually plant this to the trestles if you feel you need to we'll see how we're going on with this the other the other thing is which plane do you use which plane would be best suited I have a number four and I would use a number four without any problem but I'm also in possession of a blade that will go into a number four I'm also in possession of a plane that I use as a scrub plate it's just a converted number four plane and that's what I'm going to use to start with because I can take off a lot of material with this I'm not sure which is my underside and which is my top side just yeah I'm going to pick the best surface that I end up with it's still a little too long yet but the first thing is I'm gonna go across my grain here like this so I'm working kind of catty-corner because it's easier I may vary as I go but this will take off the high spots very quickly and once I've got these nearly to level I can start winding it in see this one it's quite a bit higher than the other ones around it just keep working this surface and work it down until we get near to level I use the corner of my plane I psyched down here down this corner where it meets the surface of the wood that gives me a good idea whether it's straight but it won't tell me is whether it's twisted yet I hit the knots I hit the undulations the high spots anything that will lead to unevenness just shake it out start to elongate it's not even with the stroke plane quite a workout but it's good so start at the fore end like I did and then work back so this is feeling actually fairly smooth it still has the corners where the round over was done on the edges of each piece big hump in this one I remember this one heavy set with this scrub just to take it down for Mature corner if you need to not sure why that's easier but he says we work down the surface till we get from one end to the other then we go back in with a smoothing plane and completely level it so I've got the underside scrubbed I've got the top scrubbed that means literally that I've just used the curved iron in here in an ordinary number four plane because that helps me get down the meat of the wood but I've interspersed the other side this is the top side I used a smoothing plane a regular smoothing plane just to take out deep undulations left by this one on the underside I haven't done that I don't really need to do that what I do need to do is to make sure it's not twisted so periodically I pulled in just a couple of what we call winding sticks two parallel sticks one goes on this end this one goes on the other end and what we're doing we're looking at the top of this one siting it with the top of the other one to see if it's twisted if the tops are lined perfectly then it's not twisted but this case this one is slightly higher this is slightly higher so I'm slightly out in twist just a little bit not very much so I take either my scrub plane or the smoothing plane and I take a high spot here oops then take a high spot here and I start to just work this area here work it down a little bit and then I do the same on this end these are the two high spots and it may only be a very small amount you may not have to take very much then you straighten out the area in between what we want to do is make sure we're out of twists like this and that's looking very nice what I might do is switch planes here and go with my smoothing plan just to smooth out the area and because this is suspended between two points this midsection doesn't matter what whether there's a matter of what happens in the midsection because not really doing anything it's not held by anything so just spare this out like this midsection doesn't matter and then we come to this and here I want this to sit squarely on to the leg frame when I get to it it is awkward it is awkward when you see this and you can brace your frame you brace your trestles but this will work for my bench top okay I'm just gonna check myself one more time just to make sure and I feel very happy with that there's my underside done that guarantees my frame I only have a 12 inch square but it's good because I'm going to use a straightedge anyway I'm going to come in half an inch from the end here square this I've already cited down this edge to make sure it's straight I come across with a pencil line that just gets me in the ballpark then I'm going to square on to the edge here like that I don't really need to go on the underside because I can't see it but what I do want I do want a knife wall on there just to I want a good crisp clean straight edge on here so I've got my square on the end knife wall to work - just like that very important because we cross cutting I'm going to go on this side on the edge here make sure it comes on to this edge here round that rounded corner and this will just stop the edges of the wood from fraying with the saw cut when we cut this under edge you can cut away from the actual line I'm going dead on but you can undercut it because it'll stop it from fracturing I'm cutting through the top down into the body of wood just to stop it slipping keep this pressed against the soft light just to stop it from straying from the line nice surface we're gonna plane up that surface just using the smoothing plane this one we take down to the cut line here clamp it yep good idea just to stop it toppling see where you wish you had long a leg so you could sit on it but it'll work you don't want to go all the way through cuz this will break out just getting it close to the line it doesn't have to be perfect at this stage because we still have opportunity after the whole bench is put together to clean up those surfaces and we do the same to this opposite edge I'm going to show you now is just what you can do if you are on your own and you're concerned drop this down here put on to the bottom of the trestle and your leg over the top and that's great for that final surface planing I'm looking for the edge of my line here little belly in the middle and that's close enough so we do the same now we've got to cut it to length or final length quite a trick this when you've got your bench you're going to feel wonderful though so back to a pencil rough guideline just to get you in the ballpark a little bit of wood here so I've got 66 there's a good point I'm combining the pencil the knife and everything just so you can see where we're going gonna go with the knife again I want this crisp clean line that the knife wall gives me connect the points just to stop the fraying that's all nice clean-cut very nice I'm happy with that surface plane in the end and pretty good to go flip over just a little light chamfer just to stop splintering and we are done with our bench top so now it's ready as an anchor point as a surface to work on so now we clamp it to the trestles and we're ready for the next phase

Channel: Paul Sellers

Views: 551,091

Rating: 4.9317455 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, hand tools, paul sellers, workbench, diy, do it yourself

Id: V9W9xQS-EdQ

Length: 37min 7sec (2227 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/ProjectSnowman]

I liked his old workbench videos from 2012 better. Just an guy in his garden making a bench.

[u/Ellistann]

If you're interested in a Roubo variant workbench, Paul Sellers previously did this 11 part series.

And it was also done with no other bench available.

[u/forest-life]

Oh good. It's always silly to see a video like "How to make a table saw sled... Step 1: gotta make some cuts so grab your table saw sled"

[u/Kunkoh]

There aren’t enough upvotes for any links to Pall Sellers videos. I can (and have) watched them for hours.

[u/campbellm]

Now I want to re-build my workbench.

[u/StanleyVermin]

Does he also do written guides to accompany his video? I work best with both.

[u/Bazzatron]

I used to love Paul's content, but I think now he has a team and has gotten a bit commercial, the quality has suffered. I'm certain he's often looking to the side of the camera as if seeking approval. Especially that godawful "merry Xmas" video.

The first bench tutorial was my first workbench, and I love the design - just absolutely couldn't get in to the newer series. It feels so slow and needlessly drawn out.