I haven't worked with wood for a while so I used the plans for a simple bench I found on Hammerzone.com as a guide to get me started. After dropping $30 at Home Depot I came home with a stack of cut 2" x 4" (which actually turned out to be 1.5" x 3.5")
 |
| Some pieces were slightly longer than others so I used a hand saw to trim them down |
 |
| Unlike my previous projects I went out and got some proper measuring tools |
 |
| I even go as far as marking where my screws are supposed to go ... |
 |
| ... before pre-drilling shallow holes for the screw heads to sink into |
 |
| In addition to screws I also use glue... I'm not sure if this is overkill but since I don't know what I'm doing it's better to be safe than sorry |
 |
| Rinse and repeat. Soon, I had the back of the bench complete |
 |
| With the back lying on the ground, I started to build up the sides |
 |
| Because I had to drill horrizontally for the side pieces I needed a clamp to hold the pieces together so the screws don't push them apart. I didn't have any wood working clamps so I used my valve spring compressor :) |
Hammerzone's plans basically called for two corners of the bench to be constructed first so that you essentially end up with two 'halves' of the bench. Then you would screw the two halves together to make a complete bench. This minimizes the amount of akward angle drilling and keeps the work pieces in a managable size.
 |
| When mating the two halves of my bench, I had one problem corner... |
 |
| ... which was corrected using my valve spring compressor |
 |
| The frame complete... all angles appear to be more or less 90 degrees |
 |
| I didn't need anything super heavy duty for a bench top since I wasn't planning to be hammering stuff against it so two pieces of glued together plywood was good enough |
 |
| A little stain gives it some class |
 |
| This is how the bench sits now while its waiting for clear coat |
No comments:
Post a Comment