Building a Bench - Leg 1 Glue Up

The glue was dry this morning, so the first thing I did was run the base across the jointer to smooth it out. That gives me a nice base on which to stand things.

With the base and the leg, I next decided to cut the corners before glue up. It would be harder once the support is in, so I ran it across the table saw.

Then it was time for glue. I put glue inside the base, smearing it near the top and adding more than I thought, and then pushed in the support

Once this dries, I’ll have a single support. Then it’s time to duplicate this, but try doing it another way to see if it’s easier.

Building a Bench - Leg 1

I saw a bench in a store a few months ago and I thought, that should be easy, so I embarked on the project. It's been slow, and I've just been working on it a few minutes each time I can.

Today I got the base of leg one glued up. I started last week, planing and joining two boards for the upright support and gluing them together. They are 2 2x4s, about 20" long, glued together.

Today I planed and joined two other boards, and then cut them into 4 1/4" slices for the middle spacers that go next to my support. Jointed two other boards that would be the outside, and then glued everything up, execpt the support. I left that as a spacer and then pulled it out, giving me essentially a 4 2x4 wide plank with a hole in it. I want to joint the base and cut angles, so I decide to leave the support out for now and I'll glue that in there once I have the base set.

Testing the Planer

I bought a refurbished Rigid Planer last year and it’s been sitting in a box in the garage for a long time. I’ve been busy, and the projects I’ve tackled haven’t required more than jointing one side.

However I wanted to laminate some boards together and build a bench, and needed to get everything to the same thickness. Two weeks ago I unpacked the planer and put it on a mobile cart I had. There were legs in it, which I hadn’t expected, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use them.

A week ago, I dug through the parts and instructions, looking over things, but didn’t feel like doing anything.

Today I decided to do something. No instructions for the legs, but they’re simple metal bolt together legs. I leaned that I connect the top and bottom part of each leg with one bolt, saving the other one for the cross braces. I bolted the cross braces together, and then tightened everything once I was done. About 10-15 minutes to assemble it.

I stuck it out of the way in the garage, and then carried the planer over to it. It’s heavy, but it fit right on top, and four bolts easily held it down to the legs assembly. Once it was done, this is what it looked like:

The instructions say to clean off the oil from metal parts, but there really wasn’t any. Perhaps because this was a refurb? I did have to remove a plastic coating from the interior bed.

I just wanted to test it, so I grabbed the three pieces I needed sized, already jointed on one side. I lowered the bed to a rough spot where I’d rip off about 1/4” of stuff and fed one through.

It came out the other side, and looked like I had two parallel sides.

I quickly ran through all three  pieces, and then looked like they were consistently the right size. I glued them together, and we’ll see tomorrow how they look.